Com. v. Yastrop

• Decision Date: 26 March 2001
• Citation: 564 Pa. 338,768 A.2d 318
• Parties: COMMONWEALTH of Pennsylvania, Appellee, v. David Ronald YASTROP, Appellant.
• Court: Pennsylvania Supreme Court

768 A.2d 318

564 Pa. 338

COMMONWEALTH of Pennsylvania, Appellee, v. David Ronald YASTROP, Appellant.

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.

Argued May 2, 2000.

Decided March 26, 2001.

Michael E. Moyer, Allentown, for David Ronald Yastrop.

John Morganelli, District Attorney, Anthony Beltrami, Bethlehem, Bethany Zampogna, District Attorney's Office, Christian A. Fisanick, Special Assistant District Attorney, for Commonwealth.

Before FLAHERTY, C.J., and ZAPPALA, CAPPY, CASTILLE, NIGRO, NEWMAN, SAYLOR, JJ.

OPINION ANNOUNCING THE JUDGMENT OF THE COURT

NEWMAN, Justice.

We granted allowance of appeal in this case to address whether a systematic roadblock set up to detect drunken drivers is constitutional under Article I, Section 8 of the Pennsylvania Constitution.¹ Because this Court has held previously that roadblocks like the one conducted in the present case are permissible under the Pennsylvania Constitution, we hold that a systematic roadblock established to identify drunken drivers, which adheres to certain guidelines, is constitutional.

FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY

Police Officer Robert Hawke endeavored to institute a Driving Under the Influence (DUI) roadblock in the 1600 block of Main Street, Northampton Borough, Northampton County, Pennsylvania.² After reviewing Pennsylvania Department of Transportation records and information provided to him by local law enforcement authorities, Officer Hawke concluded that this location was a route likely to be traveled by drunken drivers. The area was one where drunk-driving accidents had occurred and where officers had made arrests for DUI in the past. Officer Hawke requested and received administrative authorization for the DUI roadblock, and notice of the time and place of the roadblock appeared in an area newspaper.

Supervised by Officer Hawke, Northampton Borough police officers conducted the roadblock from 11:30 p.m. on the evening of May 30, 1997 until 2:30 a.m. on the morning of May 31, 1997. The officers erected large signs to alert drivers of the roadblock ahead. The officers, using a predetermined, objective standard,³ stopped drivers for approximately thirty seconds each and detained for field testing only those drivers who smelled of alcohol.

David Ronald Yastrop (Appellant) was driving an automobile in the 1600 block of Main Street in the early morning hours of May 31, 1997. Officers stopped Appellant at the roadblock and subsequently arrested him after they detected the smell of alcohol and after he failed field-testing designed to expose intoxication.

Prior to his trial on charges of DUI,⁴ Appellant filed a pre-trial motion seeking to suppress all the evidence procured as a result of the roadblock stop. Appellant averred that the roadblock amounted to an unconstitutional search and seizure. The trial court denied the suppression motion on April 3, 1998. Following a bench trial conducted on July 17, 1998, the trial court found Appellant guilty of DUI and sentenced him to serve not less than thirty days nor more than one-year imprisonment in Northampton County Prison. The Superior Court affirmed, and this Court allowed the present appeal.

DISCUSSION

On appeal, Appellant advances two arguments in support of reversing the decision of the trial court that denied his motion to suppress. Appellant first argues that DUI roadblocks are per se unconstitutional under the heightened protections against unreasonable searches and seizures of Article I, Section 8 of the Pennsylvania Constitution. Alternatively, Appellant asserts that even assuming that DUI roadblocks are not per se unconstitutional under the Pennsylvania Constitution, the police administered the DUI roadblock in the present case in an unconstitutional manner.

The question of whether DUI roadblocks were per se unconstitutional pursuant to the United States Constitution was addressed in Michigan Dep't. of State Police v. Sitz, 496 U.S. 444, 110 S.Ct. 2481, 110 L.Ed.2d 412 (1990). The Sitz Court acknowledged that a roadblock was a seizure; thus, it focused its examination on whether such a seizure was unreasonable. In examining whether a DUI roadblock was an unreasonable seizure, the Court utilized a three-pronged balancing test derived from its decision in Brown v. Texas, 443 U.S. 47, 99 S.Ct. 2637, 61 L.Ed.2d 357 (1979). The United States Supreme Court "balanc[ed] the state's interest in preventing accidents caused by drunk drivers, the effectiveness of sobriety checkpoints in achieving that goal, and the level of intrusion on an individual's privacy caused by the checkpoints." Sitz, 496 U.S. at 449, 110 S.Ct. 2481. Ultimately, the Court concluded that the momentary seizure of a DUI roadblock was not unreasonable, stating that "the balance of the State's interest in preventing drunken driving, the extent to which this system can reasonably be said to advance that interest, and the degree of intrusion upon individual motorists who are briefly stopped, weighs in favor of the state program." Id. at 455, 110 S.Ct. 2481.

