Legislature looks at banning DUI checkpoints

SALT LAKE CITY — Unified Police Department Sheriff Jim Winder says before law enforcement set up check points to catch drunken drivers, popular recreational areas like Bullfrong Marina on Lake Powell and Little Sarhara in Juab County were dangerous places to party.

During spring break, Bullfrog Marina was once "inundated with young people who would drink like fish, but couldn't swim like it," Winder said. At Little Sahara, "we were literally carting bodies out of there."

The checkpoints have made those areas much safer, he testified Friday before a legislative panel.

But a majority of those lawmakers were unswayed from their beliefs that those same checkpoints are also unconstitutional and unnecessary for safety, and voted 8-5 to advance a bill, HB140, that would prohibit law enforcement from establishing checkpoints for DUI or other offenses.

The proposal would allow highway checkpoints based on fugitive searches, Amber Alerts or checks for invasive species.

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Pulling motorists over to see if they've been drinking, amounts to a "warrantless, suspicionless" search, Rep. David Butterfield told the House Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice Committee.

The Logan Republican added that recent court decisions only allow checkpoints under "very narrow" conditions.

Rep. David Litvack, D-Salt Lake City, pressed Butterfield on whether checkpoints are constitutional as long as court-established guidelines are followed.

Butterfield conceded that they would be.

"We keep hearing that it's unconstitutional," Litvack told fellow committee members. "We may feel that it is, but it's not. It's not unconstitutional, and the Supreme Court has said that."

Still, Butterfield and other supporters of HB140 said law enforcement have other tools to take drunken drivers off the road.

"Saturation patrols" — several officers patrolling the same stretch of roadway to watch for signs of drunk driving — are proven to be more effective, he said.

Butterfield pointed to National Highway Traffic Safety Administration data showing no correlation between safety — as measured in alcohol-related traffic fatalities — and checkpoint stops in states that allow them.

But officers need a combination of checkpoints and saturation patrols that "provides us the best ability to reduce the incidence of impaired driving," said Layton Police Chief Terry Keefe, who is also president of the Utah Chiefs of Police Association.

Rep. Lee Perry, R-Perry, who is a Utah Highway Patrol officer, agreed. "Do we do away with a tool because it's a little less effective, or do we keep it on the tool belt?"

To set up a checkpoint, law enforcers have to meet legal requirements, Perry added. A judge must approve the plan, it must be advertised publicly and roadway signs alert motorists to the checkpoint.

"I suppose (the judge's approval) might be considered a warrant," Butterfield responded. "But our founders decided a long time ago that we should not stop citizens without cause."

Art Brown, the president of Mothers Against Drunk Driving, testified that the publicity surrounding checkpoints makes them effective because they deter people from drinking and driving in the first place.

To that argument, Rep. Greg Hughes, R-Draper, responded, "If we're OK with lining up cars and having a press conference (to deter drunk driving), why stop there?" he asked. "I just don't know if that's a public policy I can get behind."

Rep. Craig Frank, R-Pleasant Grove, who also voted for the bill, recalled feeling disturbed while going through a checkpoint while driving with his family.

"I thought, 'Where are we going (as a society)?'" he said. "Where have we gone?"

Email:lbrubaker@ksl.com

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