Pubdate: Sun, 03 Dec 2000
Source: Press Democrat, The (CA)
Copyright: 2000 The Press Democrat
Contact:  Letters Editor, P. O. Box 569, Santa Rosa CA 95402
Fax: (707) 521-5305
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Author: Mary Callahan, The Press Democrat

SEARCH BAN WON'T AFFECT CHP

High Court Rules Specifically Against Drug Checkpoints Not Used In Northern 
California

A U.S. Supreme Court ruling forbidding checkpoints to search cars for drugs 
isn't expected to affect the use of routine traffic stops to initiate drug 
searches on North Coast highways.

CHP officials and defense attorneys alike say there are distinctions 
between the police checkpoints rejected in Indianapolis and tactics used in 
Northern California.

CHP Commissioner Dwight Helmick endorsed the high court ruling but said his 
7,000 officers always look out for illegal drugs while enforcing traffic laws.

Helmick said the Indianapolis approach amounted to stopping people and 
"guessing they may or may not have" drugs in the car.

"I have a policy against it and I have a personal thing against it," he said.

But critics argue that's exactly what the CHP does, and a state appellate 
court threw out two 1996 convictions for transporting marijuana, saying 
officers overstepped their bounds when searching a car following a traffic 
stop near Laytonville.

"It becomes pretty clear to people that they're sort of running a gauntlet 
every time they get in the car," Eureka defense attorney Manny Daskal said.

The CHP announced programs with names such as Operation Harvest Season and 
Operation North Coast in the mid-1990s, stepping up traffic enforcement 
during the fall marijuana harvesting season. There were 125 arrests and $1 
million worth of marijuana was seized in 1996 alone, the CHP said.

Helmick insists the drug arrests were secondary to enforcing traffic laws.

Although the CHP has lowered its profile since it came under fire in the 
1st District Court of Appeal, Bonnie Blackberry of the Redway-based Civil 
Liberties Monitoring Project says there is still a focus on searching cars 
for drugs though "they'll tell you that they never stop anybody for that."

But attorneys say the Indianapolis case isn't likely to have any broad 
impact on traffic stops conducted along the North Coast.

One key difference is that Indianapolis police set up roadblocks, much like 
the ones used to find drunken drivers, a practice upheld by the high court. 
The CHP has made drug searches part of traffic enforcement, combining it 
with writing citations for violations such as speeding or driving with a 
broken taillight.

It is difficult to prove that the CHP traffic stops are part of a defined 
program to root out drugs, said Arcata attorney Mark Harris.

Indeed, while the CHP has been candid in the past about timing special 
enforcement operations to coincide with the marijuana harvest, Helmick 
denied that the CHP ever embarks on a program specifically geared toward 
drug interdiction.

"I do not want our people simply stopping on a witch hunt, if you will," he 
said.

In the Indianapolis case, the justices ruled that formal checkpoints 
violated Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable search and 
seizure because motorists were being stopped "in the absence of 
individualized suspicion of wrongdoing."

While reiterating exceptions for DUI and border patrol checkpoints based on 
"special needs," the court said the aim of detecting "evidence of ordinary 
criminal wrongdoing" was not sufficient to justify forcing drivers to the 
side of the road.

"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," Justice Sandra Day O'Connor 
wrote in the 6-3 decision.

In a 1996 opinion, the court said an officer could stop a vehicle for a 
minor traffic violation even if the real purpose was looking for drugs. 
North Coast attorneys say such "pretext stops" are the heart and soul of 
CHP operations.

"They don't seem to be doing it in teams now, like they used to," said 
Daskal, "but we're certainly seeing some more aggressive CHP officers up 
here, where they're stopping people for any minor infraction and getting in 
the car."

The combined court rulings, said Harris, suggest "the primary purpose does 
matter when you're talking about a program, but the primary purpose doesn't 
matter when you're talking about individualized stops."

He said the Indianapolis ruling could be used to mount another challenge to 
CHP stops on the North Coast "if there was a sufficient number of those 
stops to provide the implication that there is a program in place, even if 
it's unwritten."
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