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SUPREMECOURTDOCKET
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EXTRACTED KEY WORDS
INDIANAPOLIS CURIAE CITY STEVENS RESPONDENTS AMICUS CURIAE AMICI CURIAE LAWYERS DISSENTING OPINION THOMAS BRIEFON MERITS COURT KENNEDY SOUTER GINSBURG WHICHSCALIA SOUTHERN DISTRICT STEPHEN GOLDSMITH JAMES EDMOND AMERICANS EFFECTIVE LAW ENFORCEMENT KANSAS NATIONAL LEAGUE CITIES WASHINGTON LEGAL FOUNDATION NATIONAL ASSOCIATION CRIMINAL DEFENSE LAWYERS RUTHERFORD INSTITUTE |
No. 99-1030 Status: DECIDED
Title: City of Indianapolis, et al., Petitioners
v.
James Edmond, et al.
Docketed: Lower Ct: United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit
December 17, 1999 (98-4124)
~~Date~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~Proceedings and Orders~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Oct 29 1999 Application (A99-356) to extend the time to file a petition for a writ
of certiorari from November 16, 1999 to December 16, 1999,
submitted to Justice Stevens.
Nov 1 1999 Application (A99-356) granted by Justice Stevens extending the
time to file until December 16, 1999.
Dec 15 1999 Petition for writ of certiorari filed. (Response due January 16, 2000)
Jan 10 2000 Brief of respondents James Edmond, Joell Palmer, et al. in opposition
filed.
Jan 25 2000 Reply brief of petitioner filed.
Jan 26 2000 DISTRIBUTED for Conference of February 18, 2000
Feb 22 2000 Petition GRANTED.
SET FOR ARGUMENT October 3, 2000.
********************************************************
Mar 13 2000 Order extending time to file petitioners' brief on the merits to
and including May 1, 2000. Respondents' briefon the merits is due
on or before May 31, 2000. A reply brief, if any, is due on or
before June 30, 2000.
Apr 4 2000 Brief amici curiae of Americans for Effective Law Enforcement, et al.
filed.
Apr 21 2000 Order extending time to file petitioners' brief on the merits to
and including May 15, 2000. Respondents' brief is due on or before
June 15, 2000, and a reply brief, if any, is due on or before July
14, 2000.
May 15 2000 Brief amici curiae of Kansas, et al. filed.
May 15 2000 Joint appendix filed.
May 15 2000 Brief of petitioners City of Indianapolis, Indiana, et al. filed.
May 15 2000 Brief amici curiae of National League of Cities, et al. filed.
May 15 2000 Brief amici curiae of Washington Legal Foundation, et al. filed.
May 15 2000 Brief amicus curiae of United States filed.
May 31 2000 Order extending time to file respondents' brief on the merits to
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AMICUSUNITEDSTATES
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EXTRACTED KEY WORDS
COURT UNITED STATES AMENDMENT LAW ENFORCEMENT VEHICLE CHECKPOINTS OFFICERS SEIZURE LICENSE APPEALS MOTORISTS NARCOTICS AUTOMOBILE SERVE GOVERNMENT REASONABLENESS INDIANAPOLIS MARTINEZ-FUERTE INSPECTION POLICE OFFICERS LICENSE-AND-REGISTRATION CHECKPOINT PROGRAM INDIVIDUALIZED SUSPICION CRIMINAL LAW CURIAE SUPPORTING PETITIONERS IMPAIRMENT DRUG-DETECTION ADMINISTRATION BORDER PATROL CONSTITUTIONALITY |
No. 99-1030
In the Supreme Court of the United States
CITY OF INDIANAPOLIS, ET AL., PETITIONERS
v.
JAMES EDMOND, ET AL.
ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI
TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE SEVENTH CIRCUIT
BRIEF FOR THE UNITED STATES
AS AMICUS CURIAE SUPPORTING PETITIONERS
SETH P. WAXMAN
Solicitor General
Counsel of Record
JAMES K. ROBINSON
Assistant Attorney General
MICHAEL R. DREEBEN
Deputy Solicitor General
PATRICIA A. MILLETT
Assistant to the Solicitor
General
KARIN B. HOPPMANN
MICHAEL A. ROTKER
Attorneys
Department of Justice
Washington, D. C. 20530-0001
(202) 514-2217
QUESTION PRESENTED
Whether checkpoints at which law enforcement
officers briefly stop vehicular traffic, check motorists'
licenses and vehicle registrations, look for signs of im-
pairment, and walk a "narcotics detection" dog around
the exterior of each stopped automobile violate the
Fourth Amendment.
