Court Opinion

ID: 9568877
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 20:08:15.289019+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:11:15.658722
License: Public Domain

Justice BRADY
dissenting.
I acknowledge that impaired drivers seriously endanger the lives of their fellow citizens across our state and nation. I further acknowledge that North Carolina’s state and local law enforcement agencies work diligently to ensure the safety of our streets and highways. However, I cannot agree with the majority’s conclusion that this case *71“turns on whether Officer Falls had reasonable articulable suspicion to stop defendant” after defendant proceeded through the license checkpoint; nor can I agree that the driver’s license checkpoint at issue passes constitutional muster under the United States and North Carolina Constitutions. In this case, field officers were endowed with unbridled discretion to implement and operate a random license checkpoint. I would adhere to the requirements of Delaware v. Prouse, 440 U.S. 648, 59 L. Ed. 2d 660 (1979) and hold that the discretion granted the Belmont officers rendered the checkpoint violative of the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments of the United States Constitution, as well as Article I, Section 20 of the North Carolina Constitution. For these reasons, I respectfully dissent.
The paramount question in this case should be the constitutionality of the driver’s license checkpoint. The majority acknowledges that this was the “only issue” raised by defendant and considered by the trial court at the suppression hearing. At that hearing, Officer Falls confirmed that defendant’s “vehicle was pursued and stopped solely as a result of this random stop — this random checkpoint.” (Emphasis added.) Thereafter, the trial court found that Officer Falls stopped defendant “as a sole and direct result of the random check point or roadblock.” Instead of constraining itself to the trial court’s factual findings, see State v. Braxton, 344 N.C. 702, 709, 477 S.E.2d 172, 176 (1996) (“If supported by competent evidence, the trial court’s findings of fact are conclusive on appeal.”), the majority speculates as to what crimes would have justified Officer Falls’ seizure of defendant, see cf. 2 Wayne R. LaFave, Search and Seizure § 3.2(d), at 44 (3rd ed. 1996) (“It is axiomatic that hindsight may not be employed in determining whether a prior arrest or search was made upon probable cause.”). However, defendant was never charged with any of the crimes the majority now suggests that he committed, nor did Officer Falls testify that he formulated probable cause to believe defendant had committed any of those offenses.
Clearly, defendant’s behavior was questionable in that defendant, with no knowledge of the checkpoint’s unconstitutional nature, failed to stop when so directed. Motorists do not have carte blanche to ignore checkpoints that they suspect are invalid and to avoid responsibility if they guess correctly. Police officers may certainly develop reasonable articulable suspicion to stop a car based upon their observations, unrelated to the checkpoint, that a crime has been committed. Armed with such suspicion, the officers’ seizure of the vehicle is proper regardless of the constitutionality of the checkpoint. See State *72v. Palmquist, - S.W.3d -, -, 2003 Tenn. Crim. App. LEXIS 891, at *5 (Oct. 13, 2003) (No. M2002-01047-CCA-R3-CD) (concluding that a vehicle seizure was constitutional where an officer, stationed at an unconstitutional roadblock, testified that he stopped the vehicle “only because Defendant was illegally operating his vehicle without its headlights on, and not because Defendant had intentionally avoided the roadblock”). However, in the instant case, there is no record evidence to support the crimes speculated to by the majority.
As the license checkpoint was the impetus for defendant’s stop, the determinative issue is as follows: Did the degree of discretion afforded Belmont Police Officer Falls render the random license checkpoint unreasonable and therefore unconstitutional under the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments of the United States Constitution and Article I, Section 20 of the North Carolina Constitution? Upon a careful analysis of the relevant United States Supreme Court jurisprudence, I believe that it did.
The Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution, applicable to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment, protects “[t]he right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures.” U.S. Const, amend. IV; see also N.C. Const, art. I, § 20 (“General warrants, whereby any officer or other person may be commanded to search suspected places without evidence of the act committed, or to seize any person or persons not named, whose offense is not particularly described and supported by evidence, are dangerous to liberty and shall not be granted.”); State v. Grooms, 353 N.C. 50, 73, 540 S.E.2d 713, 728 (2000) (noting the similarity between the Fourth Amendment to the federal constitution and the General Warrants Clause of the state constitution), cert. denied, 534 U.S. 838, 151 L. Ed. 2d 54 (2001). While license checks and sobriety checks are not per se unconstitutional, it is well established that stopping a person at such checkpoints is a seizure within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment and therefore must be reasonable. Michigan Dep’t of State Police v. Sitz, 496 U.S. 444, 450, 110 L. Ed. 2d 412, 420 (1990); Prouse, 440 U.S. at 653-54, 59 L. Ed. 2d at 667. Because checkpoint stops are not based on individualized suspicion, they must be carried out in a manner that avoids the exercise of “unbridled discretion” by officers in the field. Prouse, 440 U.S. at 663, 59 L. Ed. 2d at 674 (“[Pjersons in automobiles on public roadways may not for that reason alone have their travel and privacy interfered with at the unbridled discretion of police officers.”).
