Roadside Sobriety Checkpoints in Colorado
| Jurisdiction | United States,Federal,Colorado |
| Citation | Vol. 20 No. 5 Pg. 897 |
| Pages | 897 |
| Publication year | 1991 |
1991, May, Pg. 897. Roadside Sobriety Checkpoints In Colorado
WWithin the past year, the Supreme Courts of both the United States and the state of Colorado have upheld the use of sobriety checkpoints. This article examines the decisions rendered by these courts and touches on what, if any, issues remain at motion to suppress hearings in cases where the defendant was first stopped at a roadside sobriety checkpoint.
The first section of the article focuses on the federal analysis of roadside sobriety checkpoints. In Michigan Department of State Police v. Sitz,(fn1) the U.S. Supreme Court held that properly conducted roadside sobriety checkpoints do not offend the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. The second section of the article examines the state constitutional analysis, conducted by the Colorado Supreme Court in its two holdings on the issue: People v. Rister(fn2) and Orr v. People.(fn3) The article's final section addresses whether these decisions---as claimed by the dissenters in the three cases---eliminate the requirement of probable cause or individualized suspicion that has been a requirement of virtually all other governmental searches.
In June 1990, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld sobriety checkpoints against a Fourth Amendment challenge in Sitz.(fn4) In that case, the state police established a sobriety checkpoint plan, after which Sitz and others filed a complaint seeking declaratory and injunctive relief from such a checkpoint.
Only one checkpoint actually was held under the plan. This checkpoint lasted one hour and fifteen minutes, with 126 vehicles going through it. The average delay for the vehicles was twenty-five seconds. Of the drivers who were asked to perform roadside tests, one was arrested for driving under the influence ("DUI"). Another driver, who drove through the checkpoint without stopping, was also arrested for DUI.
In Rister, the Colorado State Patrol set up a sobriety checkpoint at Highway 14 and County Road 12 in Jackson County on the Saturday of the 1986 Fourth of July weekend. There was advance publicity that a checkpoint would be held, although the exact location was not disclosed. The checkpoint was held for two and one-half hours, from 4:30 to 7 P.M.
Warning signs, complete with traffic cones, were posted ahead of the checkpoint. The average length of the stop was three minutes. Rister, who was in one of the 233 vehicles that went through the checkpoint, unsuccessfully attempted to turn at the checkpoint intersection and avoid the stop. Although the checkpoint did not result in the issuance of any alcohol-related driving tickets, it did result in Rister being charged with driving while license denied.
In Orr, the Adams County Sheriffs Office set up a sobriety checkpoint in the 7100 block of northbound Pecos Street from 8:30 P.M. to 12:30 A.M. on a Tuesday night in May 1988. Thirty officers were present. Written guidelines governed the checkpoint, which was well lit and marked. Approximately 300 cars passed through the checkpoint, stopping on average from fifteen to thirty seconds. The result was twelve arrests for DUI.
Both the U.S. and Colorado Supreme Courts found that a checkpoint stop is a "seizure" within the terms of the Fourth Amendment. Therefore, the real question is whether any given seizure is "reasonable" under the Fourth Amendment. A...
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