ABSTRACT
In City of Indianapolis v. Edmond, the US Supreme Court considered whether a city procedure under which cars were stopped at checkpoints to enable law enforcement officials to screen for drugs violated the protection against unreasonable search and seizure provided by the Fourth Amendment to the US Constitution. Indianapolis, Indiana, police instituted a procedure to stop drivers, check licenses and registrations, and inform the drivers they had been stopped at a drug checkpoint. Officers would visually inspect vehicles and check drivers for obvious signs of impairment. If the Indianapolis program could be justified by its secondary purposes of keeping impaired motorists off the road and verifying licenses and registrations, law enforcement authorities would be able to establish checkpoints for virtually any purpose as long as the stops included license or sobriety checks. The Court concluded the Indianapolis drug checkpoint program was indistinguishable from its general crime control function and thus required individualized suspicion.
