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Edwards v. State6/19/2001
ched, the walk around inspection of the truck still would have discovered the marijuana in a cup in "plain view" when an officer looked into the cab. He then would have been arrested for that offense as well as for being under the influence of drugs. This arrest would have led to the search of Edwards as an incident of arrest. Therefore the drugs inevitably would have been discovered.
DISCUSSION
. Edwards argues that the random stop of his truck and the resulting searches violated the Fourth Amendment. We find the following facts to be critical to the outcome:
1) Edwards complied with his obligation to stop his commercial truck at this stationary weigh station established at one of the interstate highway entrances to Mississippi.
2) A weigh station officer randomly ordered a walk-around inspection of the truck. The specific acts that are involved with this inspection were to step onto the running board, to open the cab door in order to see the vehicle identification number and compare it to the "cab card," to check the safety of the tires , and to make certain of the condition of mud flaps and of load-restraining straps on flatbed trailers. There was also testimony that the procedure included going into the cab to seek weapons that were within an arm's reach of the driver's seat.
3) The trial court discussed various events within the weigh station office prior to the inspection, including a pat-down of Edwards for weapons, the discovery of methamphetamine, Edwards's failure of a field sobriety test, and his possible consenting to a search of the vehicle. The judge found that any problems with those events were cured by the discovery of a marijuana cigarette in the vehicle, which was in plain view to an officer conducting the inspection of the vehicle.
. We now analyze each of these elements.
1. Right to require stop at weigh station
. Requiring vehicles to stop at this weigh station is a seizure for purposes of the Fourth Amendment. Nonetheless, probable cause or even reasonable suspicion is not required in this situation. There are only "limited circumstances" in which suspicion is unnecessary. A fairly comprehensive list of those situations appears in a recent opinion of the United States Supreme Court. City of Indianapolis v. Edmond, 121 S.Ct. 447, 451-53 (2000).
. Relevant here is that mandatory stops at highway roadblocks have been approved for certain purposes. Id. at 453. In an earlier opinion, the United States Supreme Court referred to weigh station stops of truckers as being distinguishable from the random stopping of all motorists in order to check their driver's licenses and automobile registrations. Delaware v. Prouse, 440 U.S. 648, 663 (1979). The Court's prohibiting of random stops of motorists did not "cast doubt on the permissibility of roadside truck weigh-stations and inspection checkpoints, at which some vehicles may be subject to further detention for safety and regulatory inspection than are others." Id. at 663 n. 26. Accord, Michigan Dept. of State Police v. Sitz, 496 U.S. 444, 454 (1990).
. Three years before Prouse, the Supreme Court had found highway law enforcement officer's rights to stop, question and inspect to be more extensive at fixed checkpoints than for roving patrol stops as were involved in Prouse:
objective intrusion--the stop itself, the questioning, and the visual inspection--also existed in roving-patrol stops. But we view checkpoint stops in a different light because the subjective intrusion--the generating of concern or even fright on the part of lawful travelers--is appreciably less in the case of a checkpoint stop. Uni
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