holding that the "seizure” of motorists who were stopped at a sobriety checkpoint at which all vehicles were stopped, was reasonable without, individualized suspicion in light of the magnitude of the drunk-driving problem and the determination of law enforcement officials that such checkpoints were necessary to apprehend such individuals before tragedy strikes
How later courts described this case
- holding that the "seizure” of motorists who were stopped at a sobriety checkpoint at which all vehicles were stopped, was reasonable without, individualized suspicion in light of the magnitude of the drunk-driving problem and the determination of law enforcement officials that such checkpoints were necessary to apprehend such individuals before tragedy strikes
- concluding that the "measure of the intrusion on motorists stopped briefly at sobriety checkpoints-is slight " when the checkpoints involved "preliminary questioning and observation by checkpoint officers" and "[t]he average delay for each vehicle was approximately 25 seconds" (emphasis added)
- explaining that roving patrols usually take place at night and “their approach may frighten motorists[,]” whereas, at a checkpoint stop, motorists can see other vehicles being stopped and can observe visible signs of the police officers’ authority (quotation marks omitted)
- finding sobriety checkpoints valid given the “balance of the State's interest in preventing drunken driving, the extent to which this system can reasonably said to advance that interest, and the degree of intrusion upon individual motorists who are briefly stopped.”
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
Justice Blackmun,
concurring in the judgment.
I concur only in the judgment.
I fully agree with the Court’s lamentations about the slaughter on our highways and about the dangers posed to almost everyone by the driver who is under the influence of alcohol or other drug. I add this comment only to remind the Court that it has been almost 20 years since, in Perez v. *456 Campbell, 402 U. S. 637, 657 (1971), in writing for three others (no longer on the Court) and myself, I noted that the “slaughter on the highways of this Nation exceeds the death toll of all our wars,” and that I detected “little genuine public concern about what takes place in our very midst and on our daily travel routes.” See also Tate v. Short, 401 U. S. 395, 401 (1971) (concurring statement). And in the Appendix to my writing in Perez, 402 U. S., at 672 , I set forth official figures to the effect that for the period from 1900 through 1969 motor-vehicle deaths in the United States exceeded the death toll of all our wars. I have little doubt that those figures, when supplemented for the two decades since 1969, would disclose an even more discouraging comparison. I am pleased, of course, that the Court is now stressing this tragic aspect of American life. See ante, at 451.