In Commonwealth v. Blouse, 531 Pa. 167, 611 A.2d 1177 (1992), this Court examined the constitutionality under our state Constitution of systematic, nondiscriminatory, nonarbitrary roadblocks instituted to detect registration, licensing, and equipment violations. As the United States Supreme Court did in Sitz, this Court recognized that a roadblock stop was a seizure. The focus of this Court in Blouse, therefore, was whether such a seizure was unreasonable under the heightened constitutional protections of our state Constitution.

The Blouse Court assessed the reasonableness of the roadblock in question using the balancing analysis of the United States Supreme Court. See Brown, supra,

(utilizing balancing test to examine reasonableness of seizure not based on reasonable suspicion or probable cause); United States v. Martinez-Fuerte, 428 U.S. 543, 96 S.Ct. 3074, 49 L.Ed.2d 1116 (1976) (applying balancing test to scrutinize reasonableness of systematic border seizures not based on reasonable suspicion or probable cause); see also Sitz, 496 U.S. at 449,

110 S.Ct. 2481 (1990) (adopting lower court's characterization of Brown balancing test as "analytical framework prescribed by [the United States Supreme] Court for determining the constitutionality of seizures less intrusive than traditional arrests"). In balancing the minimal intrusion occasioned upon an individual by a systematic, nondiscriminatory, nonarbitrary roadblock against the Commonwealth's interest in insuring the safety of its highways, this Court concluded that a roadblock intended to detect registration, licensing, or equipment violations was reasonable under the Pennsylvania Constitution. Blouse, supra.

While Blouse did not specifically address drunken driver roadblocks, that decision relied considerably on this Court's previous decision in Commonwealth v. Tarbert, 517 Pa. 277, 535 A.2d 1035 (1987), which directly addressed the type of roadblocks at issue here.⁵ In Tarbert, a plurality of this Court commented that roadblocks set up to detect drunken drivers would be constitutionally permissible, as long as authorities established and conducted the roadblocks in compliance with prescribed guidelines.

Our decision in Blouse expressly adopted the Tarbert plurality's rationale, along with the guidelines espoused by the plurality. Blouse, 611 A.2d at 1179-80 ("In applying Tarbert to the case sub judice, the rationale behind upholding the constitutionality of drunk driving roadblocks applies equally to all systematic roadblocks"); see also Commonwealth v. Cass, 551 Pa. 25, 709 A.2d 350, 360-61 (1998)

(discussing balancing test derived from Tarbert and Blouse). Thus, in reading Blouse, most notably its express adoption of the standards set forth in the Opinion Announcing the Judgment of the Court in Tarbert, it is clear that this Court has already concluded that roadblocks like the present one are not per se unconstitutional in this Commonwealth.

This view is consistent with the view held by the vast majority of our sister jurisdictions, which have recognized DUI roadblocks as a constitutional and necessary tool of law enforcement and deterrence. See People v. Rister, 803 P.2d 483 (Colo.1990)

; State v. Record, 150 Vt. 84, 548 A.2d 422 (1988); Ingersoll v. Palmer, 43 Cal.3d 1321, 241 Cal.Rptr. 42, 743 P.2d 1299 (1987); State v. Deskins, 234 Kan. 529, 673 P.2d 1174 (1983); State v. Bates, 120 N.M. 457, 902 P.2d 1060 (1995). Sharing this mainstream view are many states that, like this one, extend greater protections against unreasonable searches and seizures under their state constitutions than those extended by our shared constitution. See State v. Downey, 945 S.W.2d 102 (Tenn.1997); Lowe v. Commonwealth, 230 Va. 346, 337 S.E.2d 273 (1985); Commonwealth v. Trumble, 396 Mass. 81, 483 N.E.2d 1102 (1985); Little v. State, 300 Md. 485, 479 A.2d 903 (1984); State v. Boisvert, 40 Conn.App. 420, 671 A.2d 834 (1996).

In support of his position, Appellant draws our attention to other states that have rejected DUI roadblocks based on their state constitutions. He notes that the Supreme Court of Michigan stated: "This court has never recognized the right of the state, without any level of suspicion, whatsoever, to detain members of the population at large for criminal investigatory purposes." Sitz v. Dept. of State Police, 443 Mich. 744, 776, 506 N.W.2d 209, 223. The Rhode Island Supreme Court reached the same conclusion in Pimental v. Dept. of Transportation, 561 A.2d 1348 at 1353 (R.I.1989):

We believe that allowing such roadblocks or checkpoints would diminish the guarantees against unreasonable searches and seizures contained in the Rhode Island Constitution. It is illogical to permit law enforcement officers to stop fifty or a hundred vehicles on the speculative chance that one or two may be driven by a person who has violated the law in regard to intoxication....

In reaching this conclusion, we agree that the state has a

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