Court Opinion

ID: 9797847
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 04:30:31.421731+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:59:12.430877
License: Public Domain

WILKINS, Justice,
concurring in the result.
1 44 I coneur in the result reached in the lead opinion.
1 45 Our prior decision in State v. DeBooy, 2000 UT 82, 996 P.2d 546, is directly on point, and controlling. The checkpoint plan at issue was too broad, and gave the officers too much discretion with regard to the length, scope, and nature of the stop and search imposed on passing motorists. Having so decided, it is unnecessary to engage in the speculation Mr. Abell invites regarding other factors arising in this particular case that may, or may not, somehow constitute additional justification for deeming the checkpoint plan and its execution unconstitutional.
1 46 I have no particular difficulty with the warning signs selected to alert motorists to the likelihood of traffic disruption. Signs saying "checkpoint ahead" might well be more precise, but the signs indicating "road work ahead" and "right lane closed" used in this instance are generic enough to warn of traffic conditions without creating undue concern for the motoring public, not all of whom were likely to be stopped. I also see no legal consequence in this case to the mere presence in the vicinity of the checkpoint of trained drug dogs. The dogs do not act independently of the officers with whom they are assigned. The officers were part of the checkpoint. The dogs were not involved in any way in the checkpoint activity until the officers had arrived at a reasonable, articula-ble suspicion of drug violations by Mr. Abell. Had the checkpoint plan and procedure been otherwise constitutional, Abell could have been held and drug dogs brought to the scene.
147 Our task, as a court, is to protect the rights of citizens from those who would do them harm, both by criminal acts and by usurpation of the right to be left unmolested while traveling. That balance is a difficult one to strike, given that in order for a case to reach us on review, the citizen challenging the police action must have been guilty of criminal activity in the first instance. Rarely do cases involving deprivation of constitution*111ally protected rights reach us in which the citizen was found to have had no indications of criminal activity on or with them in the car. As a result, any time we act to define the limits of police power in such cireum-stances, we by necessity relieve just consequences imposed on one who has violated our laws. A reversal here does the same. The defendant admits to having violated the laws of our state, but because law enforcement officials responsible for crafting the checkpoint plan tried too hard to cover all of their bases, balancing the various mandates of this court and the federal courts in the process of doing their job of protecting the public, we are forced to not only grant relief to Abell, but also publicly criticize and correct otherwise law abiding, well intentioned, justly motivated officers of the law. Would it were that a better system existed for such review. Rather than pushing the envelope for more or greater scope of enforcement power, it would perhaps have been better for those drafting the checkpoint plan to have acted with caution, and for the magistrate to have exercised slightly more diligence in review and approval of the plan.
48 Having recused himself, Justice Howe does not participate herein; Court of Appeals Judge Gregory K. Orme sat.