us/000/99-1030.html
CITY OF INDIANAPOLIS et al.
v.
EDMOND et al.
certiorari to the united
states court of appeals for the seventh circuit
No. 99-1030. Argued October 3, 2000--Decided November 28, 2000
Petitioner city operates vehicle checkpoints on its
roads in an effort to interdict unlawful drugs. Respondents, who were each
stopped at such a checkpoint, filed suit, claiming that the roadblocks violated
the Fourth Amendment. The District Court denied respondents a preliminary
injunction, but the Seventh Circuit reversed, holding that the checkpoints
contravened the Fourth Amendment.
Held: Because the checkpoint program's primary purpose is
indistinguishable from the general interest in crime control, the checkpoints
violate the Fourth Amendment. Pp. 3-15.
(a) The rule that a search or seizure is
unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment absent individualized suspicion of
wrongdoing has limited exceptions. For example, this Court has upheld brief,
suspicionless seizures at a fixed checkpoint designed to intercept illegal
aliens, United States v. Martinez-Fuerte, 428
U. S. 543, and at a sobriety checkpoint aimed at removing drunk drivers
from the road, Michigan Dept. of State Police v. Sitz, 496
U. S. 444. The Court has also suggested that a similar roadblock to verify
drivers' licenses and registrations would be permissible to serve a highway
safety interest. Delaware v. Prouse, 440
U. S. 648, 663. However, the Court has never approved a checkpoint program
whose primary purpose was to detect evidence of ordinary criminal wrongdoing.
Pp. 3-7.
(b) The latter purpose is what principally
distinguishes the checkpoints at issue from those the Court has previously
approved, which were designed to serve purposes closely related to the problems
of policing the border or the necessity of ensuring roadway safety. Petitioners
state that the Sitz and Martinez-Fuerte checkpoints had the
same ultimate purpose of arresting those suspected of committing crimes. Securing
the border and apprehending drunken drivers are law enforcement activities, and
authorities employ arrests and criminal prosecutions to pursue these goals. But
if this case were to rest at 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 checkpoint program is also not
justified by the severe and intractable nature of the drug problem. The gravity
of the threat alone cannot be dispositive of questions concerning what means
law enforcement may employ to pursue a given purpose. Rather, in determining
whether individualized suspicion is required, the Court must consider the
nature of the interests threatened and their connection to the particular law
enforcement practices at issue. Nor can the checkpoints' purpose be
rationalized in terms of a highway safety concern similar to that in Sitz,
or merely likened to the antismuggling purpose in Martinez-Fuerte.
Neither Whren v. United States, 517
U. S. 806, nor Bond v. United States, 529
U. S. 334, precludes an inquiry into the checkpoint program's purposes. And
if the program could be justified by its lawful secondary purposes of keeping
impaired motorists off the road and verifying licenses and registrations,
authorities would be able to establish checkpoints for virtually any purpose so
long as they also included a license or sobriety check. That is why the Court
must determine the primary purpose of the checkpoint program. This holding does
not alter the constitutional status of the checkpoints approved in Sitz
and Martinez-Fuerte, or the type of checkpoint suggested in Prouse.
It also does not affect the validity of border searches or searches in airports
and government buildings, where the need for such measures to ensure public
safety can be particularly acute. Nor does it impair police officers' ability
to act appropriately upon information that they properly learn during a
checkpoint stop justified by a lawful primary purpose. Finally, 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. Pp.
7-15.
183 F. 3d 659, affirmed.
O'Connor, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which
Stevens, Kennedy, Souter, Ginsburg, and Breyer, JJ., joined. Rehnquist,
C. J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which Thomas, J., joined,
and in which Scalia, J., joined as to Part I. Thomas, J.,
filed a dissenting opinion.
CITY OF INDIANAPOLIS, et al., PETITIONERS
v.
JAMES EDMOND et al.
on writ of certiorari to the
united states court of
appeals for the seventh circuit
[November 28, 2000]
Justice O'Connor delivered the opinion of the Court.
In Michigan Dept. of State Police v. Sitz,
496
U. S. 444 (1990), and United States v. Martinez-Fuerte, 428
U. S. 543 (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.
I
In August 1998, the city of Indianapolis began to
operate vehicle checkpoints on Indianapolis roads in an effort to interdict
unlawful drugs. The city conducted six such roadblocks between August and
November that year, stopping 1,161 vehicles and arresting 104 motorists.
Fifty-five arrests were for drug-related crimes, while 49 were for offenses
unrelated to drugs. Edmond v. Goldsmith, 183 F. 3d 659, 661
(CA7 1999). The overall "hit rate" of the program was thus
approximately nine percent.
