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A joint effort by several law enforcement agencies in Pitt County recently used a sobriety checkpoint to bring charges against 95 drivers in Greenville, North Carolina. The Greenville Police Department, the Pitt County Sheriff’s Office, along with police from East Carolina University, the North Carolina Highway Patrol and officers from the Ayden, Grifton and Vidant police departments joined together to run a DWI checkpoint on Allen Road in Greenville recently. Law enforcement plans to use checkpoints again in the future.

Authorities say that six people were arrested at the recent Greenville, North Carolina checkpoint on suspicion of driving while impaired. However, police say that another 89 drivers are facing a variety of other charges based upon the use of the DWI checkpoint.

Authorities say that 17 people were found to be driving with a revoked license during the roadblock check. A dozen were allegedly found to be driving without a valid license. Police accuse a number of people of a variety of traffic offenses–several people are facing drug charges, and other felony arrests were also made in the law enforcement effort to enforce DWI laws.

Not all states allow law enforcement to conduct sobriety checkpoints. Most North Carolina drivers are aware the DWI checkpoints are used throughout the state to enforce North Carolina drunk driving laws. Some out-of-state visitors, or students who study in North Carolina, may be surprised that DWI checkpoints are used in the state, especially those out-of-state drivers who hail from the states that have outlawed sobriety checkpoints.

The United States Supreme Court says that the use of checkpoints to enforce DWI laws is constitutional as long as the roadblocks are conducted with proper safeguards to protect the integrity of the law enforcement action.

In other words, a checkpoint cannot be set up and run at the whim of law enforcement, but when properly conducted, a DWI checkpoint may be constitutionally sound, according to the nation’s highest court (some of the states that do not allow sobriety checkpoints do not allow the roadblocks under state constitutional protections).

However, just because North Carolina generally allows for sobriety checkpoints, drivers accused of DWI should not be shy to contact a DWI defense lawyer regarding the allegations involved in an individual case.

Source: WNCT, “Greenville DWI check nets 95 violations, including 6 DWI’s,” Jonathan Rodriguez, updated March 4, 2013

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Several North Carolina law enforcement agencies reportedly set up a sobriety checkpoint in Newton early Sunday morning. The driving while impaired enforcement operation started around midnight. Police claim that while they were starting to wrap up the enforcement operation around 2:45 a.m., a 21-year-old Hickory man crashed his vehicle into the rear of a state Breath Alcohol Testing lab, which is commonly referred to as a “BAT Mobile.”

This blog has previously discussed the state’s use of BAT Mobiles at DWI checkpoints. The unit includes a breath testing machine, the results of which can be used against North Carolina drivers for DWI charges. Police say around eight people, including a magistrate, several officers and two people suspected of DWI were inside the BAT Mobile at the time of the accident.

One of the officers at the site says alcohol may have been involved in the accident at the DWI checkpoint. The driver accused of crashing into the BAT Mobile was taken to the hospital. Law enforcement says that the man was drifting in and out of consciousness after being involved in the accident. No other injuries were reported in the incident.

The Newton Police Department says charges against the driver accused of crashing into the BAT Mobile are pending the outcome of a further investigation.

The DWI checkpoint reportedly was being conducted by officers from the Newton, Hickory and Conover Police Departments, along with deputies from the Catawba County Sheriff’s Office, agent from Alcohol Law Enforcement and State Highway Patrol troopers.

Source: Hickory Record, “Hickory man crashes car into DWI checkpoint,” Richard Gould, Dec. 5, 2011

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Recently this blog reported a story of a Saturday DWI checkpoint along North Carolina’s coast that was terminated early due to the large traffic jam that the checkpoint created and the inconvenience to the community. Law enforcement agencies in Greenville and Pitt County, like agencies across the state, use checkpoints to investigate potential traffic violations and to find evidence of driving while impaired.

A North Carolina DWI checkpoint operation was set up last week in Elon. Elon police say they conduct checkpoint operations in areas where they believe speeding and drunk driving may be an issue. The Thursday checkpoint operation was originally scheduled to run until 1 a.m. on Friday. Officers say the traffic was light that night and officers closed down the operation roughly a half-hour early. Roughly five minutes after officer’s closed the operation, a 21-year-old passenger from one of the stopped vehicles was struck and killed in a traffic accident.

