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Originally Posted by Kodiakco
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The Sitz case in Michigan went to the Supreme Court. As I recall, the rationale was that the reason DUI checkpoints were legal was because society's right to be free from drunk drivers outweighed the right of drivers to be free from the relatively minor inconvenience of the stop. As long as the stops weren't arbitrary or random. They had to be every car or every tenth car, etc. There are no states where "random" stops are constitutional.
When it comes to driver license checkpoints, I think the case is Brown V. Texas. In that case a guy was stopped and contraband was found in plain view. Trouble was, they never contested the constitutionality of the initial stop. If that made it to the US Supreme Court, ie. the license checkpoint aspect, I think the court would have said "nope".
We'll have to wait for someone to get busted for something major that's worth appealing and appealing for ten years or so to get a high court ruling on that one. But based on their rational for DUI checkpoints, I'd say they'd rule against driver license checkpoints. If it ever gets to that point...I don't think society's right to be free from unlicensed or suspended drivers outweighs the inconvenience of the stop.
The ironic thing about Sitz was that in Michigan, the appealed it all the way to the supreme court, saying that DUI checkpoints should be legal. After the high court ruled in FAVOR of Michigan, Michigan changed it's mind and said: "Nope, they're not legal." So the state that appealed the case and made it "legal" in the rest of the land, changed course and said: "Yeah....but not here after all....."