Com. v. Beaman

• Decision Date: 15 August 2005
• Citation: 880 A.2d 578,583 Pa. 636
• Court: Pennsylvania Supreme Court
• Parties: COMMONWEALTH of Pennsylvania, Appellee v. Gary BEAMAN, Appellant.

880 A.2d 578

583 Pa. 636

COMMONWEALTH of Pennsylvania, Appellee v. Gary BEAMAN, Appellant.

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.

Argued March 7, 2005.

Decided August 15, 2005.

Kevin McNicholas, for Gary Beaman.

David R. Crowley, Bellefonte, for Pennsylvania Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.

Michael Wayne Streily, Pittsburgh, for Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

Before: CAPPY, C.J., NIGRO, NEWMAN, SAYLOR, EAKIN, BAER, JJ.

OPINION

Justice SAYLOR.

This appeal involves a facial constitutional challenge to the validity of police sobriety checkpoints. The primary question for resolution centers on whether roving police patrols are more efficient at identifying and apprehending drunk drivers, and, if so, whether this fatally undermines the constitutional validity of checkpoints due to the suspicionless stops that they entail.

On June 9, 2001, the Pittsburgh City Police Department conducted a sobriety checkpoint on Saw Mill Run Boulevard.¹ Appellant was stopped at this checkpoint and was subsequently charged by information with two counts of driving under the influence of alcohol ("DUI"). See 75 Pa. C.S. § 3731.² Appellant filed an omnibus pretrial motion, followed by a supplemental omnibus pretrial motion, in which he requested suppression of all evidence obtained by the Commonwealth, claiming that sobriety checkpoints are per se violative of the Pennsylvania Constitution. In this regard, Appellant contended that, "unless and until the Commonwealth establishes that checkpoints more efficiently satisfy the Commonwealth's compelling interest in preventing drunk driving than less intrusive law enforcement measures," any use of such checkpoints violates constitutional protections against unreasonable searches and seizures. As an alternate basis for suppression, Appellant asserted that the checkpoint at which he was stopped failed to adhere to the guidelines established by this Court in Commonwealth v. Tarbert, 517 Pa. 277, 535 A.2d 1035 (1987), and Commonwealth v. Blouse, 531 Pa. 167, 611 A.2d 1177 (1992), which were designed to provide adequate notice of such roadblocks and minimize their intrusion upon the privacy of drivers.

The trial court held a bifurcated hearing on the motion on September 30, 2002, and January 21, 2003. The first proceeding focused upon whether DUI checkpoints are unconstitutional per se in light of Appellant's empirical evidence concerning their effectiveness in removing drunk drivers from the roadways, as compared to roving DUI patrols.³ In particular, Appellant presented the testimony of Louis Rader, the manager of highway safety for the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation ("PennDOT"). Mr. Rader testified that, based upon statistics available for several Pennsylvania counties during the years 1999-2001, approximately 0.71 percent of all drivers stopped at sobriety checkpoints were charged with DUI; he noted additionally that this is relatively close to the national average of 1.0 percent. Furthermore, Mr. Rader confirmed that, during the 1999-2001 period, the total number of law enforcement manpower-hours expended per DUI arrest at sobriety checkpoints was 22.84, and the total number of manpower-hours per arrest — including both law enforcement and administrative personnel — was 28.77.⁴ By comparison, 18.82 manpower-hours were required for each DUI arrest stemming from a roving patrol, and 7.69 percent of all drivers stopped by such patrols were charged with DUI.

At the conclusion of the hearing, the trial court ruled from the bench, stating that, although roving DUI patrols may result in a higher number of arrests per manpower-hour, the evidence presented was insufficient to demonstrate that this discrepancy rendered DUI roadblocks per se unconstitutional. In this respect, the court reasoned that both methods constitute valuable police techniques to curtail drunk driving, and that no constitutional infirmity could be gleaned solely from the statistical evidence presented. See id. at 52-53. The court additionally drew an analogy to police drug enforcement activities, and stated that, although purchasing drugs from a drug dealer may be "more efficient timewise" than conducting outside surveillance, "that does not make one unconstitutional and the other one constitutional." Id. at 53.⁵

On February 10, 2003, Appellant was convicted of both counts of DUI after a non-jury trial; he was sentenced to spend 48 hours in jail and pay a $300 fine. A three-judge panel of the Superior Court affirmed the judgment of sentence in a published opinion, see Commonwealth v. Beaman, 846 A.2d 764 (Pa.Super.2004), rejecting, inter alia, Appellant's contention that the trial court erred in failing to find that he had proved DUI roadblocks to be unconstitutional per se. See id. at 768-70. We granted allocatur to review the trial court's determination in this regard.