The parties stipulated to the facts concerning the
operation of the checkpoints by the Indianapolis Police Department (IPD) for
purposes of the preliminary injunction proceedings instituted below. At each
checkpoint location, the police stop a predetermined number of vehicles.
Approximately 30 officers are stationed at the checkpoint. Pursuant to written
directives issued by the chief of police, at least one officer approaches the
vehicle, advises the driver that he or she is being stopped briefly at a drug
checkpoint, and asks the driver to produce a license and registration. The
officer also looks for signs of impairment and conducts an open-view
examination of the vehicle from the outside. A narcotics-detection dog walks
around the outside of each stopped vehicle.
The directives instruct the officers that they may
conduct a search only by consent or based on the appropriate quantum of
particularized suspicion. The officers must conduct each stop in the same
manner until particularized suspicion develops, and the officers have no
discretion to stop any vehicle out of sequence. The city agreed in the
stipulation to operate the checkpoints in such a way as to ensure that the
total duration of each stop, absent reasonable suspicion or probable cause,
would be five minutes or less.
The affidavit of Indianapolis Police Sergeant
Marshall DePew, although it is technically outside the parties' stipulation,
provides further insight concerning the operation of the checkpoints. According
to Sergeant DePew, checkpoint locations are selected weeks in advance based on
such considerations as area crime statistics and traffic flow. The checkpoints
are generally operated during daylight hours and are identified with lighted
signs reading, "NARCOTICS CHECKPOINT ___ MILE AHEAD, NARCOTICS K-9 IN USE,
BE PREPARED TO STOP." App. to Pet. for Cert. 57a. Once a group of cars has
been stopped, other traffic proceeds without interruption until all the stopped
cars have been processed or diverted for further processing. Sergeant DePew
also stated that the average stop for a vehicle not subject to further
processing lasts two to three minutes or less.
Respondents James Edmond and Joell Palmer were each
stopped at a narcotics checkpoint in late September 1998. Respondents then
filed a lawsuit on behalf of themselves and the class of all motorists who had
been stopped or were subject to being stopped in the future at the Indianapolis
drug checkpoints. Respondents claimed that the roadblocks violated the Fourth
Amendment of the United States Constitution and the search and seizure
provision of the Indiana Constitution. Respondents requested declaratory and
injunctive relief for the class, as well as damages and attorney's fees for
themselves.
Respondents then moved for a preliminary injunction.
Although respondents alleged that the officers who stopped them did not follow
the written directives, they agreed to the stipulation concerning the operation
of the checkpoints for purposes of the preliminary injunction proceedings. The
parties also stipulated to certification of the plaintiff class. The United
States District Court for the Southern District of Indiana agreed to class
certification and denied the motion for a preliminary injunction, holding that
the checkpoint program did not violate the Fourth Amendment. Edmond v.
Goldsmith, 38 F. Supp. 2d 1016 (1998). A divided panel of the United
States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit reversed, holding that the
checkpoints contravened the Fourth Amendment. 183 F. 3d 659 (1999). The panel
denied rehearing. We granted certiorari, 528
U. S. 1153 (2000), and now affirm.
II
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, 520
U. S. 305, 308 (1997). While such suspicion is not an
"irreducible" component of reasonableness, Martinez-Fuerte, 428
U. S., at 561, 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. 47J v. Acton, 515
U. S. 646 (1995) (random drug testing of student-athletes); Treasury
Employees v. Von Raab, 489
U. S. 656 (1989) (drug tests for United States Customs Service employees
seeking transfer or promotion to certain positions); Skinner v. Railway
Labor Executives' Assn., 489
U. S. 602 (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. See, e.g., New York v. Burger,
482
U. S. 691, 702-704 (1987) (warrantless administrative inspection of
premises of "closely regulated" business); Michigan v. Tyler,
436
U. S. 499, 507-509, 511-512 (1978) (administrative inspection of
fire-damaged premises to determine cause of blaze); Camara v. Municipal
Court of City and County of San Francisco, 387
U. S. 523, 534-539 (1967) (administrative inspection to ensure compliance
with city housing code).
We have also upheld brief, suspicionless seizures of
motorists at a fixed Border Patrol checkpoint designed to intercept illegal
aliens, Martinez-Fuerte, supra, and at a sobriety checkpoint aimed at
removing drunk drivers from the road, Michigan Dept. of State Police
v. Sitz, 496
U. S. 444 (1990). In addition, in Delaware v. Prouse, 440
U. S. 648, 663 (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. Martinez-Fuerte, supra, at 551-554. These problems had also
been the focus of several earlier cases addressing the constitutionality of
other Border Patrol traffic-checking operations. See United States v. Ortiz,
422
U. S. 891 (1975); United States v. Brignoni-Ponce, 422
U. S. 873 (1975); Almeida-Sanchez v. United States, 413
U. S. 266 (1973). In Martinez-Fuerte, we found that the balance
tipped in favor of the Government's interests in policing the Nation's borders.