Police say they stopped an Isuzu Rodeo while the checkpoint was still operating. Police claim the driver was driving while revoked. The officer told the driver to call for a licensed driver to take the Isuzu from the checkpoint.

Police say a Pontiac later arrived and stopped a distance from the checkpoint. An officer reportedly conducted a traffic stop of the Pontiac, claiming the car did not have its lights on. Police claim the driver was there to pick up the occupants of the Isuzu, but the driver did not have a valid license. A passenger reportedly did have a valid license.

Law enforcement says while the officers and the occupants of the two vehicles were discussing how the people were going to drive the Isuzu and Pontiac from the checkpoint area with only one licensed driver, a 41-year-old woman approached in a Jeep grand Cherokee and struck the passenger from the Isuzu, who was standing alongside the Pontiac.

Police claim the woman in the Grand Cherokee was given a breath test for alcohol, which returned a result of .04. The woman also reportedly submitted a blood sample. She was originally arrested for DWI. Prosecutors reportedly later dropped that charge and filed charges of misdemeanor death by motor vehicle and failing to move over related to the allegations.

Elon police say they have reviewed the incident and have no plans to modify their DWI checkpoint procedures.

Source: Burlington Times News, “Accident won’t change Elon police checkpoints,” Rosalee Papandrea 14 Jul 2011

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Heading toward the Fourth of July, North Carolina law enforcement agencies continue to set up checkpoints across the state. Greenville DWI defense attorneys know local agencies often set up checkpoints to check drivers in the state for impairment. Saturday, agents from the North Carolina Wildlife Resource Commission sought to enforce laws along the Intercoastal near Wrightsville Beach.

At the same time, several law enforcement agencies set up a DWI checkpoint operation to stop drivers crossing the drawbridge leading to the island. Previously, the Wrightsville Beach Mayor and the Board of Alderman voted against setting up the DWI checkpoint on the island side of the bridge. Now some people in the coastal North Carolina community are upset over the DWI checkpoint operation that was conducted Saturday.

The checkpoint was set up on Saturday, when traffic levels at the oceanfront community are high. Wrightsville Beach Mayor David Cignotti says the island “is not the place for a roadblock of this type in the middle of summer on a Saturday.”

The Mayor says he hopes law enforcement does not hold a similar operation again. However, Corporal Jerry Brewer with New Hanover County Sheriff’s Office says the office will definitely look at Saturday’s operation “and see how we can learn from it and do better in the future.” The New Hanover County Sheriff’s Department led the DWI checkpoint effort.

The Mayor says the damage caused by the massive traffic jam that resulted Saturday outweighs the good. The operation was called off early. Cars lined up for the checkpoint causing a major traffic jam. Authorities say no arrests were made during the two hour period the operation remained up and running. However, Cpl. Brewer says roughly two North Carolina drug charges resulted from the operation.

Source: WECT “Checkpoint problems in Wrightsville Beach,” Craig Reck 28 Jun 2011

Greenville DUI Attorney Blog | North Carolina Underage Drinking Lawyer | Pitt County First DUI Law Firm

It’s amazing how twisted things can get when politicians want to grab headlines…

Google, Apple Pressed to Remove DUI Checkpoint Apps

PC World.  May 11 – Google and Apple are under pressure from Senator Charles Schumer to remove smartphone apps that alert users to the locations of nearby police DUI checkpoints. These apps typically use your device’s GPS capabilities to alert you to nearby speed traps, red light traffic cameras, and DUI checkpoints from a database of user-generated locations.

Schumer asked Apple and Google to consider whether these apps violate the companies’ respective terms of service by facilitating illegal activity. These apps "endanger public safety by allowing drunk drivers to avoid police checkpoints," Schumer said during a hearing for the new Senate Judiciary subcommittee on privacy and technology…

Guy Tribble, Apple’s vice president for software technology, also pointed out during the hearing that many police departments across the United States already publicize the locations of DUI checkpoints.

Offering checkpoint apps is "facilitating illegal activity"?  Ok, Senator, here’s a refresher course on the Constitution….

A number of years ago the Michigan Supreme Court held that DUI roadblocks (aka "sobriety checkpoints) were unconstitutional. Such warrantless stops, the court correctly concluded, were a violation of the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution since American citizens cannot be stopped in their cars without reasonable suspicion to believe that they had committed a crime.

