Musings from Brian J. Noggle

No Probable Cause? No Problem!

The Supreme Court has said that the police can stop your car and give you a flier, and then arrest or ticket you for whatever they uncover:

llinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan said the Supreme Court's ruling "will allow law enforcement in Illinois and across the nation to seek voluntary assistance from citizens in their efforts to solve crime."

Roadblock = Voluntary assistance

Once you embrace that, citizen, you will be happy.

The case stemmed from someone who was busted for DUI while stopping for one of these roadblocks for an unrelated crime committed a week earlier:

The constitutionality of the informational roadblocks was challenged by Robert Lidster, accused of drunken driving at a 1997 checkpoint set up to get tips about an unrelated fatal hit-and-run accident. The roadblock was at the same spot and time of night that the hit-and-run took place about a week earlier.

Authorities in Lombard, Ill., got no helpful tips that night in the death of a 70-year-old bicyclist, but they arrested Lidster after police said he nearly hit an officer with his minivan.

Law enforcement loves roadblocks. And they're not just for dangerous criminals anymore! They're for illegal immigrants, drunken driving scans, and for passing out literature. Did the roadblock work? No.

Lidster argued that police could have used other methods to get information about the hit-and-run driver, like billboards or stories in newspapers and on radio and television stations. Television coverage of the roadblock did lead to information that helped solve the case.

So the police handing out literature, nor stopping drivers in the middle of the night to answer a few questions, helped them in the case for which they set up the roadblocks. But those roadblocks did, however, come in handy for at least one unrelated crime. That's the point.

This, like so many other handy law enforcement practices and new laws, is all about bringing you, the potentially guilty citizen, in contact with police where they have a pretense to look for probable cause. Now, police can pull you over for driving without a seatbelt, or if it looks like you don't have a seatbelt on, or for driving in the left lane for longer than they want. And once you're on the side of the road, then the fun begins. Where are you going? What's in the bag? Can we take a look in your trunk?

- posted by Brian J. @ 6:59 PM