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State v. Rose5/17/2005
e totality of the checkpoint's circumstances, the Court found sufficient restraints on the field officer's discretion to uphold the checkpoint. Id.
While our Supreme Court suggested in Mitchell that a lack of supervisory permission might not "merit a constitutionally mandated reversal in a roadblock case such as the one sub judice," id., the case currently before this Court is not necessarily a case "such as the one" before the Supreme Court in Mitchell. Nothing in Mitchell indicates that our Supreme Court intended to authorize spontaneous, roving, unplanned, unsupervised, and unbounded checkpoints. We believe that Mitchell stands for the proposition that supervisory permission _ like written guidelines, stopping every vehicle, and other factors _ is not a "lynchpin," but instead is a circumstance to be considered as part of the totality of the circumstances in examining the reasonableness of a checkpoint. As the Court mandated in Lidster, a trial court must examine the checkpoint as a whole and "judge its reasonableness, hence, its constitutionality, on the basis of the individual circumstances" present with that checkpoint. Lidster, 540 U.S. at 426, 157 L.Ed. 2d at 852, 124 S.Ct. at 890.
Based on our review of the trial court's order, it appears that the trial court concluded that the checkpoint was reasonablebased solely on the purpose of the checkpoint and the fact that the officers stopped every car. In doing so, the court addressed the first prong of the Lidster analysis and part of the third prong. The court made no findings regarding the tailoring of the checkpoint to the purpose (the second prong) and failed to consider all of the circumstances relating to the discretion afforded the officers in conducting the checkpoint (the third prong). Accordingly, we remand for further findings as to each of the Lidster factors and a weighing of those factors to determine whether the checkpoint was reasonable.
Reverse and remand.
Judge TYSON concurs.
Judge TIMMONS-GOODSON concurs in the result only in a separate opinion.
TIMMONS-GOODSON, Judge, concurring in the result.
"The scope of review on appeal of the denial of a defendant's motion to suppress is strictly limited to determining whether the trial court's findings of fact are supported by competent evidence, in which case they are binding on appeal, and in turn, whether those findings support the trial court's conclusions of law." State v. Corpening, 109 N.C. App. 586, 587-88, 427 S.E.2d 892, 893 (1993). In the instant case, because I believe the trial court's findings of fact are insufficient to support its ultimate conclusions of law, I agree with the holding reached by the majority.
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