ABSTRACT
The final component of vehicle stops and searches is when police set up roadblocks in efforts to prevent illegal activity such as drinking and driving (as opposed to setting up a roadblock in an attempt to seize a particular person). The practice of establishing roadblocks to detect people drinking and driving became popular among police in the late 1980s. The constitutionality was challenged and the Court held these kinds of police actions constitutional under limited circumstances (Michigan Department of State Police v. Sitz, 496 U.S. 444 [1990]). In another case, however, the Court ruled that highway checkpoints whose primary purpose is to detect evidence of ordinary criminal wrongdoing violated the Fourth Amendment (Indianapolis v. Edmond, 531 U.S. 32 [2000]). Finally, in Illinois v. Lidster, 540 U.S. 419 (2004), the Court ruled that police checkpoints set up for the purpose of obtaining information from motorists about a hit-and-run accident are valid under the Fourth Amendment. These cases show that roadblocks must meet a standard of individualized suspicion absent some compelling societal interest. This means roadblocks designed to enhance safety on the roads are acceptable, whereas roadblocks designed to detect “ordinary criminal wrongdoing” are not.
