For the first time in my life I had to go thru a police check point

[school17777]

I'm 43. I've heard of this exactly once when some friends moved to another state and posted on FB about being at a police checkpoint. I remember thinking, "Is that legal in America?!" That was the first and last time I've heard of this. I was just so sure it wasn't legal. So in some places this is actually common?

 

It sounds so "Show me your papers," (in a thick German or Russian accent.). I just never knew the police could stop you for no reason and look over your car like that.

 

I'm not saying I don't believe you. I just didn't know.

The check points are often set-up about a mile from me. The first time I saw it, they were just finishing up and I was waved through. They were set up last week, and someone posted about it on the community Facebook page (and then the post was removed).

 

The check points really bother me because they are stopping you without you having done anything wrong and then you have to prove to them that you are doing everything legal. I thought you were innocent until proven guilty, but this seems to be the other way around.

 

It bothers me just like the dog warden knocking on your door asking to see your dog license.

[TechWife]

The check points really bother me because they are stopping you without you having done anything wrong and then you have to prove to them that you are doing everything legal. I thought you were innocent until proven guilty, but this seems to be the other way around.

 

 

If it were the other way around, then you would be arrested first, your paperwork examined later, if at all. 

[heartlikealion]

You guys make me sound like a conspiracy theorist or something... "oh it's just a sobriety check. It's just a license check." I'm over here like, "oh great, who got away and what did they do?" LOL I also think of the other reasons.

[Spy Car]

With the license and registration checkpoints, in a nutshell, they can ask for your driver's license because driving a car is not a right. They cannot make similar checkpoints just to check the ID's of pedestrians or bicyclists.

While driving may not be considered a "right," not being detained without probable cause is a "right" that shouldn't be infringed without cause.

 

Bill

[Artichoke]

Our area has frequent DUI checkpoints in the summer. We're a tourist destination.

Edited June 12, 2017 by Artichoke

[SparklyUnicorn]

never encountered that

 

 

[creekland]

What I find amazing is our area announces planned DUI checkpoints ahead of time through various news media.

 

And people still get caught.

 

Sorry, but I just can't sympathize with those who are literally too dumb to not drink and drive OR choose another route.

 

Those not wanting to be stopped at the (very brief) checkpoint can also choose other routes ahead of time.

 

If this topic were to come up for a vote, I'd have no problem voting that they can continue.  Drunk driving kills.  Drunk and dumb deserves what they get.

[Jean in Newcastle]

Our area announces increased DUI patrols.  But they are not checkpoints.  They are just out looking for driving that is erratic. 

[GAPeachie]

I've been through several of these but they are usually at night and usually coincide with high alcohol consumption events/holidays.  

 

If they are just checking IDs, I never believe them when they say, "No reason to be alarmed."  We just had 8 police cars in our neighborhood and a helicopter circling above and when I called dispatch they said, "It's an emergency but nothing to be alarmed about."  Whatever that means.  Sigh. 

 

I'm used to providing ID at checkpoints anyhow.  It was just par for the course when you have business on the military fort.  Post 9/11 it became much more strict with opening your hood and trunk as well.  

[Ravin]

While driving may not be considered a "right," not being detained without probable cause is a "right" that shouldn't be infringed without cause.

 

Bill

 

I shall simply refer you back to the article I posted and the Supreme Court's standing wisdom on the issue. Personally, using what is within the bounds of the law as a pretense for other investigation is what turns my stomach.

[Ravin]

I've been through several of these but they are usually at night and usually coincide with high alcohol consumption events/holidays.  

 

If they are just checking IDs, I never believe them when they say, "No reason to be alarmed."  We just had 8 police cars in our neighborhood and a helicopter circling above and when I called dispatch they said, "It's an emergency but nothing to be alarmed about."  Whatever that means.  Sigh. 

 

I'm used to providing ID at checkpoints anyhow.  It was just par for the course when you have business on the military fort.  Post 9/11 it became much more strict with opening your hood and trunk as well.  

 

Entering and moving within a military installation is a whole different concern from what police in the general community are allowed to do. I find it dismaying that being used to military security on base makes you less concerned about your rights as a private citizen out in town.

