Indianapolis v. Edmond (2000)

Indianapolis v. Edmond (2000)

531 U.S. 32

In August 1998, the city of Indianapolis began to operate a checkpoint program under which the police, acting without individualized suspicion, stopped a predetermined number of vehicles at roadblocks in various locations on city roads for the primary purpose of the discovery and interdiction of illegal narcotics. Under the program, at least one officer would approach each stopped vehicle, advise the driver that he or she was being stopped briefly at a drug checkpoint, ask the driver to produce a driver’s license and the vehicle’s registration, look for signs of driver impairment, and conduct an open-view examination of the vehicle from the outside. In addition, a narcotics-detection dog would walk around the outside of each stopped vehicle. Between August and November that year, the city conducted six such roadblocks, stopping 1,161 vehicles and arresting 104 motorists. Fifty-five arrests were for drug-related crimes, whereas 49 were for offenses unrelated to drugs. The overall “hit rate” of the program was thus approximately 9 percent. Two motorists who had been stopped at such a checkpoint filed suit in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Indiana on behalf of themselves and a class of all motorists who had been stopped or were subject to being stopped in the future at the Indianapolis checkpoints. One of the claims asserted in their suit was that the checkpoint program violated the federal Constitution’s Fourth Amendment. The district court denied the motorists’ motion for a preliminary injunction and concluded that the program did not violate the Fourth Amendment. A divided panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit reversed on the grounds that the program was meant to intercept a completely random sample of drivers, there was neither probable cause nor articulable suspicion to stop any given driver, and the program did not fit any of the exceptions allowed under the Fourth Amendment. The Supreme Court granted certiorari.

Opinion of the Court: O’Connor, Stevens, Kennedy, Souter, Ginsburg, Breyer.

Dissenting opinions: Rehnquist, Scalia (in part), Thomas; Thomas.

JUSTICE O’CONNOR delivered the opinion of the Court.

In Michigan Dept. of State Police v. Sitz (1990) and United States v. Martinez-Fuerte (1976), we held that brief, suspicionless seizures at highway checkpoints for the purposes of combating drunk driving and intercepting illegal immigrants were constitutional. We now consider the constitutionality of a highway checkpoint program whose primary purpose is the discovery and interdiction of illegal narcotics. . . .

The Fourth Amendment requires that searches and seizures be reasonable. A search or seizure is ordinarily unreasonable in the absence of individualized suspicion of wrongdoing. Chandler v. Miller (1997). While such suspicion is not an “irreducible” component of reasonableness, we have recognized only limited circumstances in which the usual rule does not apply. For example, we have upheld certain regimes of suspicionless searches where the program was designed to serve “special needs, beyond the normal need for law enforcement.” See, e.g., Vernonia School Dist. v. Acton (1995) (random drug testing of student athletes); Treasury Employees v. Von Raab (1989) (drug tests for United States Customs Service employees seeking transfer or promotion to certain positions); Skinner v. Railway Labor Executives’ Assn. (1989) (drug and alcohol tests for railway employees involved in train accidents or found to be in violation of particular safety regulations). We have also allowed searches for certain administrative purposes without particularized suspicion of misconduct, provided that those searches are appropriately limited.

We have also upheld brief, suspicionless seizures of motorists at a fixed Border Patrol checkpoint designed to intercept illegal aliens, Martinez-Fuerte, and at a sobriety checkpoint aimed at removing drunk drivers from the road, Michigan Dept. of State Police v. Sitz. In addition, in Delaware v. Prouse (1979), we suggested that a similar type of roadblock with the purpose of verifying drivers’ licenses and vehicle registrations would be permissible. In none of these cases, however, did we indicate approval of a checkpoint program whose primary purpose was to detect evidence of ordinary criminal wrongdoing.

In Martinez-Fuerte, we entertained Fourth Amendment challenges to stops at two permanent immigration checkpoints located on major United States highways less than 100 miles from the Mexican border. We noted at the outset the particular context in which the constitutional question arose, describing in some detail the “formidable law enforcement problems” posed by the northbound tide of illegal entrants into the United States. . . . [W]e found that the balance tipped in favor of the Government’s interests in policing the Nation’s borders. In so finding, we emphasized the difficulty of effectively containing illegal immigration at the border itself. We also stressed the impracticality of the particularized study of a given car to discern whether it was transporting illegal aliens, as well as the relatively modest degree of intrusion entailed by the stops. . . .

In Sitz, we evaluated the constitutionality of a Michigan highway sobriety checkpoint program. The Sitz checkpoint involved brief suspicionless stops of motorists so that police officers could detect signs of intoxication and remove impaired drivers from the road. Motorists who exhibited signs of intoxication were diverted for a license and registration check and, if warranted, further sobriety tests. This checkpoint program was clearly aimed at reducing the immediate hazard posed by the presence of drunk drivers on the highways, and there was an obvious connection between the imperative of highway safety and the law enforcement practice at issue. The gravity of the drunk driving problem and the magnitude of the State’s interest in getting drunk drivers off the road weighed heavily in our determination that the program was constitutional.