428
U. S., at 561-564. In so finding, we emphasized the difficulty of
effectively containing illegal immigration at the border itself. Id., at
556. 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. Id., at
556-564.
Our subsequent cases have confirmed that
considerations specifically related to the need to police the border were a
significant factor in our Martinez-Fuerte decision. For example, in United
States v. Montoya de Hernandez, 473
U. S. 531, 538 (1985), we counted Martinez-Fuerte as one of a
number of Fourth Amendment cases that "reflect longstanding concern for
the protection of the integrity of the border." Although the stops in Martinez-Fuerte
did not occur at the border itself, the checkpoints were located near the
border and served a border control function made necessary by the difficulty of
guarding the border's entire length. See Martinez-Fuerte, supra, at
556.
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. 496
U. S., at 447-448. Motorists who exhibited signs of intoxication were
diverted for a license and registration check and, if warranted, further
sobriety tests. Id., at 447. 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. See id., at 451.
In Prouse, we invalidated a discretionary,
suspicionless stop for a spot check of a motorist's driver's license and
vehicle registration. The officer's conduct in that case was unconstitutional
primarily on account of his exercise of "standardless and unconstrained
discretion." 440
U. S., at 661. We nonetheless 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." Id., at 658. Accordingly, we suggested that
"[q]uestioning of all oncoming traffic at roadblock-type stops" would
be a lawful means of serving this interest in highway safety. Id., at
663.
We further indicated in Prouse that we
considered the purposes of such a hypothetical roadblock to be distinct from a
general purpose of investigating crime. The State proffered the additional
interests of "the apprehension of stolen motor vehicles and of drivers
under the influence of alcohol or narcotics" in its effort to justify the
discretionary spot check. Id., at 659, n. 18. We attributed the
entirety of the latter interest to the State's interest in roadway safety. Ibid.
We also noted that the interest in apprehending stolen vehicles may be partly
subsumed by the interest in roadway safety. Ibid. We observed,
however, that "[t]he remaining governmental interest in controlling
automobile thefts is not distinguishable from the general interest in crime
control." Ibid. Not only does the common thread of highway safety
thus run through Sitz and Prouse, but Prouse itself
reveals a difference in the Fourth Amendment significance of highway safety
interests and the general interest in crime control.
III
It
is well established that a vehicle stop at a highway checkpoint effectuates a
seizure within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment. See, e.g., Sitz,
supra, at 450. The fact that officers walk a narcotics-detection dog
around the exterior of each car at the Indianapolis checkpoints does not
transform the seizure into a search. See United States v. Place,
462
U. S. 696, 707 (1983). Just as in Place, an exterior sniff of an
automobile does not require entry into the car and is not designed to disclose
any information other than the presence or absence of narcotics. See ibid.
Like the dog sniff in Place, a sniff by a dog that simply walks around
a car is "much less intrusive than a typical search." Ibid.
Cf. United States v. Turpin, 920 F. 2d 1377, 1385 (CA8 1990).
Rather, what principally distinguishes these checkpoints from those we have
previously approved is their primary purpose.
As petitioners concede, the Indianapolis checkpoint
program unquestionably has the primary purpose of interdicting illegal narcotics.
In their stipulation of facts, the parties repeatedly refer to the checkpoints
as "drug checkpoints" and describe them as "being operated by
the City of Indianapolis in an effort to interdict unlawful drugs in
Indianapolis." App. to Pet. for Cert. 51a-52a. In addition, the first
document attached to the parties' stipulation is entitled "DRUG CHECKPOINT
CONTACT OFFICER DIRECTIVES BY ORDER OF THE CHIEF OF POLICE." Id., at
53a. These directives instruct officers to "[a]dvise the citizen that they
are being stopped briefly at a drug checkpoint." Ibid. The second
document attached to the stipulation is entitled "1998 Drug Road
Blocks" and contains a statistical breakdown of information relating to
the checkpoints conducted. Id., at 55a. Further, according to Sergeant
DePew, the checkpoints are identified with lighted signs reading,
"NARCOTICS CHECKPOINT ___ MILE AHEAD, NARCOTICS K-9 IN USE, BE PREPARED TO
STOP." Id., at 57a. Finally, both the District Court and the
Court of Appeals recognized that the primary purpose of the roadblocks is the
interdiction of narcotics. 38 F. Supp. 2d, at 1026 (noting that both parties
"stress the primary purpose of the roadblocks as the interdiction of
narcotics" and that "[t]he IPD has made it clear that the purpose for
its checkpoints is to interdict narcotics traffic"); 183 F. 3d, at 665
(observing that "the City concedes that its proximate goal is to catch
drug offenders").