 

It sounds like the checkpoints you have encountered off-base are sobriety checkpoints, which are different from license/registration checkpoints but both have the underlying reason they are allowed: public traffic safety.

[TechWife]

While driving may not be considered a "right," not being detained without probable cause is a "right" that shouldn't be infringed without cause.

 

Bill

 

People aren't detained at license checks without probable cause. If you don't have your registration, or your license, tag or inspection has expired, they have probable cause to tell you to pull over and give you a ticket. Likewise, if it looks like you are stuffing drugs/weapons under the seat or you or your car smell like a distillery, they have probable cause to tell you to pull over for a breathalyzer and/or to search your car. 

 

Edited February 18, 2016 by TechWife

[TechWife]

  We just had 8 police cars in our neighborhood and a helicopter circling above and when I called dispatch they said, "It's an emergency but nothing to be alarmed about."  Whatever that means.  Sigh. 

 

 

 

This happened in our area just last week. There was a silver alert and police stated that they were looking for an elderly man with dementia who had wandered away from his home & had been missing for more than 12 hours (including overnight). It was very cold. The state HP provided the helicopter and the local police did the footwork. His was found and returned safely to his home. I was glad to hear they went to such lengths to find the man. 

[Spy Car]

People aren't detained at license checks without probable cause. If you don't have your registration, or your license, tag or inspection has expired, they have probable cause to tell you to pull over and give you a ticket. Likewise, if it looks like you are stuffing drugs/weapons under the seat or you or your car smell like a distillery, they have probable cause to tell you to pull over for a breathalyzer and/or to search your car. 

 

Stoping a person and demanding they produce papers is "detaining" someone. 

 

The Supreme Court has said selectively stopping a person to produce papers is an infringement of the 4th Amendment, but stopping a whole stream of people and subjecting them to the same treatment is OK. I think that is muddled logic. People should not be stopped or asked to produce papers without cause.

 

Bill

[GAPeachie]

Entering and moving within a military installation is a whole different concern from what police in the general community are allowed to do. I find it dismaying that being used to military security on base makes you less concerned about your rights as a private citizen out in town.

 

It sounds like the checkpoints you have encountered off-base are sobriety checkpoints, which are different from license/registration checkpoints but both have the underlying reason they are allowed: public traffic safety.

 

I agree that entering and moving within a military installation is different.  I'm not sure how you jumped to me not being concerned about my rights as a private citizen though.  I only stated that it isn't "alarming" to me to see a checkpoint.  It wasn't "alarming" for me to be asked my sponsor's social security number when shopping in the commissary and writing a check or conducting any other business on the fort.  

 

This happened in our area just last week. There was a silver alert and police stated that they were looking for an elderly man with dementia who had wandered away from his home & had been missing for more than 12 hours (including overnight). It was very cold. The state HP provided the helicopter and the local police did the footwork. His was found and returned safely to his home. I was glad to hear they went to such lengths to find the man. 

 

I'm so glad they found him!  I checked the amber alerts and silver alerts and nothing lined up with the evening that this happened in our neighborhood.  We haven't seen any mention of it in the news or the newspaper either.  We are in Florida and it was in the 60's that evening.  It's puzzling, for sure.  

[Ravin]

Stoping a person and demanding they produce papers is "detaining" someone. 

 

The Supreme Court has said selectively stopping a person to produce papers is an infringement of the 4th Amendment, but stopping a whole stream of people and subjecting them to the same treatment is OK. I think that is muddled logic. People should not be stopped or asked to produce papers without cause.

 

Bill

 

They have to have a clearly defined underlying reason. Traffic safety is the pertinent here. Driving motor vehicles is licensed and you can be made to do a lot of things to hold that license, include expose yourself to a lesser expectation of privacy in certain kinds of searches, cooperate with breathalyzer checks (even without convicting you of DUI, a state can suspend your drivers license for mere refusal to blow into the tube), pay fees for the registration of the vehicle, submit to having yourself photographed for an ID, buy insurance, etc. One can decline to do all of those things, but in so doing one also must refrain from driving a car. No one checks ID's when you get on public transit, generally, and you can walk as far as your legs will take you (or ride as far as your bike or horse will carry you) as long as you don't trespass on private or other kinds of off-limits property.