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12
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Government Exhibit # 7THCIRCUITOPINION
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EXTRACTED KEY WORDS
UNITED STATES DRUG AMENDMENT COURT INDIANAPOLIS POLICE CITY DISTRICT JUDGE CRIMINAL LAW REASONABLENESS SEIZURE SUPRA CIR GOVERNMENT PURPOSE MARTINEZ-FUERTE POLICE DEPARTMENT DRUG OFFENDERS PRELIMINARY INJUNCTION LAW ENFORCEMENT REGULATORY CONSTITUTION PRINCIPLE COLLEAGUES CIRCUIT JUDGES APPEALS JAMES EDMOND CHIEF JUDGE PLAINTIFFS CLAIM VIOLATES |
U.S. 7th Circuit Court of Appeals
JAMES EDMOND, ET AL. v STEPHEN GOLDSMITH, ETC., ET AL.
situated,
Plaintiffs-Appellants,
v.
Stephen Goldsmith, in his official capacity as Mayor
of the City of Indianapolis, Indiana; City of
Indianapolis, Indiana; and Unknown Members
of the Indianapolis Police Department,
Defendants-Appellees.
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Southern District of Indiana, Indianapolis Division.
No. 98 C 1400--Sarah Evans Barker, Chief Judge.
Argued April 12, 1999--Decided July 7, 1999
Before Posner, Chief Judge, and Easterbrook and Diane P. Wood, Circuit Judges.
Posner, Chief Judge. A class action has been brought to enjoin the City of Indianapolis from
setting up roadblocks to catch drug offenders, a practice that the plaintiffs claim violates the
Fourth Amendment. The plaintiffs' motion for a preliminary injunction was denied on the ground
that the City's practice is lawful, precipitating this interlocutory appeal under 28 U.S.C. sec.
1292(a)(1). The legality of drug roadblocks has divided the other courts that have been asked to
decide the issue. Compare United States v. Huguenin, 154 F.3d 547, 554-55 (6th Cir. 1998);
United States v. Morales-Zamora, 974 F.2d 149 (10th Cir. 1992); Galberth v. United States, 590
A.2d 990 (D.C. 1991), and Wilson v. Commonwealth, 509 S.E.2d 540 (Va. App. 1999), which
held them illegal, with Merrett v. Moore, 58 F.3d 1547 (11th Cir. 1995), and State v. Damask,
936 S.W.2d 565 (Mo. 1996), which held them legal. This is our first case. Because it was
decided by the district court on a very skimpy stipulation of facts, our ruling on the legality of
the City's program is necessarily tentative.
Six times between August and November of last year, the City's police department set up
roadblocks on Indianapolis streets to catch drug offenders. A total of 1,161 cars were stopped at
these roadblocks--for how long is unclear but the police endeavor to operate the checkpoints in
such a manner that the stop does not exceed five minutes. During the stop, the police demand the
driver's license and car registration, peer through the car's windows into its interior, and lead a
drug-sniffing dog around the car. The stopping of the 1,161 vehicles resulted in 55 drug-related
arrests, meaning that 5 percent of the total number of stops resulted in successful drug "hits," and
49 arrests for conduct unrelated to drugs, such as driving with an expired driver's license, for an
overall hit rate of 9 percent. The City is continuing the program.
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SUPREMECOURTOPINION
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EXTRACTED KEY WORDS
PRIMARY PURPOSE CHECKPOINT PROGRAM SUSPICION UNITED STATES CRIME MARTINEZ-FUERTE INDIANAPOLIS NARCOTICS VEHICLE DRUG SITZ CONSTITUTIONALITY COURT POLICE HIGHWAY ROADBLOCKS INTERDICTION LAW ENFORCEMENT JAMES EDMOND PETITIONERS CRIME CONTROL INDIVIDUALIZED SUSPICION HIGHWAY SAFETY DRUNK DRIVERS SOBRIETY CHECKPOINT LAW ENFORCEMENT PROBLEMS CERTIORARI DRUNK DRIVING INTERDICT UNLAWFUL DRUGS |
CITY OF INDIANAPOLIS, et al.,
PETITIONERS v.
JAMES EDMOND et al.
on writ of certiorari to the united states court of
appeals for the seventh circuit
[November 28, 2000]
Justice O'Connor delivered the opinion of the Court.
In Michigan Dept. of State Police v. Sitz, 496 U. S. 444 (1990), and United States v.
Martinez-Fuerte, 428 U. S. 543 (1976), we held that brief, suspicionless seizures at highway
checkpoints for the purposes of combating drunk driving and intercepting illegal immigrants
were constitutional. We now consider the constitutionality of a highway checkpoint program
whose primary purpose is the discovery and interdiction of illegal narcotics.
I
In August 1998, the city of Indianapolis began to operate vehicle checkpoints on Indianapolis
roads in an effort to interdict unlawful drugs. The city conducted six such roadblocks between
August and November that year, stopping 1,161 vehicles and arresting 104 motorists. Fifty-five
arrests were for drug-related crimes, while 49 were for offenses unrelated to drugs. Edmond v.