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. 440
U. S., at 659, n. 18. 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.
Petitioners propose several ways in which the
narcotics-detection purpose of the instant checkpoint program may instead
resemble the primary purposes of the checkpoints in Sitz and Martinez-Fuerte.
Petitioners state that the checkpoints in those cases had the same ultimate
purpose of arresting those suspected of committing crimes. Brief for
Petitioners 22. Securing the border and apprehending drunk drivers are, of
course, law enforcement activities, and law enforcement officers employ arrests
and criminal prosecutions in pursuit of these goals. See Sitz, 496
U. S., at 447, 450; Martinez-Fuerte, 428
U. S., at 545-550. If 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.
Without drawing the line at roadblocks designed primarily to serve the general
interest in crime control, the Fourth Amendment would do little to prevent such
intrusions from becoming a routine part of American life.
Petitioners also emphasize the severe and
intractable nature of the drug problem as justification for the checkpoint
program. Brief for Petitioners 14-17, 31. There is no doubt that traffic in
illegal narcotics creates social harms of the first magnitude. Cf. Von
Raab, 489
U. S., at 668. The law enforcement problems that the drug trade creates
likewise remain daunting and complex, particularly in light of the myriad forms
of spin-off crime that it spawns. Cf. Montoya de Hernandez, 473
U. S., at 538. The same can be said of various other illegal activities, if
only to a lesser degree. But the gravity of the threat alone cannot be dispositive
of questions concerning what means law enforcement officers may employ to
pursue a given purpose. Rather, in determining whether individualized suspicion
is required, we must consider the nature of the interests threatened and their
connection to the particular law enforcement practices at issue. We are
particularly reluctant to recognize exceptions to the general rule of
individualized suspicion where governmental authorities primarily pursue their
general crime control ends.
Nor can the narcotics-interdiction purpose of the
checkpoints be rationalized in terms of a highway safety concern similar to
that present in Sitz. The detection and punishment of almost any
criminal offense serves broadly the safety of the community, and our streets
would no doubt be safer but for the scourge of illegal drugs. Only with respect
to a smaller class of offenses, however, is society confronted with the type of
immediate, vehicle-bound threat to life and limb that the sobriety checkpoint
in Sitz was designed to eliminate.
Petitioners also liken the anticontraband agenda of
the Indianapolis checkpoints to the antismuggling purpose of the checkpoints in
Martinez-Fuerte. Brief for Petitioners 15-16. Petitioners cite this
Court's conclusion in Martinez-Fuerte that the flow of traffic was too
heavy to permit "particularized study of a given car that would enable it
to be identified as a possible carrier of illegal aliens," Martinez-Fuerte,
supra, at 557, and claim that this logic has even more force here. The
problem with this argument is that the same logic prevails any time a vehicle
is employed to conceal contraband or other evidence of a crime. This type of
connection to the roadway is very different from the close connection to
roadway safety that was present in Sitz and Prouse. Further,
the Indianapolis checkpoints are far removed from the border context that was
crucial in Martinez-Fuerte. While the difficulty of examining each
passing car was an important factor in validating the law enforcement technique
employed in Martinez-Fuerte, this factor alone cannot justify a regime
of suspicionless searches or seizures. Rather, we must look more closely at the
nature of the public interests that such a regime is designed principally to
serve.
The primary purpose of the Indianapolis narcotics
checkpoints is in the end to advance "the general interest in crime
control," Prouse, 440
U. S., at 659, n. 18. 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. See 183 F. 3d, at 662-663. 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.1
Petitioners argue that our prior cases preclude an
inquiry into the purposes of the checkpoint program. For example, they cite Whren
v. United States, 517
U. S. 806 (1996), and Bond v. United States, 529
U. S. 334 (2000), to support the proposition that "where the
government articulates and pursues a legitimate interest for a suspicionless
stop, courts should not look behind that interest to determine whether the
government's `primary purpose' is valid." Brief for Petitioners 34; see
also id., at 9. These cases, however, do not control the instant
situation.
