http://foxnews.com/national/court/scotus_roadblocks.sml # # Drug Checkpoints Struck Down by High Court # # Tuesday, November 28, 2000 # # In a divided 6-3 ruling, the Supreme Court on Monday struck down # as unconstitutional random roadblocks intended to catch criminals # trafficking drugs. # # The ruling weighed privacy rights against the interests of law # enforcement and found that Indianapolis' use of drug-sniffing # dogs to check all cars pulled over at the roadblocks was an # unreasonable search under the Constitution. # # The majority, in an opinion written by Justice Sandra Day # O'Connor, said the ruling does not affect other kinds of police # roadblocks such as border checks and drunken-driving checkpoints. # Those have already been found constitutional. # # But the reasoning behind those kinds of roadblocks - chiefly # that the benefit to the public outweighs the inconvenience - # cannot be applied broadly, O'Connor wrote. # # "If this case were to rest on such a high level of generality, # there would be little check on the authorities' ability to # construct roadblocks for almost any conceivable law enforcement # purpose," the opinion said. # # The three dissenters were the court's most conservative justices: # Chief Justice William Rehnquist and Justices Antonin Scalia and # Clarence Thomas. # # Lawyers for Indianapolis conceded that the roadblocks erected # there in 1998 detained far more innocent motorists than criminals. # # The city said its primary aim was to catch drug criminals. Civil # liberties advocates called the practice heavy-handed and risky, # and asked the Supreme Court to ban it. # # Law enforcement in and of itself is not a good enough reason # to stop innocent motorists, the majority ruling concluded. # # The court was not swayed by the argument that the severity of # the drug problem in some city neighborhoods justified the # searches. # # "While we do not limit the purposes that may justify a checkpoint # program to any rigid set of categories, we decline to approve # a program whose primary purpose is ultimately indistinguishable # from the general interest in crime control," the majority opinion # said. # # Cars were pulled over at random in high-crime neighborhoods in # Indianapolis, motorists questioned, and a drug-sniffing dog led # around the cars. Most motorists were detained for about three # minutes. # # The city conducted six roadblocks over four months in 1998 before # the practice was challenged in federal court. # # Police stopped 1,161 cars and trucks and made 104 arrests. # Fifty-five of the arrests were on drug charges.