Judge rules against checkpoint

NORTH PLATTE, Neb. — A Lincoln County judge has ruled that arrests and searches at a Nebraska State Patrol checkpint were unconstitutional because not every passing car was stopped.

District Court Judge John Murphy sustained a motion last week to suppress all evidence found during a search of a car at an Interstate 80 checkpoint near Maxwell in November.

More than 3,900 vehicles were stopped at the checkpoint, including Alfonzo Johnson. Officers said they found several pounds of marijuana in Johnson's car.

Johnson's attorney, Patrick Hays, filed a motion to suppress all evidence found during the search.

In his ruling, Murphy cited a court ruling in a Michigan case that reads, “We observed that the random stops involved the ‘kind of standardless and unconstrained discretion which is the evil the court has discerned when previous cases it has insisted that the discretion of the official in the field be circumscribed, at least to some extent.'”

Murphy goes to on to write, ”The failure to stop every vehicle, therefore, interjects the randomness which was disapproved of in (the original Supreme Court ruling ). Thus, the procedure used by the Nebraska State Patrol in this case, in not stopping every vehicle, violates the U.S. Supreme Court holding on random stops.”

Murphy noted that having a drug dog sniff Johnson's vehicle was a violation of Johnson's Fourth Amendment right since there was no “probable cause” for the search.

Murphy said that any contraband found during “an illegal detention” could not be used in the case against Johnson.

The November checkpoint netted two significant marijuana arrests, a cocaine arrest and 801 traffic violations. The checkpoint lasted for 13 hours and was conducted as a joint operation by the State Patrol, Nebraska Game and Parks and the Nebraska Department of Roads.

Lincoln County Attorney Rebecca Harling declined to comment on Murphy's ruling and could not provide an immediate status of Johnson's case.

« Metro/Region

Share