Liberty may not set up roadblocks
for the purpose of issuing tickets for failure to display a city sticker on an
automobile, the Kentucky Supreme Court unanimously ruled last Wednesday. The
city had required all 1850 residents and anyone working within the city limits
to purchase a sticker for $10 and display it on their automobile.
When teachers at a local school
failed to pay for a sticker, town leaders had police set up a roadblock to
issue them citations. Cars with a sticker were allowed to pass through the
checkpoint, while drivers of stickerless vehicles were interrogated about where
they lived and where they worked. Joseph A. Singleton was stopped at this
checkpoint and when police searched his car they found a small amount of
marijuana. Singleton moved to suppress the evidence on the grounds that police
had seized him without probable cause or articulable suspicion, in violation of
the Fourth Amendment.
The Casey County Circuit Court
agreed the sticker roadblock was unconstitutional, but the state Court of
Appeals saw no problem with it. In the final word on the case, the high court's
seven justices agreed that Liberty lacked a substantial reason to detain
motorists.
Through a series of decisions, the
US Supreme Court has authorized suspicionless roadblocks for the purpose of
finding illegal aliens up to 100 miles from the border, verifying drivers' licenses
and registrations, looking for drunk drivers and responding to a specific crime
that took place on the same highway as the roadblock. A dozen states have
disagreed with these practices and outlawed one or more of these types of
roadblocks by citing their own state constitutions. The Kentucky Supreme Court
found none of these exceptions applied in the case at hand.
Through a series of decisions, the
US Supreme Court has authorized suspicionless roadblocks for the purpose of
finding illegal aliens up to 100 miles from the border, verifying drivers'
licenses and registrations, looking for drunk drivers and responding to a
specific crime that took place on the same highway as the roadblock. A dozen
states have disagreed with these practices and outlawed one or more of these
types of roadblocks by citing their own state constitutions. The Kentucky
Supreme Court found none of these exceptions applied in the case at hand.
"The checkpoint's only purpose was to enforce a
revenue-raising tax upon vehicles in the city," the court ruled on
Wednesday. "Thus, the checkpoint to enforce the sticker ordinance comports
with none of the purposes which the United States Supreme Court has found to be
important enough to override the individual liberty interests secured by the
Fourth Amendment."