*73In Prouse, the United States Supreme Court specifically addressed the constitutionality of a practice by which a patrol officer in a police cruiser stopped vehicles and detained drivers to spot check their licenses and registrations without reasonable articulable suspicion to justify the stops. Id. at 650, 59 L. Ed. 2d at 665. At those stops, “[t]he patrolman was not acting pursuant to any standards, guidelines, or procedures pertaining to document spot checks, promulgated by either his department or the State Attorney General.” Id.
The Supreme Court held in Prouse that the suspicionless seizure of motorists for spot checks was unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment because the practice granted the patrol officer “unbridled discretion.” Id. at 663, 59 L. Ed. 2d at 674. The Court articulated the “ ‘grave danger’ ” inherent in the abuse of officer discretion as follows:
When there is not probable cause to believe that a driver is violating any one of the multitude of applicable traffic and equipment regulations — or other articulable basis amounting to reasonable suspicion that the driver is unlicensed or his vehicle unregistered — we cannot conceive of any legitimate basis upon which a patrolman could decide that stopping a particular driver for a spot check would be more productive than stopping any other driver. This kind of standardless and unconstrained discretion is the evil the Court has discerned when in previous cases it has insisted that the discretion of the official in the field be circumscribed, at least to some extent.
440 U.S. at 661-62, 59 L. Ed. 2d at 672 (quoting United States v. Martinez-Fuerte, 428 U.S. 543, 559, 49 L. Ed. 2d 1116, 1129 (1976)) (emphasis added). The Court then clarified that “[t]his holding does not preclude the State of Delaware or other States from developing methods for spot checks that involve less intrusion or that do not involve the unconstrained exercise of discretion.” Id. at 663, 59 L. Ed. 2d at 674. While dicta within Prouse indicated that stopping all vehicles might be one such method to eliminate the evil inherent in spot checking, id. at 663, 59 L. Ed. 2d at 674, United States Supreme Court jurisprudence strongly suggests that the method for conducting the type of suspicionless stop at issue in the present case would be chosen, planned, disseminated, and regulated from a supervisory level, see, e.g., Sitz, 496 U.S. 444, 110 L. Ed. 2d 412; Martinez-Fuerte, 428 U.S. 543, 49 L. Ed. 2d 1116; see also City of Indianapolis v. Edmond, 531 U.S. 32, 148 L. Ed. 2d 333 (2000).
*74This concept was first voiced by the United States Supreme Court in Martinez-Fuerte, 428 U.S. 543, 49 L. Ed. 2d 1116, in which the Court upheld the constitutionality of suspicionless seizures at fixed immigration checkpoints. In Martinez-Fuerte, the Court explained,
[t]he location of a fixed checkpoint is not chosen by officers in the field, but by officials responsible for making overall decisions as to the most effective allocation of limited enforcement resources. We may assume that such officials will be unlikely to locate a checkpoint where it bears arbitrarily or oppressively on motorists as a class.
Id. at 559, 49 L. Ed. 2d at 1129.
Subsequently, in Sitz, the Court placed great emphasis on the fact that a roadblock for detecting impaired drivers was conducted under written “guidelines setting forth procedures governing checkpoint operations, site selection, and publicity” that left virtually no discretion to the officer in the field. 496 U.S. at 447, 110 L. Ed. 2d at 418 (upholding the constitutionality of a roadblock for detecting impaired drivers). Further, the United States Supreme Court recently stated that a law enforcement officer cannot undertake a suspicionless seizure when the seizure’s primary purpose is “to advance ‘the general interest in crime control.’ ” Edmond, 531 U.S. at 44, 148 L. Ed. 2d. at 345 (quoting Prouse, 440 U.S. at 659, n.18, 59 L. Ed. 2d at 671, n.18) (explaining that the primary purpose of a seizure is to be ascertained at the programmatic level). Although Edmond does not address the specific issue raised by the present case, it illustrates the need for and the Court’s expectation that law enforcement agencies implement standard written procedures to prevent abuses of officer discretion.