The United States Supreme Court thereafter reversed the state court. In Michigan v. Sitz, Chief Justice Rehnquist essentially admitted that the stops were violations of citizens’ rights — but found that these were only "minimal" violations. And these minimal intrusions, Rehnquist found, were outweighed by the more important interests of the government in ensuring safety on the highways. However, the Court left to the states the role of determining how to minimize these intrusions.

The first state supreme court decision to define these regulations was Ingersoll v. Palmer. In that landmark case, which has served as a model for other states, the California Supreme Court laid down ways to minimize the intrusions mentioned by the U.S. Supreme Court in Sitz. These procedures specifically included the use by police departments of  "advance publicity":

"Advance publicity is important to the maintenance of a constitutionally permissible sobriety checkpoint. Publicity both reduces the intrusiveness of the stop and increases the deterrent effect of the roadblock.

"The concurring opinion in State ex rel. Ekstrom v. Justice Ct. of State, supra, 663 P.2d 992, at page 1001 explained the value of advance publicity: "Such publicity would warn those using the highways that they might expect to find roadblocks designed to check for sobriety; the warning may well decrease the chance of apprehending ‘ordinary’ criminals, but should certainly have a considerable deterring effect by either dissuading people from taking ‘one more for the road,’ persuading them to drink at home, or inducing them to take taxicabs.

"Any one of these goals, if achieved, would have the salutary effect of interfering with the lethal combination of alcohol and gasoline. Advance notice would limit intrusion upon personal dignity and security because those being stopped would anticipate and understand what was happening." (663 P.2d 992, 1001, conc. opn.Feldman, J.; see also State v. Deskins, supra, 673 P.2d 1174, 1182.) Publicity also serves to establish the legitimacy of sobriety checkpoints in the minds of motorists. Although the court in Jones v. State, supra, 459 So.2d 1068, found that advance publicity was not constitutionally mandated for all sobriety roadblocks, nevertheless the court offered the observation, consistent with finding reasonableness under the Fourth Amendment, that [43 Cal. 3d 1347] "’[A]dvance publication of the date of an intended roadblock, even without announcing its precise location, would have the virtue of reducing surprise, fear, and inconvenience.’ [Citation.]" (Id., at p. 1080.)"

Gee, maybe that’s why, as the Apple V.P. tried to explain to Senator Schumer, "many police departments across the United States already publicize the locations of DUI sobriety checkpoints".

On the other hand, maybe the Senators should subpoena the state supreme court justices and find out why they’re " facilitating illegal activity".
 

DUI BLOG

Allegations of DWI can often have far reaching collateral consequences. Any Greenville DWI defense attorney knows that a DWI conviction can haunt many people in future job searches. Many businesses and professions conduct background searches for prior criminal charges including DWI.

In some cases allegations alone can cause people hardship in the workplace. Saturday, the principal of a Martin County school turned in his resignation from his position. The resignation followed a Washington County arrest for DWI on April 8. The principle was allegedly driving while impaired on North Carolina 45 in Washington County.

Law enforcement set up a driver’s license checkpoint near the Bertie County line on N.C. 45 April 8. Police claim the 54-year-old veteran educator was stopped during the April 8 operation. The former high school principle reportedly was administered a breathalyzer test after being stopped at the checkpoint. Police arrested the educator at roughly 6:24 p.m. Law enforcement claims the breathalyzer results exceeded a reading of .08 alcohol content; the legal limit is .08 in North Carolina for the purposes of DWI law.

The former educator reportedly also faces charges of possession of an open container of an alcoholic beverage and driving without a license. The 54-year-old is scheduled to appear in court to face the charges on June 28.

In addition to the criminal charges, the 54-year-old is subject to license revocation. License suspensions and revocations can make travel very difficult for people in North Carolina. Once suspended, many people face additional suspensions after being pulled over in subsequent investigations. An experienced driver’s license reinstatement attorney can assess what options may be available for drivers who have lost their driving privilege.

Source: The Daily Reflector, “Principal arrested for DWI resigns,” Brenda Monty 15 Apr 2011

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Recently, four Democratic senators wrote letters to Apple, Android and RIM, asking them to blacklist mobile apps for their phones that informed users of the times and locations of DWI checkpoints.

