November 19, 2005 -- On Friday, November 10^th and Saturday, November11^th the Summerville Police Department, in conjunction with the South Carolina Highway Patrol, conducted numerous sobriety checkpoints throughout Summerville.  The sobriety checkpoint conducted Friday, November 10^th at 9:00p.m. on Holiday Drive was video taped by the Muckraker Report.  The content of the video is conclusive.  The Holiday Drive sobriety checkpoint was conducted illegally. 

 

Law enforcement agencies in South Carolina conduct police roadblocks because they are legal, but they are not legal per se.  There are rules and regulations to be followed.  If the rules are not followed, than the particular checkpoint where the rules are broken is an illegal checkpoint.  

 

In South Carolina, law enforcement agencies rely on the Supreme Court’s ruling in Michigan Department of State Police v. Sitz as the legal authority to set up police roadblocks.  What Sitz articulated was that agencies conducting police roadblocks must have specifically established procedures outlining how their roadblocks are to be conducted.  Advanced planning, according to the courts, is necessary to eliminate unfettered discretion of the field police officers conducting the police roadblocks.  If unfettered police discretion occurs at a checkpoint and is later proven in court, all evidence gained at the checkpoint can and should be suppressed. 

 

Unfettered discretion occurs when the police officers assigned to work a police roadblock are allowed to randomly select which vehicles they want to stop.  To prevent this occurrence, the courts have ruled that the adoption of a non-discretionary scheme, in advance of the checkpoint, for stopping some subset of vehicles, is required.  In Delaware v. Prose 440 U.S. 648 (1979) the United States Supreme Court indicated that stopping all cars would be an acceptable method of conducting spot checks at police roadblocks.  In a concurring opinion, Justice Blackmum joined by Justice Powell suggested that other methods would be acceptable, such as stopping every tenth vehicle that passes a given point. 

 

If it is decided in advance not to stop every vehicle, then the method used to determine which vehicles to stop must appear in the administrative order authorizing the use of the roadblock.  Whether law enforcement agencies in South Carolina could produce record of administrative orders related to the police roadblocks they’ve conducted has yet to be determined, but seems unlikely based on how carelessly most police roadblocks are being conducted throughout the state.   If surprised by an audit of their police department’s records, it is very likely that few police chiefs could produce even a single administrative order.  

 

Another component of the advanced planning requirement includes site selection.  A location should be selected that allows the police officers to safely pull vehicles out of the traffic stream without causing significant subjective intrusion (fright) to the drivers.  See United States v. Ortiz 422 U.S. 891 (1975).  At the sobriety checkpoint conducted on Holiday Drive in Summerville, traffic was stopped in both directions, while still on the roadway.  Vehicles were not pulled from the traffic stream.  Instead, it was the traffic stream itself that was blocked by the police.  Vehicles were only told to pull to the side of the road if the police wanted to write them tickets.  In other instances at the Holiday Drive roadblock, it appeared as though the police also were directing certain vehicles to the side of the road to conduct more intrusive, extensive roadside interrogations. 

 

The U.S. Supreme Court has also stated that a warning mechanism of some sort, whether a sign or device, should be placed to provide advance warning as to why the motorists are being stopped.  At the Holiday Drive roadblock, there were no advanced warning devices.  There was no signage in advance of the first police officer that read, “Sobriety Checkpoint Ahead”.  What the police did do was set up a sign that read, “Police Checkpoint Ahead”.  That sign would probably be sufficient for the courts except for the fact that the first police officer in the gauntlet was standing right next to the sign while stopping vehicles and asking to see the driver’s licenses.  What the sign should have read was “Police Checkpoint Now”, because that’s what was occurring.  There was no advanced warning of an upcoming police roadblock.  By the time a driver read the first sign regarding a police roadblock, they were already in the roadblock. 

 

Another element of advanced notice of a police roadblock is the publishing of the date and time of an upcoming checkpoint in a local, mainstream publication such as the daily newspaper.  The Summerville roadblocks were announced in the Post & Courier, but at least one checkpoint, the Saturday, 1:30a.m. Miles Jamison Road near the Summerville Place subdivision checkpoint was announced incorrectly.  The Post & Courier printed that this checkpoint was to be conducted on Friday at 1:30p.m.  Regardless of whether a typographical error was the cause for this mistake or not, a typo isn’t a legal excuse for failing to provide advanced notice of a checkpoint. 

 

There were other activities at the Holiday Drive checkpoint that should concern the public.  The exact location where the police set up their roadblock included the entrances and exits of two hotels.  When the police initially set out their cones and signs that marked the beginning and end of the checkpoint, the forward officer stationed next to the “advanced warning” sign was aft of one of the hotel entrances.  At one point, a young white male driving an old, worn out, full size car pulled into the hotel parking lot prior to the first police officer thus avoiding the police gauntlet.  Rather than recognizing that the driver had the legal right to pull into the hotel parking lot, a police officer went in after the driver to check him out.  The officer approached the parking space in the lot where the driver parked and spent approximately ten minutes interrogating the driver and ultimately, issued him ticket[s].

 

It was only after the police recognized that drivers could avoid the roadblock by simply turning into the hotel parking lot that the police officer working the forward point of the police checkpoint picked up the “advance warning sign” and moved it forward toward Highway 17 so that the hotel entrance would be included in the checkpoint.  This action alone demonstrates the lack of advanced planning, and the presence of unfettered police discretion at the Holiday Drive checkpoint.  Based on what was witnessed, it is reasonable to assume that every police roadblock conducted in Summerville on the 10^th and 11^th of November were conducted outside the parameters set by the U.S. Supreme Court. 

 

The people of South Carolina need to demand that the legislators outlaw police roadblocks in South Carolina.  The only time a roadblock should be permissible is during high pursuit.  The victims of the illegal Summerville checkpoints need to fight against the evidence gathered at these checkpoints from being introduced in court by demanding that their lawyer file a motion to suppress evidence.  Lawyers need to step up to the plate and actually practice law instead of only practicing the collection of fees.  Finally, the county solicitor should verify the accuracy of this article’s content, and upon confirmation of the facts presented by the Muckraker Report, all tickets, fines, arrests, and evidence gathered at the Summerville police roadblocks on November 10^th and 11^th should be nullified, with all pending court cases being immediately dismissed.