Most recently, in Illinois v. Lidster, the Supreme Court scrutinized a highway checkpoint set up to solicit information from motorists regarding a hit-and-run accident. Illinois v. Lidster, - U.S.-, —-, - L. Ed. 2d -, -, 2004 LEXIS 656 (Jan. 13, 2004) (No. 02-1060). The Court, in Lidster, validated a new and wholly independent class of constitutional suspicionless searches, “information-seeking highway stops.” Id. at-,-L. Ed. 2d at-, 2004 LEXIS 656, at *6, *9. The Court emphasized that these checkpoints are not designed to help police apprehend the stopped drivers but are instead intended to “ask vehicle occupants, as members of the public, for their help in providing information about a crime in all likelihood committed by others.” Id. at-,-L. Ed. 2d at-, 2004 LEXIS 656, *75at *9. Given the novel and limited nature of this particular Fourth Amendment distinction, Lidster has little precedential value with regard to the case currently before this Court.
Even so, it is instructive to note that, when determining the reasonableness of the Lidster seizure, the United States Supreme Court thoroughly discussed the narrow scope of the checkpoint stop. The Court reasoned that
[t]he police appropriately tailored their checkpoint stops to fit important criminal investigatory needs. The stops took place about one week after the hit-and-run accident, on the same highway near the location of the accident, and at about the same time of night.
Id. at-,-L. Ed. 2d at-, 2004 LEXIS 656, at *15 (emphasis added). During the checkpoint’s implementation, “as each vehicle drew up to the checkpoint, an officer would stop it for 10 to 15 seconds, ask the occupants whether they had seen anything happen there the previous weekend, and hand each driver a flyer.” Id. at-, -L. Ed. 2d at-, 2004 LEXIS 656, at *6. Clearly, the impetus for the Lidster checkpoint, its date, the location, the time, and the questions asked were command directed by the Lombard Police Department, and not left to the discretion of a single officer in the field. The Court took care to weigh these factors in its determination that the checkpoint was reasonable under the Fourth Amendment.
I submit that the cases discussed supra mandate a significant level of supervisory authority and written standardized regulations regarding the time, place, and manner in which field officers conduct checkpoints. Standard policies and procedures are necessary for safeguarding the constitutional rights of individuals who are subjected to suspicionless seizures. Implementing written policies constitutes a manageable method for eliminating the “evil” of “standardless and unconstrained discretion.” Prouse, 440 U.S. at 661, 59 L. Ed. 2d at 672. Indeed, the North Carolina State Highway Patrol already adheres to written guidelines that require supervision of every “preplanned, systematic stopping of vehicles to check motorists for compliance with motor vehicle laws including driving while impaired.” Div. of State Highway Patrol, N.C. Dep’t of Crime Control & Pub. Safety, Policy and Procedures Manual K.4 (2001) (mandating that “[a] daytime checking station must be approved by a district supervisor” and “[a] nighttime checking station must be approved by the First Sergeant or higher authority”). Furthermore, as *76the State conceded upon questioning at oral argument, all law enforcement agencies and departments accredited by the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies, Inc. must follow similarly mandated procedures.
Notwithstanding the United States Supreme Court’s admonitions against unconstrained field-officer discretion and the apparent prevailing law enforcement practice in North Carolina, no supervision or written regulations guided the field officers in the case sub judice. Officer Falls testified that the checkpoint at issue was considered by the Belmont Police Department to be a “random” license checkpoint. Testimony at the suppression hearing also confirmed that Officer Falls was granted “standing permission” to set up such a “random” license checkpoint whenever, wherever, however, and for as long as he deemed necessary.
The majority correctly points out that Officer Falls contacted his shift sergeant before implementing the checkpoint, but the record reveals that this contact was only to ensure that he had “the manpower . . . [to] actually set up the checkpoint.” At the conclusion of the suppression hearing, the trial court recognized that Officer Falls had not obtained permission to establish the checkpoint. As the court was announcing its oral order, the State pointed out that “Officer Falls did get the permission from his shift sergeant.” The trial court disagreed, noting that Officer Falls “said he told the shift sergeant he was going to do [a checkpoint].” (Emphasis added.)