Part of what makes checkpoints effective is deterrent. It’s a way for law enforcement to let drivers know that drunk driving isn’t something you can get away with.  Whenever you go through a checkpoint or hear a warning about one, you’re reminded that you’re playing with fire when you drive drunk. In this way, awareness of DUI checkpoints isn’t a problem.

However, the names of these apps give away their intended use – Buzzed, Fuzz Alert, and MrDUI, to name a few. The fear is that hardcore drunk drivers won’t be dissuaded by the warning but convinced that with their smartphone they can successfully evade the law. Subsequently, many lives will be put at risk.

While these apps may be legal, they’re wholly unethical. Our roads would be safer if these apps hadn’t been made. We call upon the developers to put their minds and technology to better use. After all developers, you most likely drive and share our nation’s roads, too…

Century Council Blog

Senators are now pressuring Apple and others companies to remove internet applications which warn motorists of drunk driving roadblocks.

Senators Ask Apple, Google, RIM to Pull Checkpoint Apps 


Washington, DC.  March 22 — Four Democratic senators on Tuesday penned a letter to Apple, Google, and Research in Motion to urge the companies to remove apps that provide users with information about DUI checkpoints.

"With more than 10,000 Americans dying in drunk-driving crashes every year, providing access to applications that alert users to DUI checkpoints is harmful to public safety," according to the letter, which was signed by Sens. Harry Reid, Chuck Schumer, Frank Lautenberg, and Mark Udall.

The senators asked the companies to remove the apps, unless the app creators remove DUI or DWI checkpoint functionality.

"One application contains a database of DUI checkpoints updated in real-time. Another application, with more than 10 million users, also allows users to alert each other to DUI checkpoints in real time," they wrote. "Giving drunk drivers a free tool to evade checkpoints, putting innocent families and children at risk, is a matter of public concern.

How conveniently memories fade….

As I’ve summarized in past posts (see, for example, DUI Sobriety Checkpoints: Unconstitutional?), a number of years ago the Michigan Supreme Court held that DUI roadblocks (aka "sobriety checkpoints) were unconstitutional.  Such warrantless stops, the court correctly concluded, were a violation of the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution since American citizens cannot be stopped in their cars without reasonable suspicion to believe that they had committed a crime.  

The United States Supreme Court thereafter reversed the state court.  In Michigan v. Sitz, Chief Justice Rehnquist essentially admitted that the stops were violations of citizens’ rights — but found that these were only minimal violations.  And these minimal intrusions, Rehnquist found, were outweighed by the more important interests of the government in ensuring safety on the highways.  However, the Court left to the states the role of determining how to minimize these intrusions.

The first state supreme court decision to define these regulations was Ingersoll v. Palmer.  In that landmark case, the California Supreme Court laid down the safeguards mentioned in Sitz.  These mandatory procedures specifically included "advance publicity":

Advance publicity is important to the maintenance of a constitutionally permissible sobriety checkpoint. Publicity both reduces the intrusiveness of the stop and increases the deterrent effect of the roadblock.

The concurring opinion in State ex rel. Ekstrom v. Justice Ct. of State, supra, 663 P.2d 992, at page 1001 explained the value of advance publicity: "Such publicity would warn those using the highways that they might expect to find roadblocks designed to check for sobriety; the warning may well decrease the chance of apprehending ‘ordinary’ criminals, but should certainly have a considerable deterring effect by either dissuading people from taking ‘one more for the road,’ persuading them to drink at home, or inducing them to take taxicabs.

Any one of these goals, if achieved, would have the salutary effect of interfering with the lethal combination of alcohol and gasoline. Advance notice would limit intrusion upon personal dignity and security because those being stopped would anticipate and understand what was happening." (663 P.2d 992, 1001, conc. opn.Feldman, J.; see also State v. Deskins, supra, 673 P.2d 1174, 1182.)  Publicity also serves to establish the legitimacy of sobriety checkpoints in the minds of motorists. Although the court in Jones v. State, supra, 459 So.2d 1068, found that advance publicity was not constitutionally mandated for all sobriety roadblocks, nevertheless the court offered the observation, consistent with finding reasonableness under the Fourth Amendment, that [43 Cal. 3d 1347] "’[A]dvance publication of the date of an intended roadblock, even without announcing its precise location, would have the virtue of reducing surprise, fear, and inconvenience.’ [Citation.]" (Id., at p. 1080.)
 

Maybe the senators need a crash course in constitutional law….
 

DUI BLOG