 

The Founding Fathers might have set things up differently had they been able to predict the realities of transportation and travel in the 20th and 21st centuries, but we are stuck having only the rights actually laid out in the Constitution, and no one has gotten around to passing a right to drive amendment (nor is that likely). Government is very good at expanding and extending what the police power can control to the limits of the laws restraining it.

[TechWife]

Stoping a person and demanding they produce papers is "detaining" someone. 

 

The Supreme Court has said selectively stopping a person to produce papers is an infringement of the 4th Amendment, but stopping a whole stream of people and subjecting them to the same treatment is OK. I think that is muddled logic. People should not be stopped or asked to produce papers without cause.

 

Bill

 

It's a "rolling stop," Bill. I think I am at a standstill for maybe five seconds? The officers walk along side your car as you move down the line. 

 

I guess those who haven't seen one maybe don't understand how it's done. I have never felt like my rights have been infringed upon. 

[Spy Car]

They have to have a clearly defined underlying reason. Traffic safety is the pertinent here. Driving motor vehicles is licensed and you can be made to do a lot of things to hold that license, include expose yourself to a lesser expectation of privacy in certain kinds of searches, cooperate with breathalyzer checks (even without convicting you of DUI, a state can suspend your drivers license for mere refusal to blow into the tube), pay fees for the registration of the vehicle, submit to having yourself photographed for an ID, buy insurance, etc. One can decline to do all of those things, but in so doing one also must refrain from driving a car. No one checks ID's when you get on public transit, generally, and you can walk as far as your legs will take you (or ride as far as your bike or horse will carry you) as long as you don't trespass on private or other kinds of off-limits property.

 

The Founding Fathers might have set things up differently had they been able to predict the realities of transportation and travel in the 20th and 21st centuries, but we are stuck having only the rights actually laid out in the Constitution, and no one has gotten around to passing a right to drive amendment (nor is that likely). Government is very good at expanding and extending what the police power can control to the limits of the laws restraining it.

 

"Traffic safety" is a compelling reason to pull over people who are violating traffic laws, and not a compelling reason to stop people and demand their papers with no specific reason. If 4th Amendment infringements can be justified on such flimsy and nebulous grounds this fundamental constitution right is subverted.

 

I don't accept that having a drivers license or driving should give the police legal grounds to stop a person without cause. I think the Court's reasoning is flawed. I think the Founders were clear. Stops make without cause are unconstitutional IMCO.

 

Bill

Edited February 18, 2016 by Spy Car

[Spy Car]

It's a "rolling stop," Bill. I think I am at a standstill for maybe five seconds? The officers walk along side your car as you move down the line. 

 

I guess those who haven't seen one maybe don't understand how it's done. I have never felt like my rights have been infringed upon. 

 

It doesn't mater if the police violate a person's constitutional rights for 5 seconds, or 25 seconds, or 20 minutes, or 20 years. 

 

Stopping people without cause violates constitutional protections. The "time factor" isn't the salient issue.

 

Bill

[Pam in CT]

re whether license/registration checks constitute a form of detention or search:

It's a "rolling stop," Bill. I think I am at a standstill for maybe five seconds? The officers walk along side your car as you move down the line. 

 

I guess those who haven't seen one maybe don't understand how it's done. I have never felt like my rights have been infringed upon. 

 

I would agree with this, except for evidence that in at least some districts, LEO follow up the license stop with fishing-expedition type searches (running checks for prior issued outstanding parking tickets, broken tailpipes etc) and thereafter slapping on extra fines/arrests for things that are unrelated to the initial stop.  And there is evidence that in at least some districts, such fishing is done on racially differential terms.  And in at least some districts, that a drive for revenue generation is fueling the practice.

 

If it really were limited to rolling stops to ensure that reasonable rules related to the current driving (license/insurance/registration/DUI) were being followed, I'm OK with that.  

