See that’s a feature too. Don’t have to raise taxes when you can just take people’s stuff and sell it.
In Rhode Island, I believe it’s an automatic 3 month suspension if you refuse to take a sobriety or breathalyzer test and the police will certainly arrest you if you refuse to do so.
As Bricker’s link points out, Korematsu has been overturned by the Courts.
Has Stitz vs. Michigan?
If not, please give a detailed answer why it should with the appropriate legal cites to explain why it should.
Can I ask a serious question that is genuinely not meant to be insulting.
The lawyer in the OP seemed to tacitly accept that the police can still require you to produce your driver’s license and registration at such check points.
Why should they even be allowed to do at?
I ask, because based on the logic you’re using you should be allowed to refuse to produce either.
After all, shouldn’t it be up to them to prove you have neither instead of you have to prove you have them?
What makes you think it isn’t? You have to give your name to the police, but not ID - unless you are pulled over on lawful grounds.
It’s already been pointed out in this thread: Stitz departs from other Fourth Amendment cases. The Court justifies that departure (1) by pointing to the effectiveness of DUI checkpoints, and (2) noting that it had already upheld border checkpoints.
The problem with the court’s reasoning is that (as to #2) the principles that underlie border checkpoints only exist at national borders. The problem with #1 is that in order to establish that the system is effective you have to violate the Constitution in the first place. In other words, the only way to gather the data was to create checkpoints - but if the checkpoints were ineffective, they would not have been constitutionally permissible. So the court was effectively inviting law enforcement agencies to go out and do things they aren’t allowed to do so that they can later turn around and say, “but it works!”
Sitz is good law, but it’s bad policy.
I asked my question based on what the Florida lawyer quoted in the OP said.
(bolding mine)
Based on that, the Florida attorney seems to be saying that the police do have the right to ask people to produce their license and registration when stopped at the checkpoint.
While this is much lower brow than the legal discussion here, take a look at this.
It shows a trip through a DUI checkpoint with all information hanging out the window on a string.
J.
Granted I don’t know the law in RI, but here is the relevant vehicle code:
(my bold)
Looks to me that it’s only after arrest that the penalties for refusing the chemical test kick in though I admit it is not as clearly laid out as some other state’s vehicle code.
Border patrol checkpoints happen as far as 100 miles away from the border. Not that that is the subject of this thread, but that is just bullshit.
I’m sorry but that would be reasonable conclusion if anyone had actually proved checkpont effectiveness. Instead, the supposed goal of checkpoints was what won over the judges. So it’s bad law and even worse than bad policy.
I’m surprised at the many and sometimes strong responses that this subject has generated. I was tempted to reply individually to the many comments posted since my last one, but there are just too many. Let me sum up my main points of disagreement (and agreement) this way:
The Supreme Court of Canada ruled in essence that while a random checkpoint is an intrusion that violates the principle of “probable cause”, it is a relatively minor intrusion that is well justified by a compelling public interest to curb drinking and driving. I agree with this logic, and to the best of my understanding of the case, I also agree with the Stitz decision.
Some have argued that checkpoints are used for other purposes; that they impound cars driven by undocumented immigrants without valid driver’s licenses, or cars with expired tags, and that it can be used as just a tool for revenue generation. I believe that these are improper uses, and that in fact they should be prohibited when the stop is a random checkpoint. But drunk driving is a serious enough problem to justify a constitutional exemption to what is, when properly conducted, a very minor intrusion.
I made the point that in my experience the delay involved in such a checkpoint stop is hardly more than a few seconds. Someone claimed it could be much longer. In my experience where I live, it never has been, in part because, as I said before, they never check driver’s licenses, ownership, or insurance because that isn’t the purpose. I suppose there could be significant delays if the traffic checkpoint was on a busy highway, but, again, in my experience in such a situation they stop vehicles at random rather than hold up the entire traffic flow. In all these respects your experiences may be different than mine, but the point is there is an effective way to do these things that generates minimal disruption.
