Sobriety Checkpoints Challenged
As a DWI criminal defense attorney in Austin, I have watched the debate over sobriety checkpoints with extra interest. In recent years the state legislature has considered allowing sobriety checkpoints in Texas, with one such measure failing to come out of committee just this past Spring. The legality of checkpoints is questionable and their implementation in Texas could violate existing state laws. One of the more vocal arguments against checkpoints, however, is their effectiveness in relation to cost, a point well made in the following article.
The American Beverage Institute recently released statistics showing that of the one million motorists stopped at sobriety checkpoints in California during 2008, the percentage of people arrested for suspicion of drunk driving was minor:
For example, in 2008, over a million vehicles went through 1,469 California checkpoints. Police arrested just one-third of 1 percent of those motorists for drunk driving.
A similar analysis in Arizona found that over a two year span, sobriety checkpoints caught less than one percent of 46,000 drivers stopped. On top of that incredibly low arrest rate, the program cost taxpayers over $140,000.
That low percentage points out the relative ineffectiveness of checkpoints. The number of defendants is even lower when factoring in those who were found to not be legally defined as under the influence of alcohol or drugs, and had their cases reduced or dismissed.
The effort to fight drunk driving is not the issue, and drunk driving is never condoned. Rather it is the methods employed in an effort to achieve road safety that are questioned.
Checkpoints are costly due to the manpower required to staff them and the overtime pay associated. In addition, conducting a single location drunk driving crackdown that by law must be advertised is generally ineffective.
Sobriety checkpoints became legal following a 1990 ruling by the US Supreme Court. Then Chief Justice William Rehnquist agreed that such checkpoints violated the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments protecting citizens from unreasonable searches and guaranteeing due process of law. Despite that position, in what has now been considered an example of judicial activism, he still granted broader government power by saying that a state’s interests in reducing drunk driving, however ineffective, outweigh basic constitutional rights.
Alternatives to checkpoints include saturation patrols in areas known for high incidents of driving while intoxicated and roving patrols with officers specially trained to observe behavior indicative of intoxication. Not only do such activities uphold constitutional rights, they are based on probable cause when initiating a traffic stop.
