Reader’s Question:

We were driving home the other night when a police officer asked us to stop. I was the one on the wheels and I was asked some questions related to drunk driving. I wasn’t detained because clearly, I was not drunk nor consume any amount of alcohol. But I want to know, are these Florida DUI checkpoints legal?

Spencer

Pembroke Pines, FL

Generally, the Fourth Amendment of the US Constitution protects citizens from unreasonable searches and seizures. This includes protecting citizens from being stopped without a search warrant and requires, at a minimum, that a police officer have a probable cause or reasonable suspicion to briefly detain a citizen to investigate his suspicion that the individual is involved in some illegal conduct.

But there is an exemption to the Fourth Amendment. It is the sobriety checkpoint that is intended to both deter and apprehend drivers operating their vehicle while under the influence of alcohol and/or drugs. The US Supreme Court stated that certain safeguards should be followed to render such stops constitutionally permissible. DUI checkpoints as a measure of curbing drunk driving in Florida are legitimate so long as the police officers manning the checkpoints use a random method of selection which precludes the “probable cause” law, such as stopping every third car, and the delay and inconvenience to drivers is kept to a minimum.

Tags: drunk driving laws, DUI, DUI advice, DUI arrest, DUI lawyer