WV: Suspicionless police checkpoint was unreasonable

A police safety checkpoint set up for no apparent reason was unreasonable. State v. Sigler, 224 W. Va. 608, 687 S.E.2d 391 (2009):

We hold that a stop of a motor vehicle at a police checkpoint such as the stoppage here is intrusive to private citizens. Such an intrusion is by its constitutional nature a seizure. As in Brown, in evaluating the lawfulness of a suspicionless seizure such as here, we believe that a balancing of interests should be considered to determine if such a seizure is permissible under the United States Constitution and the Constitution of West Virginia and these factors should be considered: (1) the gravity of the public concern that is being addressed or served by the checkpoint; (2) the degree to which the checkpoint is likely to succeed in serving this public interest; and (3) the severity with which the checkpoint interferes with individual liberty. When evaluating the degree of severity of interference with individual liberty, West Virginia courts must consider not only the subjective intrusion determined by the potential of the checkpoint to generate fear and surprise in motorists, but also the objective intrusion into individual freedom as measured by the duration of the detention at the checkpoint and the intensity of the inspection. The court’s obligation in weighing these factors is to assure that an individual’s reasonable expectation of privacy is not subject to arbitrary invasions solely at the unfettered discretion of officers in the field.

In conclusion, suspicionless checkpoint roadblocks are constitutional in West Virginia only when conducted in a random and non-discriminatory manner within predetermined written operation guidelines which minimize the State’s intrusion into the freedom of the individual and which strictly limits the discretion vested in police officers at the scene. The checkpoints utilized by law enforcement herein were improper and any evidence derived therefrom should have been suppressed.