Request By:
John D. Dale, Jr., Esq.
Coots and Dale
Main Street
Taylorsville, Kentucky 40071
Opinion
Opinion By: Steven L. Beshear, Attorney General; By: Thomas R. Emerson, Assistant Attorney General
As city attorney you ask whether the city police have a right to set up roadblocks within the city limits to check drivers' licenses and whether the city police have a right to set up roadblocks on streets within the city to check vehicles. You also ask about setting up roadblocks to seal off an area when a felony has been committed.
The city's police officers, as law enforcement officers, are required to enforce municipal ordinances and state statutes within the municipal boundaries. State law requires that all operators of motor vehicles possess a valid driver's license and that they have proof of liability insurance. Numerous state statutes and municipal ordinances deal with motor vehicles such as state requirements dealing with vehicle safety and local ordinances requiring the purchase of a vehicle license sticker for those vehicles regularly using the streets of the city. Obviously the capture of those accused or suspected of committing a felony is a primary part of law enforcement work.
In 62 Am.Jur.2d Privacy, Sect. 17, the following appears:
". . . And it has been held that a defendant's right of privacy was not invaded by stopping him and making a routine examination of his car, where the police had established roadblocks to stop all motor vehicles passing a certain place to make routine checks of licenses and registrations. "
The New Jersey court said, in State v. Kabayama, 94 N.J. Super. 78, 226 A.2d 760 (1967), that the establishment of roadblocks by police to stop all automobiles passing a certain point in order to make routine checks for drivers' licenses and vehicle registration certificates is a reasonable exercise of the state's police power and does not violate an automobile driver's right of privacy under either the state or United States Constitutions.
In 5 Am.Jur.2d Arrest, Sect. 69 (Cumulative Supplement) it is stated:
"It has been recognized that sheriffs and other law enforcement officers have the authority to set up roadblocks in a reasonable manner for the apprehension of fleeing violators. "
The Wisconsin court, in Kagel v. Bruggar, 19 Wis.2d 1, 119 N.W.2d 394, 396 (1963) said as follows:
"Sheriffs and other law enforcement officers possess authority to set up roadblocks in a reasonable manner for the apprehension of fleeing violators. Such authority is inherent in the power and duties of law enforcement officers if those duties are to be effectively discharged. The right to set up roadblocks to apprehend violators has been tacitly acknowledged in Freedman v. State (1950), 195 Md. 275, 73 A.2d 476; Anderson v. Nincehelser (1950), 152 Neb. 857, 43 N.W.2d 182; Anderson v. Bituminous Cas. Co. (1950), 155 Neb. 590, 52 N.W.2d 814; Gulbrandson v. Town of Midland et al. (1949), 72 S.D. 461, 36 N.W.2d 655; Love v. Bass (1922), 145 Tenn. 522, 238 S.W. 94. The use of the roadblock device is recognized as a specialized technique in the apprehension of violators by law enforcement officers."
While the use of roadblocks in a reasonable manner has been recognized as a permissible tool for law enforcement officers, we direct your attention to the case of Delaware v. Prouse, 440 U.S. 648, 59 L. Ed. 2d 660, 99 S. Ct. 1391 (1979). The United States Supreme Court said in that case that stopping an automobile and detaining its occupants constitute a "seizure" within the meaning of the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution even though the purpose of the stop is limited and the resulting detention quite brief. The essential purpose of the proscriptions in the Fourth Amendment, the Court said, is to impose a standard of "reasonableness" upon the exercise of discretion by law enforcement agents in order "to safeguard the privacy and security of individuals against arbitrary invasions."
The United States Supreme Court, in Delaware v. Prouse, supra, declared the warrantless and random stopping of vehicles on a public highway to be improper and held as follows:
"Accordingly, we hold that except in those situations in which there is at least articulable and reasonable suspicion that a motorist is unlicensed or that an automobile is not registered, or that either the vehicle or an occupant is otherwise subject to seizure for violation of law, stopping an automobile and detaining the driver in order to check his driver's license and the registration of the automobile are unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment. This holding does not prevent the State of Delaware or other States from developing methods for spot checks that involve less intrusion or that do not involve the unconstrained exercise of discretion. Questioning of all oncoming traffic at roadblock-type stops is one possible alternative. . . ."
In conclusion, it is our opinion that city police officers have the right to set up roadblocks within the city limits to make routine checks of drivers' licenses and vehicles and to attempt to apprehend fleeing violators so long as all automobiles passing the particular roadblock are stopped.