Pubdate: Sat, 02 Dec 2000 Source: Charleston Gazette (WV) Copyright: 2000 Charleston Gazette Contact: 1001 Virginia St. E., Charleston, WV 25301 Fax: (304) 348-1233 Feedback: http://www.wvgazette.com/static/Forum.html Website: http://www.wvgazette.com/ Author: Lawrence Messina DRUG STOPS RULED UNCONSTITUTIONAL Last week's ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court has brought a halt to roadway drug checkpoints in West Virginia, as the state's method closely resembles the Indianapolis procedure discredited by the high court's decision, officials said Thursday. "We won't be doing any more drug checkpoints," said Sgt. Mike Corsaro, State Police spokesman. "We still have to go through the court's ruling, but at this point, we're not going to be doing any." But the wording of the court's 6-3 decision - and the reasoning expressed in the two dissenting opinions - may not spell a permanent end to such drug-searching methods, civil libertarians say. "It's a victory in that the court, again, affirmed the principle that law enforcement will not be able to cut these kinds of constitutional corners in their war on drugs," said Hilary Chiz, executive director of the state American Civil Liberties Union chapter. But Chiz also said that in their anti-drug efforts, law enforcement may continue to seek ways "to search, stop and frisk until they find a way that passes constitutional scrutiny." The State Police conducted at least a dozen checkpoints on West Virginia roads in the past two years, usually in partnership with the federal High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area program. The program has an agency, called the Appalachia HIDTA, which covers West Virginia, Tennessee and Kentucky. The agency receives about $6 million a year, with $1.45 million budgeted for West Virginia efforts this year. The State Police, one of 16 law enforcement agencies involved with Appalachia HIDTA, conducts the checkpoints as part of the program's "Interdiction Team" strategy. Although Appalachia HIDTA focuses on 11 southern and central counties in the state, drug checkpoints have been done in other parts of West Virginia. Chiz said her office often fields complaints about them, most recently from an Eastern Panhandle music festival. Concertgoers, including a number from out of state, were stopped on their way into the event, Chiz was told. Chiz also questioned the reasoning behind some of the checkpoint sites, recalling one set up astride W.Va. 2 in Green Bottom, an Ohio River town in northern Cabell County. "They have conducted many checkpoints in questionably high drug traffic areas," she said. Corsaro, the State Police spokesman, said he did not know how many drug checkpoints the State Police had set up, or where they were located, in the two years since the program started. Corsaro also said he could not gauge the checkpoints' success, or say how the drug checkpoints fit into the department's overall anti-drug strategy. "I know we've used the drug checkpoints in the past," he said. Kenny Burner, deputy director of Appalachian HIDTA, said the program will continue to employ other tools to "stop the flow of drugs into and out of the region." The program also seeks to stop drug trafficked via the mail and commercial transport. Burner's office considers marijuana the chief target of such measures as the checkpoints. "The most predominant illegal drug used throughout the area is, without reservation, marijuana," the agency said in a release this year. "Marijuana's cultural acceptance allows trafficking and consumption to flourish, to the point that marijuana has become a substantial component of the local economy." In the U.S. Supreme Court decision, the justices upheld a ban on vehicle checkpoints set up by Indianapolis. The region's federal appeals court granted the ban after a group of people stopped at the roadblocks sued alleging their rights were violated. The Supreme Court concluded that the checkpoints, as conducted by Indianapolis, violate the Fourth Amendment right against unreasonable searches and seizures. "Without drawing the line at roadblocks designed primarily to serve the general interest in crime control, the Fourth Amendment would do little to prevent such intrusions from becoming a routine part of American life," the opinion written by Justice Sandra Day O'Connor said. The ruling contrasts drug checkpoints with roadblocks set up to catch drunk drivers, which the Supreme Court has OK'd. "This [DUI] checkpoint program was clearly aimed at reducing the immediate hazard posed by the presence of drunk drivers on the highways," Tuesday's ruling said. But as for drug checkpoints, "We cannot sanction stops justified only by the generalized and ever-present possibility that interrogation and inspection may reveal that any given motorist has committed some crime," O'Connor wrote. Chief Justice William Rehnquist wrote one of the dissents, arguing that drug checkpoints "serve a weighty state interest with only minimal intrusion on the privacy of [vehicle] occupants." Rehnquist questioned the constitutionality of a DUI checkpoint that also happened to feature a drug-sniffing dog. Responding to that argument, the majority opinion notes that "the constitutional defect of the program is that its primary purpose is to advance the general interest in crime control, " an unconstitutionally vague purpose. The ruling also pointed out that it does not affect "the validity of border searches or searches in airports and government buildings," nor does it specifically limit "individual officers acting at the scene." - --- MAP posted-by: Jo-D