Criminal Law and Procedure Decisions: Indianapolis v. Edmond</titl <body>  <script language="javascript1.1" src="http://images.findlaw.com/tracking/wss-lp.js"></script> <script language="javascript1.1" src="http://images.findlaw.com/tracking/hbx-0250.js"></script> <noscript> <img src="http://ehg-findlaw.hitbox.com/HG?hc=we76&cd=1&hv=6&ce=u&hb=DM531216MLSZ&n=LP&vcon=NO+JAVASCRIPT&vpc=HBX0250u" border="0" width="1" height="1"> </noscript>  <div id="main"> <div id="doc3" class="pro"> <div id="bd"> <div class="yui-g" id="header"> <div id="header_sub_center"> <h1 id="logo"><a href="http://lp.findlaw.com"><b>FindLaw | Find a Lawyer. Find Answers.</b></a></h1> <div id="question"> <h3><a href="http://www.findlaw.com/" class="c_4">Non-Professional? 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Edmond</a></b></p><p><b>Issue</b>: Is a highway checkpoint program, whose primary purpose is the discovery and interdiction of illegal narcotics, constitutional under the Fourth Amendment?</p><p><b>Facts</b>: Indianapolis established a vehicle checkpoint system in 1998 in an effort to interdict unlawful drugs. (The system had a secondary purpose of keeping impaired drivers off the road and verifying license and registration information.) At each checkpoint the police stopped a predetermined number of cars. Pursuant to the police chief’s written directives, at least one officer approached each vehicle, advised the driver of the nature of the stop, and asked for a driver’s license and car registration. The officer also looked for signs of driver impairment and conducted an open-view exam of the vehicle from outside of the car. While the officer engaged in this activity, a drug-sniffing dog was led around each vehicle by the police. Searches could be conducted only by consent or with particularized suspicion. Each stop was conducted in the same manner until and unless suspicion developed. Officers had no discretion to stop a vehicle out of sequence. The total duration of each stop, absent particularized suspicion, could be no longer than five minutes, and the average stop for a car not subject to further processing was two to three minutes. Once a group of cars had been stopped, remaining traffic proceeded unabated until the stopped cars were processed or diverted for further processing. Indianapolis conducted six roadblocks between August and November of 1998, “stopping 1,161 vehicles and arresting 104 motorists. Fifty-five arrests were for drug-related crimes, while 49 were for offenses unrelated to drugs.” Respondents James Edmond and Joell Palmer were each stopped in September 1998. They brought a class action against Indianapolis alleging that the checkpoints violated the Fourth Amendment. The United States District Court for the Southern District of Indiana denied Respondents’ motion for a preliminary injunction, but the United States Court of Appeals fore the Seventh Circuit reversed, agreeing that “the checkpoints contravened the Fourth Amendment.”</p><p><b>Holding</b>: “Because the primary purpose of the Indianapolis narcotics checkpoint program is to uncover evidence of ordinary criminal wrongdoing, the program contravenes the Fourth Amendment.”</p><p><b>Reasoning</b>: Justice O’Connor, writing for the majority, noted the “Fourth Amendment requirement that searches and seizures be reasonable. A search or seizure is ordinarily unreasonable in the absence of individualized suspicion of wrongdoing.” O’Connor explained that certain lines of Supreme Court cases constituted exceptions to this requirement. In “special needs” cases, involving drug testing of law enforcement and common carrier employees, and “administrative search” cases, covering highly regulated businesses and other standard regulatory inspections, individualized suspicion is not required. Moreover, in certain highway-related situations, brief and non-intrusive suspicionless stops are allowed. Thus, officers at fixed checkpoints within one hundred miles of the international border can effect brief suspicionless detentions in order to stem the flow of illegal immigrants. <a href="http://laws.findlaw.com/us/428/543.html">United States v. Martinez-Fuerte</a>, 428 U.S. 543 (1976). Similarly, officers can conduct brief non-intrusive suspicionless detentions as part of sobriety-related roadblocks. <a href="http://laws.findlaw.com/us/496/444.html">Michigan Dept. of State Police v. Sitz</a>, 496 U.S. 444 (1990). Finally, the Court has indicated in <U>dicta</U> that roadblocks to verify drivers’ licenses and vehicle registrations are permissible provided that the police officer’s discretion is not “standardless and unconstrained.” <a href="http://laws.findlaw.com/us/440/648.html">Delaware v. Prouse</a>, 440 U.S. 648, 661-663 (1979). But in none of the “special needs,” “administrative search,” or highway-related cases was the State <U>primarily</U> interested in general crime control. Moreover, in the highway-related cases, the suspicionless stops were <U>directly related</U> to issues of highway safety or policing the