In Whren, we held that an individual
officer's subjective intentions are irrelevant to the Fourth Amendment validity
of a traffic stop that is justified objectively by probable cause to believe
that a traffic violation has occurred. 517
U. S., at 810-813. We observed that our prior cases "foreclose any
argument that the constitutional reasonableness of traffic stops depends on the
actual motivations of the individual officers involved." Id., at
813. In so holding, we expressly distinguished cases where we had addressed the
validity of searches conducted in the absence of probable cause. See id., at
811-812 (distinguishing Florida v. Wells, 495
U. S. 1, 4 (1990) (stating that "an inventory search must not be a
ruse for a general rummaging in order to discover incriminating
evidence"), Colorado v. Bertine, 479
U. S. 367, 372 (1987) (suggesting that the absence of bad faith and the
lack of a purely investigative purpose were relevant to the validity of an
inventory search), and Burger, 482
U. S., at 716-717, n. 27 (observing that a valid administrative inspection
conducted with neither a warrant nor probable cause did not appear to be a
pretext for gathering evidence of violations of the penal laws)).
Whren therefore reinforces the principle that, while
"[s]ubjective intentions play no role in ordinary, probable-cause Fourth
Amendment analysis," 517
U. S., at 813, programmatic purposes may be relevant to the validity of
Fourth Amendment intrusions undertaken pursuant to a general scheme without
individualized suspicion. Accordingly, Whren does not preclude an
inquiry into programmatic purpose in such contexts. Cf. Chandler v. Miller,
520
U. S. 305 (1997); Treasury Employees v. Von Raab, 489
U. S. 656 (1989); Burger, supra; Michigan v. Tyler,
436
U. S. 499 (1978); Camara v. Municipal Court of City and County
of San Francisco, 387
U. S. 523 (1967). It likewise does not preclude an inquiry into
programmatic purpose here.
Last Term in Bond, we addressed the
question whether a law enforcement officer violated a reasonable expectation of
privacy in conducting a tactile examination of carry-on luggage in the overhead
compartment of a bus. In doing so, we simply noted that the principle of Whren
rendered the subjective intent of an officer irrelevant to this analysis. 529
U. S., at 338, n. 2. While, as petitioners correctly observe, the
analytical rubric of Bond was not "ordinary, probable-cause
Fourth Amendment analysis," Whren, supra, at 813, nothing in Bond
suggests that we would extend the principle of Whren to all situations
where individualized suspicion was lacking. Rather, subjective intent was
irrelevant in Bond because the inquiry that our precedents required
focused on the objective effects of the actions of an individual officer. By
contrast, our cases dealing with intrusions that occur pursuant to a general
scheme absent individualized suspicion have often required an inquiry into
purpose at the programmatic level.
Petitioners argue that the Indianapolis checkpoint
program is justified by its lawful secondary purposes of keeping impaired
motorists off the road and verifying licenses and registrations. Brief for
Petitioners 31-34. If this were the case, however, law enforcement authorities
would be able to establish checkpoints for virtually any purpose so long as
they also included a license or sobriety check. For this reason, we examine the
available evidence to determine the primary purpose of the checkpoint program.
While we recognize the challenges inherent in a purpose inquiry, courts
routinely engage in this enterprise in many areas of constitutional
jurisprudence as a means of sifting abusive governmental conduct from that
which is lawful. Cf. 183 F. 3d, at 665. As a result, a program driven by an
impermissible purpose may be proscribed while a program impelled by licit
purposes is permitted, even though the challenged conduct may be outwardly
similar. While reasonableness under the Fourth Amendment is predominantly an
objective inquiry, our special needs and administrative search cases
demonstrate that purpose is often relevant when suspicionless intrusions
pursuant to a general scheme are at issue.2
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. See Sitz,
496
U. S., at 450-455; Martinez-Fuerte, 428
U. S., at 556-564. 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. Cf. Whren,
supra.
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.
It is so ordered.
CITY OF INDIANAPOLIS, et al., PETITIONERS v.
JAMES EDMOND et al.
on writ of certiorari to the
united states court of
appeals for the seventh circuit
[November 28, 2000]
Chief Justice Rehnquist, with whom Justice
Thomas joins, and with whom Justice Scalia joins as to Part I,
dissenting.
The State's use of a drug-sniffing dog, according to
the Court's holding, annuls what is otherwise plainly constitutional under our
Fourth Amendment jurisprudence: brief, standardized, discretionless, roadblock
seizures of automobiles, seizures which effectively serve a
weighty state interest with only minimal intrusion on the privacy of their
occupants. Because these seizures serve the State's accepted and significant
interests of preventing drunken driving and checking for driver's licenses and
vehicle registrations, and because there is nothing in the record to indicate
that the addition of the dog sniff lengthens these otherwise legitimate
seizures, I dissent.
