Source: Washington Post (DC)
Author: Charles Lane, Washington Post Staff Writer
Published: Wednesday, October 4, 2000 ; Page A19
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The Supreme Court heard arguments yesterday in a case that will decide whether police can set up roadblocks and subject cars to inspection by drug-sniffing dogs without a warrant.

The case, Indianapolis v. Edmond, calls on the court to balance society's interest in promoting innovative police tactics in the war on drugs against the Constitution's guarantee of individual freedom from unreasonable detention by law enforcement authorities.

For about three months in 1998, Indianapolis police set up a series of highway checkpoints in high-crime areas, where they stopped cars and examined the drivers' licenses while drug-detecting dogs circled the stopped vehicles. There were 1,161 such stops, resulting in 104 arrests, 55 of them on drug charges.

The city considered the program a major success. But James Edmond and Joelle Palmer, supported by the American Civil Liberties Union, filed suit, alleging that the roadblocks violated the Fourth Amendment prohibition against unreasonable searches and seizures.

In U.S. District Court, the city defeated the plaintiffs' bid for an injunction halting the roadblock program, but the Chicago-based 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed that decision, 2 to 1.

Indianapolis, supported by the U.S. Justice Department, contends that the public's interest in combating illegal drug traffic outweighs the intrusion the checkpoints impose on motorists. In arguments before the Supreme Court yesterday, the city tried to convince the justices that its anti-drug roadblock program was essentially no different from checkpoints where federal and state authorities elsewhere searched for illegal immigrant smugglers and drunk drivers. The court has previously deemed those roadblocks constitutional.

ACLU attorney Kenneth Falk countered that the Indianapolis checkpoints were different because their primary purpose was to investigate a category of criminal activity. The drunk-driver checkpoints were set up to stop traffic accidents, Falk argued, while the immigrant-smuggling roadblocks were devised to regulate movement across the country's borders.

The ACLU contends that, unless the court draws a line in this case, police will have too much latitude to detain members of the public without a specific reason. "The risk is that if we break down the barrier in this case, we'll be faced with ever-increasing incursions," Falk told the justices.

One indication of how close the question may ultimately be comes from the 7th Circuit opinions in the case. Two veteran jurists, Judge Richard A. Posner and Judge Frank H. Easterbrook, reached starkly opposite conclusions based on the same body of Supreme Court doctrine.

Posner, writing for the majority, raised the specter of "methods of policing that are associated with totalitarian nations." Easterbrook, dissenting, noted that "the invasion of privacy at a roadblock is slight. Detention is short, the search superficial."

During a spirited discussion yesterday, the justices also wrestled with the fact that none of their previous roadblock decisions precisely corresponds with the situation in this case. The presence of drug-sniffing dogs seemed to strike several of them as an especially novel element.

Justice David H. Souter raised the possibility that upholding the Indianapolis roadblocks could pave the way for wholesale police detention not just of motorists but also of pedestrians – followed by checks for illegal drugs. "Could police dogs sniff everyone standing at traffic lights?" he asked.

But other justices wondered aloud why there would be a constitutional problem as long as police also conducted sobriety and driver's license checks at the roadblocks. "Why can't the city have a multipurpose stop?" Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist said.