border. “We have never approved a checkpoint program whose primary purpose was to detect evidence of ordinary criminal wrongdoing.” Though conceding that securing the border and keeping highways safe were law enforcement activities, O’Connor reasoned that “[i]f we were to rest the case at this high level of generality, there would be little check on the ability of the authorities to construct roadblocks for almost any conceivable law enforcement purpose.” If the lawful secondary purposes of the program justified Indianapolis’ checkpoint system, checkpoints could be set up for <U>any</U> purpose so long as registration and sobriety checks were added. “Because the primary purpose of the Indianapolis checkpoint program is ultimately indistinguishable from the general interest in crime control, the checkpoints violate the Fourth Amendment.”</p><p><b>Other Opinions</b>: Chief Justice Rehnquist, joined by Justice Thomas and, in part, by Justice Scalia, dissented. Rehnquist noted that, absent the dog-sniff, Indianapolis’ roadblock program comported precisely with Fourth Amendment guidelines laid down by the Court in cases such as <U>Martinez-Fuerte</U>, <U>Sitz</U>, <U>Delaware v. Prouse</U>, and <a href="http://laws.findlaw.com/us/443/47.html">Brown v. Texas</a>, 443 U.S. 47 (1979). The stops were brief, standardized, discretionless, served weighty state interests, and were minimally intrusive. They also had a secondary purpose of checking for required license and registration information and impaired drivers. Since dog sniffs are not searches under the Supreme Court’s Fourth Amendment jurisprudence, and since nothing in the record indicated that the dog sniffs at issue here <U>lengthened</U> any motorist’s stop, there was no Fourth Amendment violation. Rehnquist (in part two of his opinion which was not joined by Justice Scalia) also bemoaned the majority’s importation of a “non-law-enforcement primary purpose test” from “special needs” and “administrative search” cases (which dealt with special categories of <U>searches)</U> into the roadblock <U>seizure</U> arena. The majority’s approach also ran counter, in his view, to <a href="http://laws.findlaw.com/us/517/806.html">Whren v. United States</a>, 517 U.S. 806 (1996), which “held that an officer’s subjective intent would not invalidate an otherwise objectively justifiable stop of an automobile.”</p><p>Justice Thomas joined the dissent but revealed his doubts that <U>Sitz</U> and <U>Martinez-Fuerte</U> were decided correctly. “I rather doubt that the Framers of the Fourth Amendment would have considered ‘reasonable’ a program of indiscriminate stops of individuals not suspected of wrongdoing.” Since the Respondents, however, did not advocate overturning <U>Sitz</U> and <U>Martinez-Fuerte</U>, and Thomas was reluctant to “consider such a step” absent briefing and oral argument, and since <U>Sitz</U> and <U>Martinez-Fuerte</U> “compelled” upholding the Indianapolis roadblock, Thomas joined the dissent.</p><p><b>Comment</b>: Justice O’Connor acknowledged that “there are circumstances that may justify a law enforcement checkpoint where the primary purpose would otherwise, but for some emergency, relate to ordinary crime control.” She gave as examples an emergency roadblock to thwart a terrorist attack or to catch a fleeing criminal “who is likely to flee by way of a particular route.” O’Connor also cautioned that “the purpose inquiry . . . is to be conducted only at the programmatic level and is not an invitation to probe the minds of individual officers acting at the scene.”</p><p>This is a classic Sandra Day O’Connor Fourth Amendment opinion. A rule is announced that may be very sound from a policy standpoint, but is essentially legislative in nature. The decision cannot be justified in relation to neutral principles of Constitutional jurisprudence, much less (to the extent that the decision is distinguishable from other roadblock cases) in relation to the Constitution’s text or history. Even worse, O’Connor’s opinion is so narrow and fact-based that it will doubtless spawn much litigation focused on the nuances of police “purpose” and on various “emergency” exceptions to this latest iteration of the roadblock rule.</p></div> </div>       <div id="fl_container3"> <script language="javascript">fl_legal_645x52();</script> <script language="javascript">fl_legal_645x52();</script> <script language="javascript">fl_legal_645x52();</script> <div id="fl_label">Ads by FindLaw</div> </div> <script> hide_box('fl_container3'); </script>   <div id="fl_container_goog"> <script language="JavaScript1.1" src="http://images.findlaw.com/lp/google.js"></script> <script language="JavaScript" src="http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/show_ads.js"></script> </div>  </div> </div> <div class="nav_right rn_inner">  <div class="sections yui-g"> <h2 class="right" style="color:#666666;">Welcome Legal Professionals</h2> <p>FindLaw provides the resources to help you practice law. 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