In reviewing a ruling denying a motion to suppress, this Court considers only the evidence of the prosecution's witnesses and so much of the defense evidence as remains uncontradicted. See Commonwealth v. Watkins, 577 Pa. 194, 210, 843 A.2d 1203, 1212 (2003). We will affirm the suppression court's decision where its factual findings are supported by the record and the inferences and legal conclusions drawn from them are legitimate. See Commonwealth v. Hughes, 521 Pa. 423, 438, 555 A.2d 1264, 1271-72 (1989). The sole proceeding under review here is the first half of the bifurcated suppression hearing. At that hearing, there were no prosecution witnesses, and the testimony of Appellant's sole witness, as well as his statistical exhibits, remained uncontradicted. Thus, the question for this Court resolves to whether the trial court properly concluded that such evidence was insufficient to demonstrate that roadblocks are per se unconstitutional. To the extent this question involves issues of law, our review is de novo. See Chester Water Auth. v. Pennsylvania Public Util. Comm'n, 581 Pa. 640, 648 n. 9, 868 A.2d 384, 389 n. 9 (2005).

Initially, we note that the stopping of an automobile at a checkpoint constitutes a seizure for constitutional purposes, thus implicating the protections of both the Fourth Amendment to the United State Constitution, see Michigan Dep't of State Police v. Sitz, 496 U.S. 444, 450, 110 S.Ct. 2481, 2485, 110 L.Ed.2d 412 (1990), and Article I, Section 8 of the Pennsylvania Constitution, see Blouse, 531 Pa. at 169,611 A.2d at 1178. These provisions do not proscribe all searches and seizures, but only "unreasonable" ones.⁶ Thus, the central question in any litigation challenging a particular search or seizure is whether that search or seizure was constitutionally "reasonable." See Sitz, 496 U.S. at 450,110 S.Ct. at 2485; Blouse, 531 Pa. at 169,611 A.2d at 1178.

The reasonableness of a seizure that is less intrusive than a traditional arrest depends upon a three-pronged balancing test derived from Brown v. Texas, 443 U.S. 47, 99 S.Ct. 2637, 61 L.Ed.2d 357 (1979), in which the reviewing Court weighs "the gravity of the public concerns served by the seizure, the degree to which the seizure advances the public interest, and the severity of the interference with individual liberty." Id. at 50, 99 S.Ct. at 2640. To be deemed reasonable under this standard, such a seizure must ordinarily be supported by reasonable suspicion, based upon objective facts, that the individual is involved in criminal activity. See id. at 51, 99 S.Ct. at 2641; see also City of Indianapolis v. Edmond, 531 U.S. 32, 37, 121 S.Ct. 447, 451, 148 L.Ed.2d 333 (2000); Chandler v. Miller, 520 U.S. 305, 308, 117 S.Ct. 1295, 1298, 137 L.Ed.2d 513 (1997). See generally Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 21 & n. 18, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 1880 & n. 18, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968) (emphasizing the centrality of the individualized suspicion requirement to the Supreme Court's Fourth Amendment jurisprudence). The existence of individual suspicion, however, is not an "irreducible" component of reasonableness in every circumstance. Rather, where regimes of suspicionless searches or seizures are designed to serve governmental "special needs" that exceed the normal demands of law enforcement, they will be upheld in certain instances.⁷ Because of the severe consequences of drunken driving in terms of roadway deaths, injuries, and property damage, see generally Sitz, 496 U.S. at 451,110 S.Ct. at 2485-86 (summarizing national statistics); Tarbert, 517 Pa. at 291,535 A.2d at 1042 (summarizing Pennsylvania statistics), both the United States Supreme Court and this Court have recognized that the government has a compelling interest in detecting intoxicated drivers and removing them from the roads before they cause injury. See Sitz, 496 U.S. at 451,110 S.Ct. at 2485-86; Commonwealth v. Yastrop, 564 Pa. 338, 345-46, 768 A.2d 318, 322-23 (2001) (plurality opinion); Tarbert, 517 Pa. at 291,535 A.2d at 1042 (plurality opinion); cf. Blouse, 531 Pa. at 172,611 A.2d at 1179 (finding that the removal of unsafe vehicles and unlicensed drivers from the roads constitutes a "vital interest" grounded in the need for roadway safety). This has raised the question of whether the law permits police officers to effect suspicionless seizures in the form of brief vehicle stops at publicly announced sobriety checkpoints along roadways known to be frequented by intoxicated drivers. As noted, and as with all similar questions, this question has been answered with reference to the balancing test described above.

As to the Fourth Amendment, the United States Supreme Court has determined that DUI roadblocks constitute a reasonable means of advancing the vital public interest in reducing drunk driving deaths and injuries, and that they only involve a modest intrusion on the privacy and liberty of motorists. Accordingly, the Court has found that suspicionless stops at such roadblocks are constitutionally reasonable. See Sitz, 496 U.S. at 451-55, 110 S.Ct. at 2485-88. The question remains, however, whether the greater...