{"id":114,"date":"2007-09-02T22:54:58","date_gmt":"2007-09-03T02:54:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.n1zyy.com\/n1zyy\/2007\/09\/02\/sobriety-checkpoints\/"},"modified":"2007-09-02T22:54:58","modified_gmt":"2007-09-03T02:54:58","slug":"sobriety-checkpoints","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.n1zyy.com\/n1zyy\/2007\/09\/02\/sobriety-checkpoints\/","title":{"rendered":"Sobriety Checkpoints"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.thenewspaper.com\/news\/09\/921.asp\">This<\/a> answers something I&#8217;ve wondered for a long time: how are sobriety checkpoints not a violation of the Constitution?<\/p>\n<p>The Constitution says that &#8220;The right of the people to be secure&#8230; against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated&#8230; but upon probable cause.&#8221; It seems pretty clear to me that the police pulling people over, even if it&#8217;s random, to check if they&#8217;re sober constitutes a <em>search<\/em> without <em>probable cause<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>It turns out that the SCOTUS has already decided this. In essence, Chief Justice Rehnquist admitted that the stops <em>do<\/em> constitute a search, but that the public good outweighs the need for probable cause. Therefore, they are legal despite being <em>very<\/em> clearly prohibited under the US Constitution.<\/p>\n<p>There&#8217;s some hope, though, indicated towards the end of the linked article. The case originated in Michigan, which had ruled that they <em>were<\/em> unconstitutional. The ruling, obviously, was overturned by the SCOTUS. But Michigan&#8217;s Supreme Court ruling also said that they violated Michigan&#8217;s Constitution. Ergo, they&#8217;re still illegal in Michigan even though the US Constitution &#8220;doesn&#8217;t&#8221; prohibit them. (I never thought I&#8217;d use quotes in that way&#8230;)<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This answers something I&#8217;ve wondered for a long time: how are sobriety checkpoints not a violation of the Constitution? The Constitution says that &#8220;The right of the people to be secure&#8230; against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated&#8230; &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.n1zyy.com\/n1zyy\/2007\/09\/02\/sobriety-checkpoints\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,15,21,24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-114","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-interesting","category-living","category-politics","category-rants-raves"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.n1zyy.com\/n1zyy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.n1zyy.com\/n1zyy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.n1zyy.com\/n1zyy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.n1zyy.com\/n1zyy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.n1zyy.com\/n1zyy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=114"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.n1zyy.com\/n1zyy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.n1zyy.com\/n1zyy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=114"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.n1zyy.com\/n1zyy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=114"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.n1zyy.com\/n1zyy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=114"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}