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Buchanon v. Commonwealth12/7/2001
the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit in the case of United States v. Huguenin. In Huguenin, the roadblock under review was conducted in the afternoon, staffed by law enforcement officers untrained in DUI detection, and like all other similar roadblocks conducted by the Roane County Sheriff, included the county drug detection dog. Likewise, there were not any recorded statistics regarding the effectiveness of the roadblock in removing impaired drivers from the highway.
In that case, the district court found that the roadblock's primary purpose was to detect narcotics, although it did have the secondary purpose of detecting drunk drivers. The district court relied on the decision of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit in Merrett v. Moore in concluding that a pretextual roadblock is constitutional so long as it incorporates one legitimate purpose, such as the interception of intoxicated drivers. However, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals expressly rejected the reasoning of the district court and the Eleventh Circuit, expressly noting that the Eleventh Circuit was the only federal circuit court which had ruled in this manner.
The Huguenin court expressed its concerns as follows:
he danger inherent in pretextual roadblocks is the potential for giving police the authority to stop every car on the road, question its driver and passengers under the guise of a legitimate traffic-related purpose, and then claim enough reasonable suspicion through, for example, the driver's expression or answers, to conduct a more thorough search of the stopped individuals and vehicles for drugs with insufficient limitations on police discretion.
Thus, a driver, who has violated no traffic law, whom an officer could not stop for a pretextual purpose away from the checkpoint, may be subjected to a pretextual stop merely for choosing to travel the road on which a checkpoint has been erected. The problem with mixed-motive checkpoints is that they allow law enforcement officers the opportunity to use a pretext to question and search for contraband without probable cause, conduct the Supreme Court consistently has frowned upon.
Essentially, the Huguenin court found that although the detection of drug trafficking is an important governmental interest, it does not warrant pretextual roadblock stops when there is no probable cause or individualized suspicion to otherwise stop the vehicle in question because the severity of interference with individual liberty necessarily created by this type of roadblock is too great to make the intrusion reasonable under the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. This reasoning is further supported by later decisions of the United States Supreme Court.
Because we find that the roadblock was constitutionally impermissible under City of Indianapolis v. Edmond and United States v. Huguenin, we reverse the trial court's denial of Buchanon's motion to suppress all the evidence obtained as a result thereof. We vacate the judgment entered following Buchanon's conditional guilty plea and remand this case to Butler Circuit Court with instructions that Buchanon be allowed to withdraw his plea of guilty.
ALL CONCUR.
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