In Prouse, we . . . acknowledged the States’ vital interest in ensuring that only those qualified to do so are permitted to operate motor vehicles, that these vehicles are fit for safe operation, and hence that licensing, registration, and vehicle inspection requirements are being observed. . . . We have never approved a checkpoint program whose primary purpose was to detect evidence of ordinary criminal wrongdoing. Rather, our checkpoint cases have recognized only limited exceptions to the general rule that a seizure must be accompanied by some measure of individualized suspicion. We suggested in Prouse that we would not credit the “general interest in crime control” as justification for a regime of suspicionless stops. Consistent with this suggestion, each of the checkpoint programs that we have approved was designed primarily to serve purposes closely related to the problems of policing the border or the necessity of ensuring roadway safety. Because the primary purpose of the Indianapolis narcotics checkpoint program is to uncover evidence of ordinary criminal wrongdoing, the program contravenes the Fourth Amendment. . . .

The primary purpose of the Indianapolis narcotics checkpoints is in the end to advance “the general interest in crime control.” We decline to suspend the usual requirement of individualized suspicion where the police seek to employ a checkpoint primarily for the ordinary enterprise of investigating crimes. We cannot sanction stops justified only by the generalized and ever-present possibility that interrogation and inspection may reveal that any given motorist has committed some crime.

Of course, 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. For example, as the Court of Appeals noted, the Fourth Amendment would almost certainly permit an appropriately tailored roadblock set up to thwart an imminent terrorist attack or to catch a dangerous criminal who is likely to flee by way of a particular route. The exigencies created by these scenarios are far removed from the circumstances under which authorities might simply stop cars as a matter of course to see if there just happens to be a felon leaving the jurisdiction. 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. . . .

It goes without saying that our holding today does nothing to alter the constitutional status of the sobriety and border checkpoints that we approved in Sitz and Martinez-Fuerte, or of the type of traffic checkpoint that we suggested would be lawful in Prouse. The constitutionality of such checkpoint programs still depends on a balancing of the competing interests at stake and the effectiveness of the program. When law enforcement authorities pursue primarily general crime control purposes at checkpoints such as here, however, stops can only be justified by some quantum of individualized suspicion.

Our holding also does not affect the validity of border searches or searches at places like airports and government buildings, where the need for such measures to ensure public safety can be particularly acute. Nor does our opinion speak to other intrusions aimed primarily at purposes beyond the general interest in crime control. Our holding also does not impair the ability of police officers to act appropriately upon information that they properly learn during a checkpoint stop justified by a lawful primary purpose, even where such action may result in the arrest of a motorist for an offense unrelated to that purpose. Finally, we caution that the purpose inquiry in this context 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.

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. The judgment of the Court of Appeals is accordingly affirmed.

THE CHIEF JUSTICE, with whom ­JUSTICE THOMAS joins, and with whom JUSTICE SCALIA joins as to Part I, dissenting.

This case follows naturally from ­Martinez-Fuerte and Sitz. Petitioners acknowledge that the “primary purpose” of these roadblocks is to interdict illegal drugs, but this fact should not be controlling. Even accepting the Court’s conclusion that the checkpoints at issue in Martinez-Fuerte and Sitz were not primarily related to criminal law enforcement, the question whether a law enforcement purpose could support a roadblock seizure is not presented in this case. The District Court found that another “purpose of the checkpoints is to check driver’s licenses and vehicle registrations,” and the written directives state that the police officers are to “look for signs of impairment.” The use of roadblocks to look for signs of impairment was validated by Sitz, and the use of roadblocks to check for driver’s licenses and vehicle registrations was expressly recognized in Delaware v. Prouse. That the roadblocks serve these legitimate state interests cannot be seriously disputed, as the 49 people arrested for offenses unrelated to drugs can attest. And it would be speculative to conclude—given the District Court’s findings, the written directives, and the actual arrests—that petitioners would not have operated these roadblocks but for the State’s interest in interdicting drugs. . . .

The only difference between this case and Sitz is the presence of the dog. We have already held, however, that a “sniff test” by a trained narcotics dog is not a “search” within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment because it does not require physical intrusion of the object being sniffed and it does not expose anything other than the contraband items. United States v. Place (1983). And there is nothing in the record to indicate that the dog sniff lengthens the stop. Finally, the checkpoints’ success rate—49 arrests for offenses unrelated to drugs—only confirms the State’s legitimate interests in preventing drunken driving and ensuring the proper licensing of drivers and registration of their vehicles.

JUSTICE THOMAS, dissenting.

Taken together, our decisions in Michigan Dept. of State Police v. Sitz and United States v. Martinez-Fuerte stand for the proposition that suspicionless roadblock seizures are constitutionally permissible if conducted according to a plan that limits the discretion of the officers conducting the stops. I am not ­convinced that Sitz and Martinez-Fuerte were correctly decided. Indeed, 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.

Respondents did not, however, advocate the overruling of Sitz and Martinez-Fuerte, and I am reluctant to consider such a step without the benefit of briefing and argument. For the reasons given by The Chief Justice, I believe that those cases compel upholding the program at issue here. I, therefore, join his opinion.