State v. Wetzel

• Decision Date: 14 May 1990
• Docket Number: No. 890343,890343
• Parties: STATE of North Dakota, Plaintiff and Appellant, v. Tom WETZEL, Defendant and Appellee. Crim.
• Court: North Dakota Supreme Court

Page 115

456 N.W.2d 115

58 USLW 2734

STATE of North Dakota, Plaintiff and Appellant, v. Tom WETZEL, Defendant and Appellee.

Crim. No. 890343.

Supreme Court of North Dakota.

May 14, 1990.

Alan K. Duppler, State's Atty., Stanton, for plaintiff and appellant.

Larry W. Quast of Hagen, Quast & Alexander, Beulah, for defendant and appellee.

VANDE WALLE, Justice.

The State of North Dakota appealed from an order of the County Court for Mercer County granting Tom A. Wetzel's motion to suppress evidence obtained during a vehicle safety inspection at a highway checkpoint. The State contends that its checkpoint and procedures for stopping oncoming vehicles were constitutionally permissible. We agree and reverse the county court's suppression order.

On August 3, 1989, Trooper Ronald Stanley of the North Dakota Highway Patrol established a checkpoint on North Dakota highway 200 between Pick City and Riverdale for the purpose of conducting routine vehicle safety inspections. Each trooper with the Highway Patrol is required to perform three hundred inspections per year. Tom Wetzel's automobile was the sixteenth vehicle stopped at the checkpoint. After inspecting the safety features of the vehicle, Trooper Stanley asked Wetzel for his driver's license. Wetzel failed to produce a license and it was eventually determined that his driving privileges were under suspension. Wetzel was charged with driving under suspension. See NDCC Sec. 39-06-42.

Wetzel made a motion in the County Court for Mercer County to suppress all evidence obtained by Trooper Stanley resulting from the checkpoint stop. Wetzel claimed that Trooper Stanley exercised "unbridled discretion" in determining which vehicles to stop at the checkpoint thereby causing the stop to be unconstitutional under the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution and Article I, Sec. 8 of the North Dakota Constitution. Additionally, Wetzel argued that Trooper Stanley did not have any reasonable and articulable suspicion for stopping his automobile.

During the hearing on Wetzel's motion to suppress, Trooper Stanley testified as to the procedures he used at the checkpoint. He stated that there was a department procedure regarding vehicle inspection sequence. That procedure, which he testified he utilized and described on the top of his Highway Patrol vehicle inspection form, was to stop a car, conduct an inspection, and then "stop the next available vehicle when safe." ¹ Not all oncoming cars were inspected at the checkpoint and other automobiles were able to freely pass through the checkpoint while he was conducting an inspection on a stopped vehicle. Trooper Stanley further testified that it was his decision to stop the next available vehicle and to determine when it was safe to do so. In this regard, he noted that if a group of five or six automobiles approached the checkpoint, he would not stand on the road to flag over a vehicle as it would not be safe for either himself or the traveling public. Trooper Stanley also testified as to the vehicle inspection procedures. Once a vehicle was stopped, he would inspect the automobile's front headlights, front turn signals, rear turn signals, rear brakelights, windshield wipers, and horn. Examination of the driver's license was also part of the routine check. All vehicles stopped were logged onto the vehicle inspection form which indicated whether the automobile had any defects, and whether any citations were issued. Finally, Trooper Stanley indicated that his checkpoint was visible by drivers for approximately two miles, that Wetzel's automobile was traveling alone on the highway at the time it was stopped, and that he had no articulable and reasonable suspicion for stopping Wetzel's vehicle other than for the fact that he was conducting a vehicle safety inspection checkpoint.

After the suppression hearing, the trial court granted Wetzel's motion to suppress, concluding that the State did not adequately meet its burden of establishing that Trooper Stanley acted without unconstrained discretion in selecting vehicles to stop. ²

The sole issue presented on appeal is whether the procedure utilized by Trooper Stanley in stopping vehicles at the checkpoint was constitutionally impermissible because it provided him with unconstrained discretion over which vehicles to stop.

