Drivers face drug checkpoints on highways near Flint

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Drivers face drug checkpoints on highways near Flint
BY BILL LAITNER
DETROIT FREE PRESS
Date: Oct. 21, 2011

Motorists driving on expressways around Flint are getting surprised by a stunning tactic that the Genesee County sheriff has been using to fight the flow of illegal drugs -- one that legal experts said will not withstand a court challenge.

At least seven times this month, including Tuesday, motorists have said they have seen a pickup towing a large sign on I-69 or U.S.-23 that depicts the sheriff's badge and warns: "Sheriff narcotics check point, 1 mile ahead -- drug dog in use."

The checkpoints are part of a broad sweep for drugs that Genesee County Sheriff Robert Pickell and his self-titled Sheriff's Posse said are needed, calling Flint a crossroads of drug dealing because nearly a half-dozen major roads and expressways pass in and around the city. Pickell said he decided to try checkpoints when he learned that drug shipments might be passing through Flint in tractor-trailers with false compartments.

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Based on a case out of Indianapolis, the U.S. Supreme Court held in 2000 that narcotics checkpoints where everyone gets stopped on a public road are not legal and violate Fourth Amendment protections against illegal searches and seizures, professor David Moran at the University of Michigan Law School said.
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Source: http://www.freep.com/article/201110...near-Flint?odyssey=tab|topnews|text|FRONTPAGE
 
This is such a violation of the 4th amendment... they were literally stopping everyone on some of the check points, and targeting people with trailers. Especially worrying, (as stated) for people with Medical Marijuana cards.

This isn't the first I've heard of the check points, but obviously it won't be the last.
 
Cops will continue to violate the law to possibly catch somebody from breaking the law.

Just a matter of time before somebody with a decent lawyer gets this stuff stopped.
 
AfterGlow said:
If alcohol checkpoints have been ruled legal, these will eventually be ruled legal too. There's really no difference.
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Alcohol checkpoints assess sobriety. These look at cargo. The supreme court would have to make an exception to the Constitution, as it did for DUI checkpoints (see here).
 
The article you cited clearly states that stopping somebody to access their sobriety violates the 4th amendment. When the Michigan law was challenged in the Supreme Court, it was ruled that the "minimal intrusion" was justified. If it can be justified for DUI checkpoints, it will be justified for drug checkpoints just as haphazardly. This is the proverbial slippery slope that we're going down. NO violation of the 4th amendment can be acceptable. It undermines it's fundamental purpose. It's a travesty that the U.S. Supreme Court would allow this. They might as well just throw the bill of rights out the window.

235360287471352662 said:
Alcohol checkpoints assess sobriety. These look at cargo. The supreme court would have to make an exception to the Constitution, as it did for DUI checkpoints (see here).
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It's a travesty that the U.S. Supreme Court would allow this. They might as well just throw the bill of rights out the window.
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I don't know much about the U.S. Supreme Court but what I've heard from them this doesn't surprise me at all. Didn't they also basically allow corporate bribery of politicians with things like "Corporations are people" and "money equals free speech" ?
 
I'm really surprised they want to do this kind of stuff. Urban decay has affected Flint among other cities in Michigan on a massive scale and I'd think the last thing they would want to do is crackdown. It just seems like another thing to push people away from a place with already high crime, high unemployment, and general poverty.

I'm not saying this as something against people of Michigan btw, just describing what I've come to understand recently about what GM did to the place.
 
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