Goldsmith, 183 F. 3d 659, 661 (CA7 1999). The overall "hit rate" of the program was thus
approximately nine percent.
The parties stipulated to the facts concerning the operation of the checkpoints by the
Indianapolis Police Department (IPD) for purposes of the preliminary injunction proceedings
instituted below. At each checkpoint location, the police stop a predetermined number of
vehicles. Approximately 30 officers are stationed at the checkpoint. Pursuant to written
directives issued by the chief of police, at least one officer approaches the vehicle, advises the
driver that he or she is being stopped briefly at a drug checkpoint, and asks the driver to produce
a license and registration. The officer also looks for signs of impairment and conducts an open-
view examination of the vehicle from the outside. A narcotics-detection dog walks around the
outside of each stopped vehicle.
The directives instruct the officers that they may conduct a search only by consent or based
on the appropriate quantum of particularized suspicion. The officers must conduct each stop in
the same manner until particularized suspicion develops, and the officers have no discretion to
stop any vehicle out of sequence. The city agreed in the stipulation to operate the checkpoints in
such a way as to ensure that the total duration of each stop, absent reasonable suspicion or
probable cause, would be five minutes or less.
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DISSENTING
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EXTRACTED KEY WORDS
ROADBLOCK MARTINEZ-FUERTE INTRUSION AUTOMOBILE CHECKPOINTS AMENDMENT UNITED STATES SERVE MOTORISTS SITZ PURPOSE VEHICLE REASONS COURT CONSTITUTIONALITY POLICE OFFICERS HIGHWAY STOPS PRIVACY SUPRA LICENSES VEHICLE REGISTRATIONS BROWN TEXAS BALANCING PRIMARY PURPOSE MINIMAL INTRUSION DRUGS |
CITY OF INDIANAPOLIS, et al.,
PETITIONERS v.
JAMES EDMOND et al.
on writ of certiorari to the united states court of
appeals for the seventh circuit
[November 28, 2000]
Chief Justice Rehnquist, with whom Justice Thomas joins, and with whom Justice Scalia
joins as to Part I, dissenting.
The State's use of a drug-sniffing dog, according to the Court's holding, annuls what is
otherwise plainly constitutional under our Fourth Amendment jurisprudence: brief, standardized,
discretionless, roadblock seizures of automobiles, seizures which effectively serve a weighty
state interest with only minimal intrusion on the privacy of their occupants. Because these
seizures serve the State's accepted and significant interests of preventing drunken driving and
checking for driver's licenses and vehicle registrations, and because there is nothing in the record
to indicate that the addition of the dog sniff lengthens these otherwise legitimate seizures, I
dissent.
I
As it is nowhere to be found in the Court's opinion, I begin with blackletter roadblock seizure
law. "The principal protection of Fourth Amendment rights at checkpoints lies in appropriate
limitations on the scope of the stop." United States v. Martinez-Fuerte, 428 U. S. 543, 566-567
(1976). Roadblock seizures are consistent with the Fourth Amendment if they are "carried out
pursuant to a plan embodying explicit, neutral limitations on the conduct of individual officers."
Brown v. Texas, 443 U. S. 47, 51 (1979). Specifically, the constitutionality of a seizure turns
upon "a weighing of the gravity of the public concerns served by the seizure, the degree to which
the seizure advances the public interest, and the severity of the interference with individual
liberty." Id., at 50-51.
We first applied these principles in Martinez-Fuerte, supra, which approved highway
checkpoints for detecting illegal aliens. In Martinez-Fuerte, we balanced the United States'
formidable interest in checking the flow of illegal immigrants against the limited "objective" and
"subjective" intrusion on the motorists. The objective intrusion--the stop itself,1 the brief
questioning of the occupants, and the visual inspection of the car--was considered "limited"
because "[n]either the vehicle nor its occupants [were] searched." Id., at 558. Likewise, the
subjective intrusion, or the fear and surprise engendered in law-abiding motorists by the nature
of the stop, was found to be minimal because the "regularized manner in which [the] established
checkpoints [were] operated [was] visible evidence, reassuring to law-abiding motorists, that the
stops [were] duly authorized and believed to serve the public interest." Id., at 559. Indeed, the
standardized operation of the roadblocks was viewed as markedly different from roving patrols,
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SYLLABUS
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EXTRACTED KEY WORDS
PURPOSE COURT UNITED STATES CHECKPOINT PROGRAM AMENDMENT PRIMARY PURPOSE MARTINEZ-FUERTE SITZ SAFETY LAW ENFORCEMENT DISSENTING OPINION ROADBLOCKS INDIVIDUALIZED SUSPICION DRIVERS LICENSES BORDER AUTHORITIES WRONGDOING SOBRIETY POLICE VERIFY REGISTRATIONS SERVE HIGHWAY SAFETY PROUSE ARRESTING ABILITY NATURE THREAT |
CITY OF INDIANAPOLIS et al. v.