I
As it is nowhere to be found in the Court's opinion,
I begin with blackletter roadblock seizure law. "The principal protection
of Fourth Amendment rights at checkpoints lies in appropriate limitations on
the scope of the stop." United States v. Martinez-Fuerte,
428
U. S. 543, 566-567 (1976). Roadblock seizures are consistent with the
Fourth Amendment if they are "carried out pursuant to a plan embodying
explicit, neutral limitations on the conduct of individual officers." Brown
v. Texas, 443
U. S. 47, 51 (1979). Specifically, the constitutionality of a seizure turns
upon "a weighing of the gravity of the public concerns served by the
seizure, the degree to which the seizure advances the public interest, and the
severity of the interference with individual liberty." Id., at
50-51.
We first applied these principles in Martinez-Fuerte,
supra, which approved highway checkpoints for detecting illegal
aliens. In Martinez-Fuerte, we balanced the United States' formidable
interest in checking the flow of illegal immigrants against the limited
"objective" and "subjective" intrusion on the motorists.
The objective intrusion--the stop itself,1 the
brief questioning of the occupants, and the visual inspection of the car--was
considered "limited" because "[n]either the vehicle nor its
occupants [were] searched." Id., at 558. Likewise, the
subjective intrusion, or the fear and surprise engendered in law-abiding
motorists by the nature of the stop, was found to be minimal because the
"regularized manner in which [the] established checkpoints [were] operated
[was] visible evidence, reassuring to law-abiding motorists, that the stops
[were] duly authorized and believed to serve the public interest." Id.,
at 559. Indeed, the standardized operation of the roadblocks was viewed as
markedly different from roving patrols, where the unbridled discretion of
officers in the field could result in unlimited interference with motorists'
use of the highways. Cf. United States v. Brignoni-Ponce, 422
U. S. 873 (1975). And although the decision in Martinez-Fuerte did
not turn on the checkpoints' effectiveness, the record in one of the
consolidated cases demonstrated that illegal aliens were found in 0.12 percent
of the stopped vehicles. See 428
U. S., at 554.
In Michigan Dept. of State Police v. Sitz,
496
U. S. 444 (1990), we upheld the State's use of a highway sobriety
checkpoint after applying the framework set out in Martinez-Fuerte, supra,
and Brown v. Texas, supra. There, we recognized the
gravity of the State's interest in curbing drunken driving and found the
objective intrusion of the approximately 25-second seizure to be
"slight." 496
U. S., at
451. Turning to the subjective intrusion, we noted that the checkpoint was
selected pursuant to guidelines and was operated by uniformed officers. See id.,
at 453. Finally, we concluded that the program effectively furthered the
State's interest because the checkpoint resulted in the arrest of two drunk
drivers, or 1.6 percent of the 126 drivers stopped. See id., at
455-456.
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,2 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,"
App. to Pet. for Cert. 44a, and the written directives state that the police
officers are to "[l]ook for signs of impairment." Id., at
53a. 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,
440
U. S. 648, 663 (1979).3 That the roadblocks
serve these legitimate state interests cannot be seriously disputed, as the 49
people arrested for offenses unrelated to drugs can attest. Edmond
v. Goldsmith, 183 F. 3d 659, 661 (CA7 1999). 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.
Because of the valid reasons for conducting these
roadblock seizures, it is constitutionally irrelevant that petitioners also
hoped to interdict drugs. In Whren v. United States, 517
U. S. 806 (1996), we held that an officer's subjective intent would not
invalidate an otherwise objectively justifiable stop of an automobile. The
reasonableness of an officer's discretionary decision to stop an automobile, at
issue in Whren, turns on whether there is probable cause to
believe that a traffic violation has occurred. The reasonableness of highway
checkpoints, at issue here, turns on whether they effectively serve a
significant state interest with minimal intrusion on motorists. The stop in Whren
was objectively reasonable because the police officers had witnessed
traffic violations; so too the roadblocks here are objectively reasonable
because they serve the substantial interests of preventing drunken driving and
checking for driver's licenses and vehicle registrations with minimal intrusion
on motorists.
Once the constitutional requirements for a
particular seizure are satisfied, the subjective expectations of those
responsible for it, be it police officers or members of a city council, are
irrelevant. Cf. Scott v. United States, 436
U. S. 128, 136 (1978) ("Subjective intent alone ... does not make
otherwise lawful conduct illegal or unconstitutional"). It is the
objective effect of the State's actions on the privacy of the individual that
animates the Fourth Amendment. See Bond v. United States, 529
U. S. 334, 338, n. 2 (2000) (applying Whren to determine if an
officer's conduct amounted to a "search" under the Fourth Amendment
because "the issue is not his state of mind, but the objective effect of
his actions"). Because the objective intrusion of a valid seizure does not
turn upon anyone's subjective thoughts, neither should our constitutional
analysis.4
With these checkpoints serving two important state
interests, the remaining prongs of the Brown v. Texas
balancing test are easily met. The seizure is objectively reasonable as it
lasts, on average, two to three minutes and does not involve a search. App. to
Pet. for Cert. 57a. The subjective intrusion is likewise limited as the
checkpoints are clearly marked and operated by uniformed officers who are
directed to stop every vehicle in the same manner. Ibid. 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, 462
U. S. 696, 706-707 (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. 183 F. 3d, at 661.5
These stops effectively serve the State's legitimate
interests; they are executed in a regularized and neu-
tral manner; and they only minimally intrude upon the privacy of the motorists.