 

When the stop goes beyond the current driving experience, I do worry both about 4th-amendment unreasonable search issues, and also about equal-protection-clause racially differential treatment issues.

[TechWife]

re whether license/registration checks constitute a form of detention or search:

 

I would agree with this, except for evidence that in at least some districts, LEO follow up the license stop with fishing-expedition type searches (running checks for prior issued outstanding parking tickets, broken tailpipes etc) and thereafter slapping on extra fines/arrests for things that are unrelated to the initial stop.  And there is evidence that in at least some districts, such fishing is done on racially differential terms.  And in at least some districts, that a drive for revenue generation is fueling the practice.

 

If it really were limited to rolling stops to ensure that reasonable rules related to the current driving (license/insurance/registration/DUI) were being followed, I'm OK with that.  

 

When the stop goes beyond the current driving experience, I do worry both about 4th-amendment unreasonable search issues, and also about equal-protection-clause racially differential treatment issues.

 

Well, the officers here don't write anything down, so I'm not sure how that would happen. 

[Pam in CT]

Well, the officers here don't write anything down, so I'm not sure how that would happen. 

:lol:

 

It's quite possible that your district is not among those that engage in fishing expeditions.  As far as I know, mine doesn't either.

 

The other possibility is that you and I are not being pulled out differentially.  The thing is, we wouldn't know.

[Ali in OR]

I'm reading The New Jim Crow right now which presents a very compelling case that our criminal justice system and the "War on Drugs" are both incredibly biased systems (consciously and unconsciously) for putting black and brown people into jail. It's pretty alarming what courts all the way up to the Supreme Court allow police officers to do. They can pull over cars for ridiculously minor infractions--didn't come to a full stop, broken taillight, turning without signaling, etc.--and once the car is pulled over they can search for other crimes. They have to ask for consent, but if the police officer says, "may I look in your trunk?" most people don't realize they have a right to say no. Police officers have discretion over who they decide to pull over and who should be searched more thoroughly--and that discretion is carried out in a very biased manner.

 

I'm actually encouraged that the OP's stop pulled over everyone. The book has statistics that while police could pull over anyone, they use it overwhelmingly on black Americans or other people of color. I guess drug use and drug crimes are really pretty evenly distributed by race, but those arrested and jailed for it are predominantly black. Reading this book, I realize that my saying that police are just checking licenses or registrations doesn't mean much, because as a white woman, that might be all I ever see. But it might be a very different story for black males (or hispanic males in So Cal). It's an eye-opening book.

[TechWife]

I'm reading The New Jim Crow right now which presents a very compelling case that our criminal justice system and the "War on Drugs" are both incredibly biased systems (consciously and unconsciously) for putting black and brown people into jail. It's pretty alarming what courts all the way up to the Supreme Court allow police officers to do. They can pull over cars for ridiculously minor infractions--didn't come to a full stop, broken taillight, turning without signaling, etc.--and once the car is pulled over they can search for other crimes. They have to ask for consent, but if the police officer says, "may I look in your trunk?" most people don't realize they have a right to say no. Police officers have discretion over who they decide to pull over and who should be searched more thoroughly--and that discretion is carried out in a very biased manner.

 

I'm actually encouraged that the OP's stop pulled over everyone. The book has statistics that while police could pull over anyone, they use it overwhelmingly on black Americans or other people of color. I guess drug use and drug crimes are really pretty evenly distributed by race, but those arrested and jailed for it are predominantly black. Reading this book, I realize that my saying that police are just checking licenses or registrations doesn't mean much, because as a white woman, that might be all I ever see. But it might be a very different story for black males (or hispanic males in So Cal). It's an eye-opening book.

 

I'm reading this book right now, too. As I am reading, I have been thinking about the license checks. I've also been pulled over for having a headlight that was out. 

 

It's also interesting to me that drugs are seen with such a racial bias. I've always been under the impression that it was a "white persons" problem. It could be I think that way because I grew up in a predominately white area and there was a drug problem. It's scary that so many minorities are targets. 

