PUT THE BRAKES ON PHONY DRUG STOPS

Our Position Is: Sobriety Checks Serve A Useful Public Purpose, But
Bogus Checkpoint Stings Are Silly.

Before they were declared unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court
nearly three years ago, random drug-check roadblocks in Indianapolis
had already shown themselves to be an inefficient use of law
enforcement manpower and a pain in the neck to the great majority of
affected motorists.

The new effort to circumvent that ruling should prove equally
beneficial to public safety and convenience.

The scheme entails setting up checkpoints and posting signs warning
that cars will be searched for narcotics. The presumption is that a
driver with drugs in his car, not knowing such searches are illegal
without probable cause or not wanting to take any chances, will make a
U-turn or commit some other traffic violation to get around the
roadblock. Presto! He's under arrest for a crime the roadblock
created, and the door is open to a search.

We agree with John Krull, director of the Indiana Civil Liberties
Union, that the ruse violates the spirit of the law if not the letter.
We also wonder how much of a dent will be put into the local drug
problem, and how much safer the community will be, as a result of this
labor-intensive plan of entrapment through traffic hazards.

Sobriety checkpoints are another matter, as the Supreme Court
acknowledged when it upheld their use. Driver impairment from alcohol
or other drugs presents a safety issue that justifies random stops to
detect it. Knowing the roadblocks are out there tends to discourage
motorists from taking that extra drink and perhaps from taking the
wheel at all.

Possession of contraband, on the other hand, presents no danger to
pedestrians or fellow drivers or passengers, but instead is a criminal
offense of which evidence must exist before a citizen is searched, in
his car as in his home. Someone who is guilty of such behavior is not
likely to be deterred from it by the knowledge of random roadblocks.
He'll just keep the stuff out of his car.

Police certainly need a full belt of tools to take on the job of
suppressing illegal narcotics. But those should be precision tools.
Bogus checkpoints are an oversize rubber sledgehammer that ought to go
back in the toy box before it hurts somebody.