Gallatin PD Still Making It Easy For The Drunks
Wed, Aug 20, 2008
The Gallatin PD had the local paper write up another announcement this week for an upcoming DUI checkpoint. Sweet. Nothing helps you catch drunk drivers like telling them exactly where not to drive.
Again I ask… is there some legitimate–perhaps legal–reason why the police would need/want to give advance warning on this sort of thing? Because otherwise this is just stupid. Why is the Gallatin PD wasting time and energy and resources making announcements for where these checkpoints will be? Is that how you want your tax dollars spent? Because I’d prefer to believe that the cops are… well… actually trying to get drunks off the road. Instead, they appear to be going out of their way to make it easier than ever to get away with drunk driving.
The only logical reason I can fathom for announcing where DUI checkpoints will be is for PR purposes. If the people keep reading articles about the PD doing a random DUI screening… then they’ll blissfully believe that their cops are keeping the streets safe.
All they’re really doing is making alternate routes less safe. “Hey drunks… steer clear of 31E this weekend, we’ll be conducting sobriety checkpoints… you may want to take Vietnam Veterans.”
What the heck?! I’m baffled, confused… and borderline offended.
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August 20th, 2008 at 5:30 pm
Aren’t checkpoints unconstitutional?
I understand what you are saying as far as alerting the bad guys… but I don’t want police pulling me over, if it’s not really legal. Isn’t there supposed to be ’cause’ before you are stopped, and just because you are driving doesn’t automatically grant a police office ’cause’ to stop you.
Jason
August 20th, 2008 at 5:43 pm
Well, if it’s illegal to pull people over for a sobriety checkpoint… then writing a press release and having the local paper do a write-up to announce it in advance is surely not enough to make the checkpoint legal… because there’s no guarantee that everyone will see the notice. It’s not like the cops could defend their actions in court by saying, “Well, your Honor, we put a notice in the newspaper, so they should have known.”
So checkpoints must be legal, or the cops wouldn’t do them at all. I don’t think the cops at a checkpoint can do anything but check your sobriety. They can’t search your car first thing, or put you in cuffs. The only time I’ve ever been stopped at a checkpoint was in another state, and the officer shined his light on me and asked me a few questions and then let me go.
I think most states are trying hard enough to stem the tide of drunk driving that laws have likely been passed in most areas that allow for checkpoints.
I’m honestly no expert. But much like the TSA lines at the airport, I’m happy to be stopped at a checkpoint in the name of helping the drunks get caught.
Ultimately, the legality of the stop cannot logically be tied to a newspaper announcement–if the newspaper article alone makes the checkpoint legal, then the state laws are even more illogical than I thought.
And more than addressing the legality of sobriety stops, I’m mostly pointing out the ridiculousness of pre-announcing those checkpoints so the drunks know what streets to avoid.
August 20th, 2008 at 5:49 pm
Okay, so I thought I’d go find out what I could about the issue, and it seems that the US Supreme Court has consistently held that sobriety checkpoints are legal, so long as cars are stopped randomly… every single car stopped or every third car stopped… which means they aren’t “targeting” you specifically. Very interesting, and only makes me think the Gallatin PD announcements are even more silly.
Here’s the source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sobriety_checkpoints#Legal_guidelines_for_checkpoint_procedures