EDMOND et al.
certiorari to the united states court of appeals for the seventh circuit
No. 99-1030. Argued October 3, 2000--Decided November 28, 2000
Petitioner city operates vehicle checkpoints on its roads in an effort to interdict unlawful drugs.
Respondents, who were each stopped at such a checkpoint, filed suit, claiming that the
roadblocks violated the Fourth Amendment. The District Court denied respondents a preliminary
injunction, but the Seventh Circuit reversed, holding that the checkpoints contravened the Fourth
Amendment.
Held: Because the checkpoint program's primary purpose is indistinguishable from the general
interest in crime control, the checkpoints violate the Fourth Amendment. Pp. 3-15.
(a) The rule that a search or seizure is unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment absent
individualized suspicion of wrongdoing has limited exceptions. For example, this Court has
upheld brief, suspicionless seizures at a fixed checkpoint designed to intercept illegal aliens,
United States v. Martinez-Fuerte, 428 U. S. 543, and at a sobriety checkpoint aimed at removing
drunk drivers from the road, Michigan Dept. of State Police v. Sitz, 496 U. S. 444. The Court has
also suggested that a similar roadblock to verify drivers' licenses and registrations would be
permissible to serve a highway safety interest. Delaware v. Prouse, 440 U. S. 648, 663.
However, the Court has never approved a checkpoint program whose primary purpose was to
detect evidence of ordinary criminal wrongdoing. Pp. 3-7.
(b) The latter purpose is what principally distinguishes the checkpoints at issue from those
Court has previously approved, which were designed to serve purposes closely related to the
problems of policing the border or the necessity of ensuring roadway safety. Petitioners state that
the Sitz and Martinez-Fuerte checkpoints had the same ultimate purpose of arresting those
suspected of committing crimes. Securing the border and apprehending drunken drivers are law
enforcement activities, and authorities employ arrests and criminal prosecutions to pursue these
goals. But if this case were to rest at such a high level of generality, there would be little check
on the authorities' ability to construct roadblocks for almost any conceivable law enforcement
purpose. The checkpoint program is also not justified by the severe and intractable nature of the
drug problem. The gravity of the threat alone cannot be dispositive of questions concerning what
means law enforcement may employ to pursue a given purpose. Rather, in determining whether
individualized suspicion is required, the Court must consider the nature of the interests
threatened and their connection to the particular law enforcement practices at issue. Nor can the
checkpoints' purpose be rationalized in terms of a highway safety concern similar to that in Sitz,
or merely likened to the antismuggling purpose in Martinez-Fuerte. Neither Whren v. United
States, 517 U. S. 806, nor Bond v. United States, 529 U. S. 334, precludes an inquiry into the
checkpoint program's purposes. And if the program could be justified by its lawful secondary
purposes of keeping impaired motorists off the road and verifying licenses and registrations,
authorities would be able to establish checkpoints for virtually any purpose so long as they also
included a license or sobriety check. That is why the Court must determine the primary purpose
of the checkpoint program. This holding does not alter the constitutional status of the
checkpoints approved in Sitz and Martinez-Fuerte, or the type of checkpoint suggested in
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ORAL ARGUMENTS
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EXTRACTED KEY WORDS
COURT INDIANAPOLIS DRUG CAR PURPOSE LICENSE CITY DOG UNITED STATES CONTEXT SEIZURE PEDESTRIAN BROWN INVESTIGATORY BALANCING TEST MARTINEZ-FUERTE GOVERNMENT CRIMINAL INVESTIGATORY EXPECTATION REGULATORY PRIMARY PURPOSE INTRUSION SMUGGLING ILLEGAL ALIENS RATIONALE ESQ DRUG DISTRIBUTORS MOTORISTS LEGITIMATE |
1 IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES 2 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - x 3 CITY OF INDIANAPOLIS, INDIANA, AND : 4 BART PETERSON, IN HIS OFFICIAL : 5 CAPACITY AS MAYOR OF THE CITY OF : 6 INDIANAPOLIS, : 7 Petitioners, : 8 v. : No. 99-1030 9 JAMES EDMOND AND JOELL PALMER, ON : 10 THEIR OWN BEHALF AND ON BEHALF OF A : 11 CLASS OF THOSE SIMILARLY SITUATED, : 12 Respondent. : 13 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - x 14 Washington, D.C. 15 Tuesday, October 3, 2000 16 The above-entitled matter came on for oral 17 argument before the Supreme Court of the United States 18 at 10:00 a.m. 19 APPEARANCES: 20 A. SCOTT CHINN, ESQ., Indianapolis, Indiana; on behalf 21 of the Petitioners. 22 PATRICIA MILLETT, ESQ., Washington, D.C.; on behalfSNIPPETS: |
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