They should therefore be
constitutional.
II
The Court, unwilling to adopt the straightforward
analysis that these precedents dictate, adds a new non-law-enforcement primary
purpose test lifted from a distinct area of Fourth Amendment jurisprudence
relating to the searches of homes and businesses. As discussed above,
the question that the Court answers is not even posed in this case given the
accepted reasons for the seizures. But more fundamentally, whatever sense a
non-law-enforcement primary purpose test may make in the search setting, it is
ill suited to brief roadblock seizures, where we have consistently looked at
"the scope of the stop" in assessing a program's constitutionality. Martinez-Fuerte,
428
U. S., at 567.
We have already rejected an invitation to apply the
non-law-enforcement primary purpose test that the Court now finds so
indispensable. The respondents in Sitz argued that the Brown
v. Texas balancing test was not the "proper method of
analysis" with regards to roadblock seizures:
"Respondents argue that
there must be a showing of some special governmental need `beyond the normal
need' for criminal law enforcement before a balancing analysis is appropriate,
and that [the State] ha[s] demonstrated no such special need.
"But it is perfectly plain
from a reading of [Treasury Employees v.] Von Raab[, 489
U. S. 656 (1989)], which cited and discussed with approval our earlier
decision in United States v. Martinez-Fuerte, 428
U. S. 543 (1976), that it was in no way designed to repudiate our prior
cases dealing with police stops of motorists on public highways. Martinez-Fuerte,
supra, which utilized a balancing analysis in approving highway
checkpoints for detecting illegal aliens, and Brown v. Texas,
supra, are the relevant authorities here." 496
U. S., at 449, 450.
Considerations of stare decisis aside, the
"perfectly plain" reason for not incorporating the "special
needs" test in our roadblock seizure cases is that seizures of automobiles
"deal neither with searches nor with the sanctity of private dwellings,
ordinarily afforded the most stringent Fourth Amendment protection." Martinez-Fuerte,
supra, at 561.
The "special needs" doctrine, which has
been used to uphold certain suspicionless searches performed for reasons
unrelated to law enforcement, is an exception to the general rule that a search
must be based on individualized suspicion of wrongdoing. See, e.g., Skinner
v. Railway Labor Executives' Assn., 489
U. S. 602 (1989) (drug test search); Camara v. Municipal Court
of City and County of San Francisco, 387
U. S. 523 (1967) (home administrative search). The doctrine permits
intrusions into a person's body and home, areas afforded the greatest Fourth
Amendment protection. But there were no such intrusions here.
"[O]ne's expectation of privacy in an
automobile and of freedom in its operation are significantly different from the
traditional expectation of privacy and freedom in one's residence." Martinez-Fuerte,
supra, at 561. This is because "[a]utomobiles, unlike homes, are
subjected to pervasive and continuing governmental regulation and
controls." South Dakota v. Opperman, 428
U. S. 364, 368 (1976); see also New York v. Class, 475
U. S. 106, 113 (1986) ("[A]utomobiles are justifiably the subject of
pervasive regulation by the State"); Cardwell v. Lewis, 417
U. S. 583, 590 (1974) ("One has a lesser expectation of privacy in a
motor vehicle because its function is transportation and it seldom serves as
one's residence or as the repository of personal effects"). The lowered
expectation of privacy in one's automobile is coupled with the limited nature
of the intrusion: a brief, standardized, nonintrusive seizure.6 The brief seizure of an automobile can hardly be
compared to the intrusive search of the body or the home. Thus, just as the
"special needs" inquiry serves to both define and limit the
permissible scope of those searches, the Brown v. Texas
balancing test serves to define and limit the permissible scope of automobile
seizures.
Because of these extrinsic limitations upon
roadblock seizures, the Court's newfound non-law-enforcement primary purpose
test is both unnecessary to secure Fourth Amendment rights and bound to produce
wide-ranging litigation over the "purpose" of any given seizure.
Police designing highway roadblocks can never be sure of their validity, since
a jury might later determine that a forbidden purpose exists. Roadblock stops
identical to the one that we upheld in Sitz 10 years ago, or to the
one that we upheld 24 years ago in Martinez-Fuerte, may now be
challenged on the grounds that they have some concealed forbidden purpose.
