Section 6.13 Information Checkpoints

• Library: DWI 2014

Brief stops of motorists at highway checkpoints are not presumptively invalid under the Fourth Amendment when the stops are brief and seek voluntary cooperation in investigation of a recent crime that occurred on that highway and do not involve individualized suspicion of those stopped at the checkpoint. Ill. v. Lidster, 540 U.S. 419 (2004).

In Lidster,police set up a highway checkpoint to obtain information from motorists about a hit-and-run accident occurring about one week earlier at the same location and time of night. Officers stopped each vehicle for 10 to 15 seconds, asked the occupants whether they had seen anything happen there the previous weekend, and handed each driver a flyer describing and requesting information...