[Faithr]

"Traffic safety" is a compelling reason to pull over people who are violating traffic laws, and not a compelling reason to stop people and demand their papers with no specific reason. If 4th Amendment infringements can be justified on such flimsy and nebulous grounds this fundamental constitution right is subverted.

 

I don't accept that having a drivers license or driving should give the police legal grounds to stop a person without cause. I think the Court's reasoning is flawed. I think the Founders were clear. Stops make without cause are unconstitutional IMCO.

 

Bill

Hear, hear!

 

I agree completely.

[LucyStoner]

Here they are set up to get undocumented immigrants. They are often set up outside of schools with large Hispanic populations on nights when there are events at the schools. It makes it hard to get anyone to come to school events.

That's rather sad.

[ThisIsTheDay]

While driving may not be considered a "right," not being detained without probable cause is a "right" that shouldn't be infringed without cause.

 

Bill

 

Yep. I've lived in three states as an adult. This current one is the first one I've ever been illegally stopped (at a checkpoint).

 

I have plenty of opinions, but there's no way I could say them nicely enough here. Suffice it to say that, prior to moving here, I've been a big supporter of law enforcement and in the past have worked for a law enforcement agency.  That changed when I moved here, and I suppose there's ultimately a connection between the way the police behave here (badly) and the attitude that includes illegal stops under the guise of "checkpoint."  In fact, if I'd grown up here, I'd have a completely different attitude toward law enforcement in general.

[KungFuPanda]

You haven't lived until they run the dogs through your car. I once took a gig at a school on a secure facility. It was cold, so there I was in all my folkloric bellydance finery while they inspected every inch of my vehicle. By the time they fingerprinted me, my hands were too cold to fingerprint and they had to warm them up for me. The difference was that I took a contract knowing that was part of the deal. Still, it was weird and not at all part of my daily experience.

[Ravin]

The more police reports I read, the lower an opinion I have of law enforcement. Not necessarily generally, but where I work...there is one officer in particular who has a propensity for going into situations looking for a fight, and another who has done some incredibly stupid things (putting herself in danger) without backup to catch a guy when there was no particular reason they couldn't just exercise a little patience and nab him later. De-escalation is not a concept they seem familiar with here. And what I saw in the city was just as bad, in slightly different ways...notably the pretense stop practices.

 

Don't even get me started on the FBI...

 

Bill, I don't necessarily disagree with you, but the state of the law is what it is. Knowing what it is, and what the appropriate limits of law enforcement under the law are, is important. Wanting it to be different doesn't actually make it so.

[Wheres Toto]

They do inspection checks in my town.  They just slow down the traffic so they can see the inspection stickers as you drive by.  They wave over those cars that don't have current stickers.

 

Only once did I go through a sobriety check-point.   No Breathalyzer, they just stopped and chatted with each driver for a minute.  I guess if someone did seem inebriated they would pull them over for further checks.

[creekland]

The more police reports I read, the lower an opinion I have of law enforcement. 

 

The more I talk with my cousin who is a police officer, the more respect for law enforcement I have.  Their job has to be one of the toughest and most scrutinized in the world.  They have to remain ready for everything and always get every split decision correct or else...  I could never do it.  It doesn't surprise me that many burn out.

[Spy Car]

Bill, I don't necessarily disagree with you, but the state of the law is what it is. Knowing what it is, and what the appropriate limits of law enforcement under the law are, is important. Wanting it to be different doesn't actually make it so.

I'm aware of the case law on the point, and the tortured reasonings of the Court that have expanded some police powers in ways that in my considered opinion violate constitutional protections.

 

If the question is "what are the current established limits on police letting up checkpoints?, I have no quarrel with accurate descriptive answers to the question. If we accept our rights are what the law and the Court says they are, then fine. End of discussion.

 

But to my mind the Constitutional protections should protect us from arbitrary stops at police checkpoints, even when those stopped includes all-comers. Do I unstand there is a Quixotic aspect to having a different legal opinion than the Court? Sure. I'm just not willing to hand over my brain yet.

 

Bill