US courts have held that it is illegal for the police to set up random drug search roadblocks, exactly because they are random. Law enforcement needs a just cause to search a particular car.
Yesterday, however, a Colorado appeals court ruled it is OK for the police to set up FAKE drug search roadblocks, in order to trick and scare people into giving them just enough probable cause to search and arrest people.
It was a pretty slick scam. Here’s how it worked, and how it caught Stephen Corbin Roth, the 60-year-old patsy in the case. In the summer of 2000, in anticipation of a music festival in Telluride Colorado, police, frustrated by their inability to search all of the cars heading for the festival, hit upon an ingenious scheme. They simply posted signs along the highway leading to the festival site warning ”Narcotics checkpoint, one mile ahead” and ”Narcotics canine ahead.” To have actually had the checkpoints would have been illegal, but the signs were not.
Then, cops in camouflage gear hid in the woody hills along the highway, watching to see who turned around or dumped stuff out their windows after seeing the signs. This gave them probable cause to search the cars.
Stephen Roth, 60, was pulled over for littering and authorities found he had tossed a marijuana pipe out the window. A search of his car turned up two more marijuana pipes and hallucinogenic mushrooms.
Dolores County Sheriff Jerry Martin said his department conducted four fake checkpoint operations before suspending them because of the lawsuit. The operation will probably be reinstated, he said.
”We didn’t dream it would be that effective. I’m telling you, they tossed stuff out of there that you couldn’t believe,” Martin said.
Article from the Casper Star-Tribune
Full decision from Colorado Court of Appeals