As this case illustrates, a field officer’s “standing permission” to conduct “random” license checkpoints absent standard guidelines as to when, where, and how to administer the roadblocks equates to a complete lack of supervisory authority, and in fact, represents the very form of unbridled discretion that was prohibited by the Supreme Court in Prouse. See Heimlich v. State, 231 Ga. App. 662, 663, 500 S.E.2d 388, 389 (1998) (concluding checkpoint constitutional where a field officer had a “standing order” to establish checkpoints), overruled by Baker v. State, 252 Ga. App. 695, 701-02, 556 S.E.2d 892, 899 (2001) (overruling Heimlich and similar cases based upon the court’s obligation to “follow the United States Supreme Court’s interpretation of Fourth Amendment requirements”), cert. denied, - Ga. -, - S.E.2d -, 2003 Ga. LEXIS 423 (May 13, 2003) (No. S02C0539). Furthermore, the guidelines referenced by the majority — choosing a safe location, wearing reflective vests, having three officers present, using flashlights, and turning on the patrol cars’ blue lights — are not *77guidelines specific to checkpoints but are standard nighttime safety procedures. Neither these procedures nor the practice of stopping every car curbs a field officer’s discretion to set up a roadblock when and wherever he chooses. The suppression hearing testimony of Belmont Police Captain William Jonas is indicative. Captain Jonas confirmed that under the city’s present practices, Belmont field officers “could set up a road check and check one car within five minutes and then dissolve the roadblock.”
This Court’s decision sanctioning total field-officer discretion is not only contrary to United States Supreme Court precedent, it also stands alone among the decisions of many of our sister jurisdictions that have addressed this or similar issues regarding checkpoints and roadblocks. See, e.g., State v. Hicks, 55 S.W.3d 515 (Tenn. 2001) (holding that there are two factors critical to .a finding that officers’ discretion was limited are whether the decision to set up the roadblock was made by the officers actually carrying it out and whether officers on the scene could decide for themselves the procedures to be used in operation of the checkpoint); State v. Legg, 536 S.E.2d 110 (W. Va. 2000) (concluding that conservation officers’ stop of every car in a certain area to check for game, weapons, and hunting license was unconstitutional where the officers’ only directive was to work the area); LaFontaine v. State, 269 Ga. 251, 497 S.E.2d 367 (concluding that the decision to implement the roadblock must be made by supervisory personnel not officers in the field), cert. denied, 525 U.S. 947, 142 L. Ed. 2d 307 (1998); Commonwealth v. Bothman, 941 S.W.2d 479 (Ky. Ct. App. 1996) (recognizing the importance of a systematic plan and supervisory control over establishment and operation of a checkpoint); Campbell v. State, 679 So. 2d 1168 (Fla. 1996) (per curiam) (holding that specific and detailed written guidelines are required before police can establish a constitutional roadblock); Hagood v. Town of Town Creek, 628 So. 2d 1057 (Ala. Crim. App. 1993) (concluding that roadblock unconstitutional where the operating officers had complete discretion to move it and did so); Crandol v. City of Newport News, 238 Va. 697, 386 S.E.2d 113 (1989) (acknowledging that key factors in determining the legality of a checkpoint include proof of advance decisions by superior officers as to the time and location of the roadblock, adequate training of officers, and on-site supervision of the officers conducting the roadblock). There is no indication that these states have suffered the phenomenon predicted by the majority, that is, the “endanger[ment] [of] the safety of the law enforcement officers and the public with *78impunity.” Rather, by providing clear direction to local law enforcement agencies as to the requirements of a constitutional checkpoint, these courts have enabled those agencies to better police the roads and highways of their communities, while safeguarding the constitutional rights of motorists.
Finally, under the majority’s opinion, officers are given wide latitude in establishing license checkpoints but are greatly constrained by statutorily mandated standards in establishing similar impaired driver checkpoints, see N.C.G.S. § 20-16.3A (2003). Suppression hearing testimony in the present case suggests that this disparity between the standards for license checkpoints and impaired driver checkpoints can lead to abuse of field-officer discretion. According to Officer Falls’ testimony, during the past two years, he had participated in only three impaired driver checkpoints but he had participated in around forty random license checkpoints.
Our founding fathers intended the Fourth Amendment to protect the right of ordinary individuals to be free from arbitrary invasions of their person and property by the state. Delegating all discretion to field officers for the purpose of implementing checkpoints necessarily invites unreasonable interference with that constitutional right. I believe that permitting field officers to choose the time, location, and manner of license checkpoints without supervision or written regulation implicitly validates unbridled field-officer discretion, an evil that the United States and North Carolina Constitutions strictly prohibit. Because Officer Falls was granted such unguided discretion to establish and conduct the license checkpoint at issue in the present case, defendant’s seizure, resulting from that checkpoint, was unconstitutional. Accordingly, I would reverse the decision of the Court of Appeals.
Justices WAINWRIGHT and EDMUNDS join in this dissenting opinion.