Carolina Criminal & DUI Lawyer Blog
License Checking Stations in North Carolina are popular with law enforcement, especially DWI Task Force units and Drug Recognition Experts. DUI checkpoints have for decades been a valuable federal funding source through the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration Incentive Grant Program.
Whether in a large city such as Charlotte or Greensboro, or smaller towns like Cornelius, Mooresville, and Monroe NC, it’s important to know your rights regarding checkpoints and the legality of stopping vehicles.
DWI Checkpoints purportedly serve several purposes. Law enforcement actively seeks visible enforcement efforts. They want ordinary citizens to see stopped cars, drivers performing roadside dexterity tests, and arrests.
Public perception of the likelihood of being caught and the fear of a possible conviction for “drunk driving” are powerful motivators. It’s embarrassing to get arrested, especially given the popularity of local magazines like Busted and mugshot photos online.
DWI checkpoints, together with Saturation Patrols, can reduce alcohol-related accidents and fatalities. The assumption is there is a deterrent effect, where regular, systematic checkpoints influence public behavior when it comes to drinking and driving.
NC Criminal Laws – Chapter 20 Offenses
The NC criminal laws come from several different sources. The North Carolina General Assembly, also known as the Legislature, passes laws. The NC DWI laws are set forth in Chapter 20: Motor Vehicles of the North Carolina General Statutes.
There are also other criminal laws in North Carolina that may come into play with DWI charges under Chapter 14: Criminal Law, Chapter 15: Criminal Procedure, and Chapter 15A: Criminal Procedure Act. It can be a complicated interplay of felony and misdemeanor charges.
N.C.G.S. 20-138.1 defines the offense of Driving While Impaired. The second source of “law” involving DWI comes from the courts of appeal including the NC Court of Appeals, NC Supreme Court, and even the US Supreme Court.
Appellate Courts review statutory authority for the law, prior appellate decisions, and the Constitutions of both the United States and North Carolina in reviewing what is and is not “legal.”
Appellate decisions are referred to in the legal community as caselaw. Sometimes it is also called “legal precedent.”
Are DUI Checkpoints Legal?
Being stopped at a checkpoint is considered a “seizure” by law enforcement. The term “seizure” has significant legal importance and is the first step in determining whether a DWI Checkpoint is rooted in both statutory and caselaw authority.
The North Carolina Supreme Court set forth that legal maxim in State v. Mitchell, writing, [P]olice officers effectuate a seizure when they stop a vehicle at a checkpoint.”
As with all seizures, checkpoints conform with the Fourth Amendment only if they are reasonable. Following the language of the United States Constitution, “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”
Put simply, a “search or seizure is ordinarily unreasonable in the absence of individualized suspicion of wrongdoing.” City of Indianapolis v. Edmond
What About Probable Cause?
That indeed is the question. How is it that we as citizens are protected against “seizures,” unless there is “probable cause” to stop?
Don’t checkpoints violate that very precept of the Fourth Amendment, in that normally police officers would not observe violations of law without stopping vehicles?
The United States Supreme Court has allowed, as a limited exception to the Fourth Amendment, “brief, suspicionless seizures at fixed checkpoints designed to intercept illegal aliens.”
It also has allowed checkpoints to “verify drivers’ licenses and vehicle registrations.” But, it also adds, “We decline to suspend the usual requirement of individualized suspicion where the police seek to employ a checkpoint primarily for the ordinary enterprise of investigating crimes. 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.”
North Carolina DWI Checkpoint Laws
Checkpoints in North Carolina are authorized in N.C.G.S. 20-16.3A. There are requirements including:
- Checkpoint purpose is to determine compliance “with this Chapter,” or N.C.G.S. Chapter 20 (including DWI & other offenses)
- Designate in advance the pattern for stopping vehicles
- Designate in advance the method for “requesting drivers that are stopped to produce a drivers license, registration, or insurance information”
- Operate under a written policy that provides guidelines for the pattern
- Advise the public that an authorized checking station is being operated by having, at a minimum, one law enforcement vehicle with its blue light in operation during the conducting of the checking station
Checking stations, whether deemed “License Checkpoints” or “DWI Checkpoints” are regularly a subject of dispute throughout the courts of North Carolina. The caselaw, as well as the statutory authority and constitutional basis for impaired driving checkpoints, remains a hotly contested aspect of any DWI Defense.