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'Drug check' on signpost up ahead? It's white-lie zone

But police ploy legal, appeals court rules

By Karen Abbott, Rocky Mountain News
August 15, 2003

They were driving to a music festival in far southwestern Colorado when they saw the big signs posted along the road.

"Narcotics checkpoint, one mile ahead."

"Narcotics canine ahead."

The passenger tossed something out the window, and they just kept going. That was only the petty offense of littering - a little crime - but it was the start of something big.

It's against the law for police to set up narcotics checkpoints to check whether any randomly passing motorists happen to have illegal drugs.

But it's not illegal for the police to pretend that's what they're doing, the Colorado Court of Appeals ruled Thursday.

On that day in June 2000, the police were pretending.

After they put up the signs warning of the nonexistent narcotics checkpoint, some officers hid on a hill overlooking the road, wearing camouflage clothing, to watch what passing motorists did when they saw the signs.

If anybody threw something out of a car, the officers radioed to their colleagues farther down the road to stop the car for littering. Then a hidden officer would dash down to the road to retrieve the litter.

This time, they retrieved a pipe containing what appeared to be marijuana residue.

That gave the police a legal reason to search the car, the Court of Appeals ruled in the case of Stephen Corbin Roth, 60, who was driving the car that day.

In the car, the police found another marijuana pipe, and a jury convicted Roth of unlawful possession of drug paraphernalia.

Roth appealed, contending the police searched his car illegally, but the appeals court disagreed.

"The police here observed the defendant's passenger commit the offense of littering," the court said. "This offense, while minor, justified the police in stopping defendant's car."

The Colorado Court of Appeals based its ruling on a federal appeals court decision last year in a similar case from Oklahoma.

In that case, according to the Denver-based 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Mack Flynn was driving along a highway in Muskogee County when he passed a sign reading "Drug checkpoint 1/3-mile ahead."

Then he passed another sign that said, "Drug dogs in use," and saw a police car parked ahead with its lights on.

Flynn suddenly changed lanes and zipped down an exit ramp. He stopped the car. His passenger opened the door and dropped out a large sack. Then Flynn drove off but was soon stopped by police.

Police hiding in the bushes had pounced on the sack and concluded that it contained what they called "a lot of dope." It turned out to be methamphetamine.

Flynn argued on appeal that it is illegal for police to set up drug checkpoints - and the 10th Circuit agreed, but it ruled against Flynn anyway because there wasn't any drug checkpoint.

"The posting of signs to create a ruse does not constitute illegal police activity," the 10th Circuit said.

"In fact, had Mr. Flynn continued driving eastbound on I-40, he would never have been stopped because the checkpoint warned of by the signs did not exist. Even the police car ahead on I-40 was unoccupied.

"The officers put up the signs only as a ruse to observe suspicious behavior by those who might take the nearest exit after seeing the signs."

 

WNB

I read about something like this a few weeks ago, too. Don't cops have anything better to do? While this may catch a very few hard drug dealers, the vast majority of the people who will get busted this way aren't dealers, and the majority of them most likely just have weed.

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weedzinger

Sometimes I cant remember if I have anything on me. I hope what you said is true, because the next time I see all those signs Im not breaking any pipes or eating any pot. Im just gonna drive.

Ive always wanted to eat a great big nugget.

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Smoke Rings

thats the dirtiest cheap trick ive ever heard. stupid lazy cops.

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dj atom 12

I had to eat a fat nug and still caught a possesion on some schwag.

A very long story with a $21,500.00 bail ending. And to top it off, the state attorney didn't file any charges. Yes, that is correct. I walked,.... taller than usual that day.

The point is that nug helped the seemingly 40 degree temp in holding. The food wasn't bad either.

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Niteshift

LMAO. That has been done for YEARS (at least 15 that I know of). The Rocky Mountain News just heard about it? What a crackerjack news organization they are.

Don't cops have anything better to do?

Actually, if you look at it from the management perspective, it's very time-efficient.

thats the dirtiest cheap trick ive ever heard.

I'm sure I could come up with completely legal ploys that you'd say were dirtier.

stupid lazy cops.

I'd say smart. Narrowing the field down without having to move a muscle sounds kind of smart to me.

While this may catch a very few hard drug dealers, the vast majority of the people who will get busted this way aren't dealers, and the majority of them most likely just have weed.

Once again, you guys focus on the mj part and miss the rest.

What do we arrest most at DUI check points? People driving on suspended drivers licenses, followed by people with warrants. Yeah, we catch DUI's too, but there are more of the other and we catch more of them.

If you know you're driving with a suspended license, driving a stolen car, have a warrant, have stolen property in your back seat, running a load of illegal guns or have a 5 year old you kidnapped in the car......would you quite possibly try to avoid the check point too? You bet you would and those people get nabbed too.

BTW, if the guys are really hardcore, they'll go on for a while with the fake checkpoint, then set up a REAL one and zap the people who think they're being smart.

Sort of like parking an empty patrol car in a school zone for a couple of days, then putting a cop with radar in it a little later on when everyone figures out it's empty.

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LotusFlower

sickening

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Niteshift

How is it "sickening"? Really?

LotusFlower

It's stopping drivers under false pretenses.

How big of a threat were litterers before the police needed to pretend to be setting up shop to bust narcotics traffickers?

It is law enforcement vulgarly twisting the law to harass people they have to arrange to suspect in the first place. How is this honorable? It's a sociolgy experiment, not "protecting and serving."

Niteshift

It's stopping drivers under false pretenses.

It's not a false pretense. Littering IS a violation of the law. If you are stupid enough to throw something out the window because you saw a sign, that's YOUR stupidity. It's not FALSE.

A FALSE pretense would be saying that I stopped your car because I your brake light was out when it was in fact working.

And the Supreme Court ruled back in 1996 in Whren v. US that there is no such animal as a pretextual stop. As long as there is IN FACT a violation, which is automatic probable cause to stop a car, it does NOT MATTER what the ultimate goal is.

How big of a threat were litterers before the police needed to pretend to be setting up shop to bust narcotics traffickers?

So that excuses the littering offense and the cops should ignore it? I'll come empty my ashtray in your front yard, ok.

It is law enforcement vulgarly twisting the law to harass people

No it's not. It's LE acting within lawful guidelines set forth by the SUPREME COURT.

LE doesn't make the laws, we act within them.

And when you throw something from the car, it becomes abandoned property and you have no legal expectation of privacy regarding it. When they examine the litter (evidence of the crime you just committed in the view of a police officer) and determine it is contraband, then you ended up screwing YOURSELF. They didn't. You did.

So dazzle me. Tell me where the law is being "twisted". So far, the Supreme Court is on my side.


not "protecting and serving."

Get over that slogan. It's the slogan for LAPD, it's not the slogan for EVERY police dept, and that's all it is, a slogan. Not much different than Pepsi, the choice of the new generation. Nor is it actually all that accurate. I can cite you a number of court decisions that have held that the police do NOT have a legal RESPONSIBILITY to protect you or your property.