Court Opinion

ID: 9703727
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 00:06:07.307218+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:21:51.453932
License: Public Domain

FLAHERTY, Chief Justice, dissenting.
I dissent respectfully, yet vehemently and earnestly.
I fully share with my colleagues an inescapable awareness of the danger created by drunk drivers. I do not in any way deprecate the very real hazard of this crime, as well as the enormous cost in human suffering which flows from those who persist in driving while intoxicated. As for invoking this hazard as a constitutional ground for suspending the most fundamental rights of Pennsylvania citizens, however, I must part company with the majority. Furthermore, as a practical matter roadblocks are an inefficient weapon in combating drunk driving. Hundreds of motorists are stopped to detect few, if any, violators.
*353The central premise supporting the holding of the majority is the analytically indefensible distinction between “ordinary” crimes like premeditated murder and special crimes like drunk driving. Searches and seizures to prevent the former require probable cause or at least individualized suspicion under our constitution but the latter do not. This distinction was expounded by the United States Supreme Court in City of Indianapolis v. Edmond, 531 U.S. 32, 121 S.Ct. 447, 148 L.Ed.2d 333 (2000) and is now, improvidently in my view, followed by this court.
The United States Supreme Court explained that under what appears to be a somewhat toothless Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution, “[a] search or seizure is ordinarily unreasonable in the absence of individualized suspicion of wrongdoing.” Edmond, 531 U.S. 32, 121 S.Ct. 447, 148 L.Ed.2d at 340. However, “regimes of suspicionless searches where the program was designed to serve ‘special needs, beyond the normal need for law enforcement,’ ” the usual rule does not apply. Id. Thus, in Michigan Dep’t of State Police v. Sitz, 496 U.S. 444, 110 S.Ct. 2481, 110 L.Ed.2d 412 (1990), the court upheld suspicionless seizures of motorists at a sobriety checkpoint aimed at removing drunk drivers from the road. The court balanced the rights protected by the Fourth Amendment and held that “the immediate hazard posed by the presence of drunk drivers on the highways,” “the imperative of highway safety,” “the gravity of the drunk driving problem,” and “the magnitude of the State’s interest in getting drunk drivers off the road,” Edmond, 531 U.S. 32, 121 S.Ct. 447, 148 L.Ed.2d at 342, justified suspending the Fourth Amendment prohibition against warrantless searches and seizures without probable cause or at least individualized suspicion of criminal wrongdoing.
My understanding of Pennsylvania constitutional jurisprudence is that the balancing of the state’s interest in crime prevention against the constitutional rights of citizens has already been performed by the constitution. Our constitution simply does not permit searches and seizures without probable cause or individualized suspicion, no matter how grave the *354current menace appears to the law enforcement community or how imperative it seems to end the immediate hazard.
The constitutional clause at issue, Article I, section 8:
The people shall be secure in their persons, houses, papers and possessions from unreasonable searches and seizures, and no warrant to search any place or to seize any person or things shall issue without describing them as nearly as may be, nor without probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation subscribed to by the affiant.
was in our state constitution of 1776 and has remained unchanged since that time. It originated in the body of the constitution, not in a bill of rights added to the constitution in the form of an amendment. Mr. Justice Cappy elucidated its history and purpose in Commonwealth v. Edmunds, 526 Pa. 374, 586 A.2d 887, 897 (1991):
• The requirement of probable cause in this Commonwealth thus traces its origin to its original Constitution of 1776, drafted by the first convention of delegates, chaired by Benjamin Franklin. The primary purpose of the warrant requirement was to abolish “general warrants,” which had been used by the British to conduct sweeping searches of residences and businesses, based upon generalized suspicions. Therefore, at the time the Pennsylvania Constitution was drafted in 1776, the issue of searches and seizures unsupported by probable cause was of utmost concern to the constitutional draftsmen.
Moreover, as this Court has stated repeatedly in interpreting Article I, Section 8, that provision is meant to embody a strong notion of privacy, carefully safeguarded in this Commonwealth for the past two centuries. As we stated in [Commonwealth v.] Sell [504 Pa. 46, 65, 470 A.2d 457, 467 (1989)]: “the survival of the language now employed in Article I, Section 8 through over 200 years of profound change in other areas demonstrates that the paramount concern for privacy first adopted as part of our organic law in 1776 continues to enjoy the mandate of the people of this Commonwealth.”
*355The zeal and constancy with which the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania has enforced this clause over the years is totally inconsistent with the majority’s holding today. If searches and seizures to prevent “ordinary” crimes like murder require probable cause, how can the prevention of drunk driving require less?
The majority quotes but dismisses the concern expressed by the Rhode Island Supreme Court:
However, it would shock and offend the framers of the Rhode Island Constitution if we were to hold that the guarantees against unreasonable and warrantless searches and seizures should be subordinated to the interest of efficient law enforcement. Once this barrier is breached in the interest of apprehending drivers who violate sobriety laws, the tide of law enforcement interest could overwhelm the right to privacy. We decline to take the step of approving roadblocks, even for the purpose of apprehending drunk drivers.
Pimental v. Dept. of Transportation, 561 A.2d 1348, 1353 (R.I.1989). The reason roadblocks do not threaten the right to privacy in Pennsylvania, according to the majority, is that it is still unconstitutional, without probable cause, to seize any thing to prevent “ordinary” crimes like murder; it is only with respect to special crimes like drunk driving that the requirement of probable cause is being abandoned. That, in my view, is a classic non sequitur.
Our law recognizes that the security and privacy of the person, and the freedom to travel without restriction, are hallmarks of our culture. Vast areas of the world, regrettably, stand in marked contrast: travel is routinely restricted and roadblocks for any government purpose are unremarkable. Sadly, the need to repudiate that model in this commonwealth has eluded the majority. The goal of efficient law enforcement cannot justify diminishing our constitutional rights.
This case brings into question the constitutionality of the 1985 amendment to 75 Pa.C.S. § 6308(b) which added the *356clause permitting a “systematic program of checking vehicles or drivers,” eliminating the requirement of “articulable and reasonable grounds to suspect a violation.” Section 6308(b), when it required articulable and reasonable grounds to suspect a violation, satisfied the requirement of probable cause. As presently amended, it does not. The very essence and intent of a roadblock is to stop motorists without probable cause. This is antithetical to the Pennsylvania constitution. The use of roadblocks to enforce the motor vehicle code patently violates the Pennsylvania constitution.
Mindful of the longstanding jurisprudential principle of institutional integrity acting to impose a certain reluctance in overruling precedent recently established, instances arise where after rethinking, such a recent precedent is seen as fundamentally inconsistent with other precedent in an area of the law, and the more recent precedent must give way for readjustment. This is such an instance. Commonwealth v. Blouse, 531 Pa. 167, 611 A.2d 1177 (1992), was wrongly decided and should be overruled.
Because the majority, with every good intention, has failed to do so the citizens of Pennsylvania in large numbers will feel the sting of this now-sanctioned violation of a valuable constitutionally protected right — flashlights in the faces of the elderly, children frightened by the questioning, indeed the mere presence, of uniformed officers, travel impeded and delayed, privacy invaded without probable cause or even reasonable suspicion, the freedom from which has heretofore been a right taken for granted in a free society as such has traditionally been understood in Pennsylvania. Alas, a crack in the wall — a hole in the dike — how far will it go?
The words of Sir Thomas Moore come to mind: “What are we to do if those chasing after devils decide to chase after us?” History answers that question quite clearly I fear.
Justice ZAPPALA joins this dissenting opinion.