Dui Checkpoints
Are DUI checkpoints illegal?
The city I live in has posted that the police department will be conducting DUI checkpoints for a period of 90 days. I thought DUI checkpoints were against the fourth amendment or am i wrong?
*Fourth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States forbids the unreasonable search or seizure of U.S. citizens.
The Supreme Court of the United States has held that “stopping an automobile and detaining its occupants [at a roadblock] constitute a ‘seizure’” of the person and will be unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment if not based on an articulable and reasonable suspicion that the laws are being violated.
No, they are legal. This issue has already been litigated and adjudicated by the U.S. Supreme Court, many years ago. The court held in Michigan Dept. of State Police v. Sitz, 496 U.S. 444 (1990) that these checkpoints comply with the Fourth Amendment requirement of “reasonable search and seizure.” This is binding precedent on the entire country, therefore any sobriety checkpoints in the U.S. are legal.
DUI Checkpoint
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