Justices to Rule on Mass Driver Sobriety Checks

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court, acting Monday on nearly 1,000 appeals that had piled up over the summer, announced that it will rule on whether motorists may be stopped by the police at highway checkpoints to see if they are drunk.

Despite the growing use of sobriety checkpoints in many states, including California, the high court never has ruled directly on the constitutionality of routine police stops of presumably innocent motorists.

The Michigan courts in February called a halt to that state’s sobriety checkpoint program on grounds that the effort, although “laudable,” violated the Fourth Amendment’s ban on unreasonable searches and seizures. The state attorney general appealed, arguing that such stops represent a reasonable response to the carnage caused by drunk drivers.

The Michigan appeal was among 22 that the justices agreed to hear Monday. The high court dismissed hundreds of appeals, leaving the lower court rulings intact.

One of the day’s most significant developments came in an off-hand announcement that Justice John Paul Stevens, who has voted in the past to protect the right to abortion from state regulation, would not participate in the pending Illinois abortion case.

He did not explain his reasons, although in the past he has recused himself from cases involving law firms with which he has a personal or family connection. Stevens once practiced law in Chicago.

The move by Stevens was a sharp setback for pro-choice advocates. They had hoped that Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, the swing vote on abortion, might be persuaded to join Stevens and three other justices to produce a 5-4 ruling that Illinois and the other states may not impose regulations on abortion clinics that are costly and medically unnecessary.

The Illinois case is viewed by legal experts as the most significant of the three pending abortion appeals.

The court ruled last July that states may ban abortion in public facilities, and critics of the Illinois law say that it is designed to drive private abortion clinics out of business. However, lawyers for Illinois say that the law is merely intended to ensure quality medical care in abortion clinics.

Without Stevens, about the best the abortion-rights advocates probably can hope for is a 4-4 split. That would uphold the Illinois appeals court ruling, which threw out the Illinois law as unconstitutional. But it would have no impact beyond the immediate Illinois law and would not establish a national precedent.

If O’Connor votes with the four other justices who voted last July to let states ban abortion in public facilities, the ruling would reinstate the Illinois law and leave other legislatures free to follow suit.

The case (Turnock vs. Ragsdale, 88-790) will be argued before the court on Dec. 5.

The Michigan case on sobriety checkpoints (Michigan vs. Sitz, 88-1897) will be heard early next year. Just before the Christmas holidays last year, the justices let stand a California Supreme Court ruling permitting sobriety checkpoints. But, in that case, the court merely denied an appeal and did not rule on the merits of the issue.

In the last decade, the high court has developed what many experts view as a confusing two-track analysis of search and seizures cases. When a search is criminal in nature, police must show some “reasonable suspicion” before stopping and questioning an individual. However, if the search is labeled “administrative,” officials may search anyone.

The concept of “administrative” searches began with the inspections of businesses for fire code violations and other non-criminal activities. Searches at the U.S. border are considered “administrative,” and cars and passengers may be routinely inspected even though agents have no reason to suspect wrongdoing. Likewise, airport searches of passengers and baggage are permitted.

However, as defense lawyers have pointed out, sobriety checkpoints on the highway are closer to criminal searches.

Unlike most state courts, the Michigan Supreme Court analyzed the sobriety checkpoints as a type of criminal search and seizure.

“While the goals of the sobriety checkpoint program are laudable,” the state court said, “the program fails to qualify as a reasonable seizure under the Fourth Amendment.”

In other actions, the court:

--Made clear that the U.S. Interior secretary, not state governors, has the final word on selecting sites for offshore oil exploration. The court let stand a ruling (Cowper vs. U.S., 88-2000) from the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals upholding the authority of federal officials to lease sites off the Alaska coast. The law allows governors to make “recommendations” but leaves the decision to the federal government, the court said.

California Atty. Gen. John Van de Kamp, joined by seven others, said that the ruling leaves the states “virtually powerless” to block offshore drilling near their coastlines. The court rejected the appeal without dissent.

--Let stand a $278,600 libel verdict against a Pawtucket, R. I., newspaper for a news story that contained no false statements (New England Newspapers vs. Healey, 88-1939). Rather, the Rhode Island Supreme Court said that the libel award was justified for “what was left unprinted.”

In reporting the sudden heart attack death of a local political activist outside a public meeting, the newspaper noted that the chairman of the meeting had been Dr. Paul Healey, a physician. This left the “defamatory implication” that the doctor should have come to the aid of the stricken man, the court said.

--Agreed to decide whether a government agency may take into account an employee’s political affiliation in making promotions and transfers.

In 1980, the court dealt a blow to political patronage by ruling that public employees may not be fired solely for political reasons.

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