Steer clear of drug checkpoint

Steer clear of drug checkpoint

May 19, 2001

If personal freedoms, private-property rights and limited government intervention in the daily lives of citizens are truly symbols of the Rocky Mountain West, then surely it would behoove the Montezuma County Sheriff’s Department to avoid participating in unconstitutional narcotics checkpoints on local highways.

Such a checkpoint was set up last June on Highway 145 in conjunction with the Telluride Bluegrass Festival. Those unfortunate concert-goers passing through Rico on their way to the three-day music festival were met with, first, a posted sign announcing a Checkpoint," and then a barrage of police — many dressed in camouflage and hiding in the nearby woods armed with guns and (strangely enough) video cameras.

Many of the so-called "festivarians" were directed to stop because of picayune traffic or vehicle offenses. Then intimidating police dogs circled the cars as law officers hoped for the animals to indicate that there were illegal drugs inside.

After all the hoopla and the man-hours expended, the bust had only minor success, with 13 people getting cited for possessing small amounts of marijuana, and eight receiving felony arrests for possession of illegal psilocybin mushrooms.

It was hardly a warm welcome for paying vacationers.

Furthermore, it was apparently unconstitutional.

The U.S. Supreme Court, hardly a bastion of liberalism or an opponent of police authority, ruled last November that such stops violate the Constitution’s Fourth Amendment, which protects citizens from unreasonable searches and seizures of private property.

Planet Bluegrass, the organizer of the festival, along with several other parties, has filed an intent to sue the agencies in the Southwest Drug Task Force involved in last year’s narcotics checkpoint. Montezuma County was served last week, and La Plata and Dolores counties are listed as defendants in the pending class-action suit as well.

We support the efforts of local agencies to uphold the laws and stem the tide of dangerous drugs such as methamphetamines into the county. However, drug searches must not be conducted without probable cause, and evidence must be obtained in a legal manner.

Drug roadblocks such as the one at the bluegrass festival do not pass constitutional muster — even though they attempt to skirt the Fourth Amendment by masquerading as mere traffic stops. Supporters of last year’s effort claimed that people were being not being subjected to a drug search, but were being legally detained for violating one of some 600 traffic-safety laws.

But the "Narcotic Checkpoint" sign and drug-sniffing dogs made it patently clear what the task force’s intent was: searching for illegal substances, not ticketing drivers for a cracked windshield, broken muffler or an illegal U-turn.

Conducting the roadblock in conjunction with a popular concert also smacks of profiling, considered a violation of civil liberties. And most people find it insulting and unacceptable to have police request permission to search their car for drugs because of a minor traffic offense.

The Supreme Court has upheld the constitutionality of sobriety checkpoints. But the justices drew the line at narcotics stops because drug violations are considered "ordinary criminal wrongdoing" that does not justify a checkpoint. In other words, police have no right to pull over someone for a traffic violation with the ulterior motive of seeking probable cause to search for evidence of other crimes.

As the court opinion states, if such invasive activity were allowed, "there would be little check on the authorities’ ability to construct roadblocks for almost any conceivable law-enforcement purpose." (Murder Checkpoint! Bigamy Checkpoint! Indecent-Exposure Checkpoint!)

Conducting the narcotics roadblock again, in light of that ruling, would be treading on risky legal ground. And it could obligate the county to pay expensive settlements as a result of lawsuits.

Respectfully declining to participate in the checkpoint this year, as the San Miguel County sheriff has done, would heed the rights of citizens to travel without undue harassment, and prevent Big Brother from getting his foot in the door — any more than he already has, that is.