Some have raised arguments that these checkpoints are just constitutionally unacceptable. I’ll say again that I have little patience with such libertarian absolutism. According to the CDC, 10,322 people were killed in alcohol-related crashes in 2012, accounting for nearly one-third of all traffic deaths in the US and, aside from the loss of life, incurred annual costs of some $60 billion. If you aren’t willing to spend five seconds at a traffic stop to help curtail this human carnage, with a statistical probability of it happening maybe once every one or two years, then your priorities are in the wrong place.
Someone else suggested that checkpoints just don’t work. They very well may not be very effective if their locations are publicized, and that’s why they need to random and unpredictable. But although stats are hard to find and probably not very reliable, the general indication is that, when properly deployed, they work. The Ontario government claims that over the past 10 years, traffic fatalities in Ontario have dropped by 18 per cent and that the number of serious injuries in drinking and driving collisions decreased by 51 per cent, from 990 in 1996 to 484 in 2005. The CDC estimates that DUI checkpoints reduce impaired driving by 9%. But a study cited by the National Institutes of Health cites DUI checkpoints as reducing impaired driving fatal crashes (a different statistic) by 18% to 25%. I simply cannot see anyone being against this unless they support drunk driving or are libertarian extremists.
From your Ontario gov link:
So lets say for simplicity and to low ball it, 5 cops worked those checkpoints for 4 hours. 10 million man hours, probably some overtime, for less than 500 “charges”. You can’t seriously think that’s a useful way to use police.
Stop and Frisk in NY typically resulted in a 10% or better hit rate on illegal activity also. That shit still sucked.
No kidding. Obviously if the police were given a free hand to shake down people at random, they are going to catch something. But as a society, who gives a shit? I don’t care if a few guys get away with something if the cost is giving police carte blanche. .
True, and it is a good way to take the air out of those of us making the "compelling public interest claim, but the DUI checkpoints are clearly done randomly. Stop and Frisk, not so much.
Extremely misleading use of statistics. The figures were the reduction in drunk driving charges between 1996 and 2005. You quote the cost of maintaining checkpoints in 2008. Aside from the fact that the monetary cost is trivial compared to the loss of lives and property, the argument is entirely flawed because the whole objective of the program is to ideally have zero charges. In fact that would be the ideal outcome, because there would be so few drunk drivers threatening the populace. But that requires deterrence. Governments and police services around here are actually proud of how much fewer drunk driving charges have been laid, and rightly so. The real measure is in the greatly reduced incidence of drunk-driving carnage despite increased volume of traffic. That’s what counts. If you have evidence that despite these initiatives there has been more drunk driving in Ontario, I’d sure like to see it.
So in your opinion, having a driver, duly licensed to do so on public highways under fixed conditions including the condition of not being roaring drunk, being stopped at a checkpoint to ensure such compliance with a major public safety issue – is equivalent to “giving police carte blanche” to being – if I may insert the implied phrase – “jackbooted thugs”. Well, I don’t agree, and neither do several courts.
I don’t know about California, but the one such checkpoint I’ve encountered, in Pennsylvania, was situated specifically in a location where it pretty much impossible to turn around by the time the checkpoint was visible.
Regarding the constitutionality issue, don’t have an informed opinion on that, but (again in Pennsylvania), the dodge was that the roadblocks were not in fact sobriety checkpoints. They were stated by the participants to be set up specifically to inform motorists about the dangers of drunk driving. Which just happened to be staffed by uniformed police. Who were handing out brochures. which involved them passing the brochure through an open window. Where they could perhaps smell alcohol on your breath, or view other physical signs of intoxication.
Looking back, under those circumstances maybe I could have refused to roll down my window, but no telling how that might have been taken by Officer Friendly.
[Quote=wolfpup]
So in your opinion, having a driver, duly licensed to do so on public highways under fixed conditions including the condition of not being roaring drunk, being stopped at a checkpoint to ensure such compliance with a major public safety issue – is equivalent to “giving police carte blanche” to being – if I may insert the implied phrase – “jackbooted thugs”. Well, I don’t agree, and neither do several courts.