In Delaware v. Prouse, 440 U.S. 648, 99 S.Ct. 1391, 59 L.Ed.2d 660 (1979), the United States Supreme Court confronted the question of what procedures were constitutionally permissible as a means of checking drivers' licenses, vehicle registration, and vehicle mechanical conditions. In Prouse, a patrolman randomly stopped the defendant's automobile for the sole purpose of checking his driver's license and registration. As the patrolman explained, "I saw the car in the area and wasn't answering any complaints, so I decided to pull them off." Prouse, supra, 440 U.S. at 650-51, 99 S.Ct. at 1394, 59 L.Ed.2d at 665. The patrolman was not acting pursuant to any department guidelines or procedures for conducting spot checks. Moreover, the patrolman had no reasonable suspicion or probable cause for stopping the defendant's vehicle. The sole issue determined by the Prouse Court was whether the purely random stop for a license and registration check constituted an unreasonable seizure under the Fourth Amendment thereby causing evidence seized during the stop to be suppressed.

The Supreme Court noted that the Fourth Amendment was implicated in these types of cases "because stopping an automobile and detaining its occupants constitutes a 'seizure' ... even though the purpose of the stop is limited and the resulting detention quite brief." Prouse, supra, 440 U.S. at 653, 99 S.Ct. at 1396, 59 L.Ed.2d at 667. Noting that the essential purpose of the proscriptions of the Fourth Amendment was to impose a standard of " 'reasonableness' upon the exercise of discretion by government officials," the Court employed a balancing test to weigh the competing interests of the government in highway safety against an individual's reasonable expectation of privacy in his or her automobile under the Fourth Amendment. Prouse, supra, 440 U.S. at 653-54, 99 S.Ct. at 1396, 59 L.Ed.2d at 667.

In weighing the competing interests, the Supreme Court recognized that "States have a vital interest in ensuring that only those qualified to do so are permitted to operate motor vehicles, that these vehicles are fit for safe operation, and hence the licensing, registration, and vehicle inspection requirements are being observed." Prouse, supra, 440 U.S. at 658, 99 S.Ct. at 1398, 59 L.Ed.2d at 670. On the other hand, the Court also considered the physical and psychological intrusiveness of random stops on an individual's Fourth Amendment interests. It noted that purely random, roving spot-checks by officers would make the individual subject to an unsettling show of the police power of the community, "interfere with freedom of movement," and create "substantial anxiety" in the individual. Prouse, supra, 440 U.S. at 657, 99 S.Ct. at 1398, 59 L.Ed.2d at 670. The Court further compared the intrusiveness of roving, random stops by police to roadblock checkpoints in which all vehicles are stopped, and all motorists are subjected to the show of the community's police power. It noted that "[a]t traffic checkpoints the motorist can see that the other vehicles are being stopped, he can see visible signs of the officers' authority, and he is much less likely to be frightened or annoyed by the intrusion." Id.

The overall effect of a purely random spot-check on the individual's privacy interest, when weighed against the total discretion of the police officer to conduct a spot-check, led the Court to hold that:

"[E]xcept 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 preclude 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. We hold only that persons in automobiles on public roadways may not for that reason alone have their travel and privacy interfered with at the unbridled discretion of police officers. [Emphasis added.] Prouse, supra, 440 U.S. at 663, 99 S.Ct. at 1401, 59 L.Ed.2d at 673-74.

Justice Blackmun, in his concurring opinion in Prouse, noted that the Court had merely furnished one possible alternative to curbing the unbridled discretion of officers in stopping vehicles when it suggested stopping all oncoming traffic. He explained:

"The roadblock stop for all traffic is given as an example. I necessarily assume that the Court's reservation also includes other not purely random stops (such as every 10th car to pass a given point) that equate with, but are less intrusive than, a 100% roadblock stop." [Emphasis added.] Prouse, supra, 440 U.S. at 664, 99 S.Ct. at 1401, 59 L.Ed.2d at 674.

It is clear that what disturbed the Court in Prouse was the patrolman's unconstrained discretion in randomly stopping any car, at any time, and under any procedure he desired. State v. Goehring, 374 N.W.2d 882, 888 (N.D.1985). To meet the requirements of Prouse, an officer conducting an inspection checkpoint must maintain some systematic method of stopping vehicles, and "[i]t is not necessary for [the] checkpoint to stop every car in order to be systematic but only for officers to be following some pattern that will minimize their discretion in choosing whether to stop a particular auto." [Emphasis added.] 1 LaFave,...