Efforts to enforce the law on public highways used
by millions of motorists are obviously necessary to our society. The Court's
opinion today casts a shadow over what had been assumed, on the basis of stare
decisis, to be a perfectly lawful activity. Conversely, if the
Indianapolis police had assigned a different purpose to their activity here,
but in no way changed what was done on the ground to individual motorists, it
might well be valid. See ante, at 14, n. 2. The
Court's non-law-enforcement primary purpose test simply does not serve as a
proxy for anything that the Fourth Amendment is, or should be, concerned about
in the automobile seizure context.
Petitioners' program complies with our decisions
regarding roadblock seizures of automobiles, and the addition of a dog sniff
does not add to the length or the intrusion of the stop. Because such stops are
consistent with the Fourth Amendment, I would reverse the decision of the Court
of Appeals.
CITY OF INDIANAPOLIS, et al., PETITIONERS v.
JAMES EDMOND et al.
on writ of certiorari to the
united states court of
appeals for the seventh circuit
[November 28, 2000]
Justice Thomas, dissenting.
Taken together, our decisions in Michigan Dept.
of State Police v. Sitz, 496
U. S. 444 (1990), and United States v. Martinez-Fuerte, 428
U. S. 543 (1976), 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.
FOOTNOTES
Footnote 1
The Chief Justice's dissent erroneously
characterizes our opinion as resting on the application of a
"non-law-enforcement primary purpose test." Post, at 6. Our
opinion nowhere describes the purposes of the Sitz and Martinez-Fuerte
checkpoints as being "not primarily related to criminal law
enforcement." Post, at 3. Rather, our judgment turns on the fact
that the primary purpose of the Indianapolis checkpoints is to advance the
general interest in crime control.
The Chief Justice's dissent also
erroneously characterizes our opinion as holding that the "use of a
drug-sniffing dog . . . annuls what is otherwise plainly constitutional under
our Fourth Amendment jurisprudence." Post, at 1. Again, the
constitutional defect of the program is that its primary purpose is to advance
the general interest in crime control.
Footnote 2
Because petitioners concede that the primary purpose
of the Indianapolis checkpoints is narcotics detection, we need not decide
whether the State may establish a checkpoint program with the primary purpose
of checking licenses or driver sobriety and a secondary purpose of interdicting
narcotics. Specifically, we express no view on the question whether police may
expand the scope of a license or sobriety checkpoint seizure in order to detect
the presence of drugs in a stopped car. Cf. New Jersey v. T. L.
O., 469
U. S. 325, 341 (1985) (search must be "`reasonably related in scope to
the circumstance which justified the interference in the first place'"
(quoting Terry v. Ohio, 392
U. S. 1, 20 (1968))); Michigan v. Clifford, 464
U. S. 287, 294-295 (1984) (plurality opinion).
FOOTNOTES
Footnote 1
The record from one of the consolidated cases
indicated that the stops lasted between three and five minutes. See United
States v. Martinez-Fuerte, 428
U. S. 543, 546-547 (1976).
Footnote 2
This gloss, see ante, at 5-7, 8-10, is not
at all obvious. The respondents in Martinez-Fuerte were criminally
prosecuted for illegally transporting aliens, and the Court expressly noted
that "[i]nterdicting the flow of illegal entrants from Mexico poses
formidable law enforcement problems." 428
U. S., at 552. And the Sitz Court recognized that if an
"officer's observations suggest that the driver was intoxicated, an arrest
would be made." Michigan Dept. of State Police v. Sitz, 496
U. S. 444, 447 (1990). But however persuasive the distinction, the Court's
opinion does not impugn the continuing validity of Martinez-Fuerte and
Sitz. See ante, at 14-15.
Footnote 3
Several Courts of Appeals have upheld roadblocks
that check for driver's licenses and vehicle registrations. See, e.g.,
United States v. Galindo-Gonzales, 142 F. 3d 1217 (CA10
1998); United States v. McFayden, 865 F. 2d 1306 (CADC 1989).
Footnote 4
Of course we have looked to the purpose of the
program in analyzing the constitutionality of certain suspicionless searches.
As discussed in Part II, infra, that doctrine has never been applied
to seizures of automobiles.
Footnote 5
Put in statistical terms, 4.2 percent of the 1,161
motorists stopped were arrested for offenses unrelated to drugs.
Footnote 6
This fact distinguishes the roadblock seizure of an
automobile from an inventory search of an automobile. Cf. Colorado v. Bertine,
479
U. S. 367 (1987) (automobile inventory search).