[/QUOTE]
Nice. Trying to shoehorn my comments into some Godwin internet argument checkbox.
Courts agreed to this because “obviously” it greatly combats the drunk drivers. Without corroborating evidence giving it to them, checkpoints can’t take all the credit for a drop in DUIs during a massive public shift in atttitude and active campaigning against drunk driving. Maybe you’ll find this crazy libertarian conspiracy theory: but I think the very proper growing disdain for DUI was exploited for increased police power and government spending. A mini war on terror/drugs. And fyi, I am not a libertarian.
Despite my support for DUI checkpoints, I am actually sympathetic to the implied risks to liberty in well-meaning initiatives like that. I am strongly opposed to some related measures the Ontario government has enacted, for instance. Like giving police the right to instantly suspend a driver’s license and impound a vehicle for certain types of driving infraction. Basically the penalty comes first, the trial later, obliterating the right to due process and making the police judge, jury, and executioner all rolled into one. And it’s just absolutely nuts that the province can suspend your driver’s license for drunk boating! Not that such an activity should be condoned, but the two things have absolutely nothing to do with each other! It’s a stupid law of convenience – the province has no direct jurisdiction over vessels and waterways, so they contrive to make your life hell in an area they DO have jurisdiction over, in a way that makes no sense. And, since no one is particularly anxious to appear to support dangerous driving or drunk boating, the government gets away with it.
But I have to disagree about the checkpoint thing. It’s a poor target for civil liberties advocates because it’s both effective and relatively non-intrusive, at least when properly done. What do you think was responsible for the “growing disdain for DUI”? I think it’s a number of factors, but it seems very likely that stronger enforcement like checkpoints, stiffer penalties, and the wide publicizing thereof were chief factors. Alternatively, one could hypothesize that public attitudes changed for some mysterious unknown reason, and governments conspired to take advantage of that to spend more money and increase police powers. Which seems more likely?
One might also note, to take my local area example, that police budgets are largely municipal and are often stretched pretty thin, and the article I linked before cites a miniscule contribution by the province ($2.5 million or so) to provide financial support for running the checkpoints. It’s hard to see how there’s any underhanded ulterior motive here. The fines certainly wouldn’t cover even those costs, and the emphasis in penalties isn’t even on the fines, it’s the criminal record, license suspension, huge insurance costs, ignition interlock, and, for subsequent offenses after the first, mandatory jail time.
I wouldn’t put too much stock in anything he said. He’s the only attorney in the country advocating this approach, as far as I can tell. I’m a Florida attorney, and if I see a checkpoint I turn around and go another way. Well, I also try not to drive while intoxicated and such. That helps too.
Yes. I wasn’t saying “well, we upheld this approach in border checkpoint cases” is a good argument even when applied to border checkpoints.
I don’t know if you can say DUI checkpoints are “clearly random”. The people being pulled over, sure, but somebody has to pick the checkpoint locations. Stop and Frisk was objectionable in NYC as much because of where it was done - minority neighborhoods - as who it was done to.
I’ll spell this out for those of you who didn’t grab the low-hanging fruit I put before you:
So let’s think. Why would I respond with a reference to an infamously immoral Supreme Court rendering that was later overturned?
Hmm.
Could it be: I was making the point that “factual” Constitutionality does not exist in a black-or-white vacuum? That concepts derived from the Constitution change over time? That a decision rendered by the 9 faceless visages of our Highest court does not encapsulate all notions of Constitutionality?
After all, depriving millions of American citizens their basic right to be “secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures” was at one time factually Constitutional.
Perhaps, had I been the lone voice in 1944 to suggest that the Korematsu decision did not accurately reflect the principles of the Constitution, but was rather arrived at in an environment of mass hysteria and irrational concern, Bone and others would still have felt the need to correct me on my “factual” understanding of the Constitution.
So fine. I’ll concede the facts.