A decade and a half ago, the Supreme Court upheld the use of warrantless “sobriety checkpoints.” More recently, targeted seat belt enforcement checkpoints have become commonplace. Michigan’s Genesee County are expanding this practice to include warrantless “drug checkpoints” in expressways surrounding Flint.
Reports the Detroit Free Press:
Motorists driving on expressways around Flint are getting surprised by a stunning tactic that the Genesee County sheriff has been using to fight the flow of illegal drugs — one that legal experts said will not withstand a court challenge.
At least seven times this month, including Tuesday, motorists have said they have seen a pickup towing a large sign on I-69 or U.S.-23 that depicts the sheriff’s badge and warns: “Sheriff narcotics check point, 1 mile ahead — drug dog in use.”
The checkpoints are part of a broad sweep for drugs that Genesee County Sheriff Robert Pickell and his self-titled Sheriff’s Posse said are needed, calling Flint a crossroads of drug dealing because nearly a half-dozen major roads and expressways pass in and around the city. Pickell said he decided to try checkpoints when he learned that drug shipments might be passing through Flint in tractor-trailers with false compartments.
University of Michigan law professor David Moran points out that a 2000 U.S. Supreme Court decision held that similar open-ended, all-encompassing narcotics checkpoints in Indianapolis were unconstitutional. He points out that one tactic used by the Genessee County Sheriff’s Office — waiting to stop motorists who make a last-minute U-turn to avoid the illicit checkpoints — is “perilously close to entrapment.”
“It’s just the kind of shabby treatment that the Fourth Amendment was designed to prevent,” Moran concludes.
The unconstitutional checkpoints in Flint are an outgrowth of the wide-spread and increasing use of “asset forfeiture” — seizure of money and other assets supposedly related to drug trafficking — that has become an epidemic in economically devastated Michigan.
In Detroit, municipal authorities, led by the local police, have dealt with the economic downturn by resorting to undisguised theft. The Detroit News reports: “Local law enforcement agencies are raising millions of dollars by seizing private property suspected in crimes, but often without charges being filed — and sometimes even when authorities admit no offense was committed.”
Between 2003 and 2007, Romulus, Michigan witnessed a 118 percent increase in forfeiture revenues (the theft, by police, of money and property from people not charged with criminal offenses) despite the fact that there has not been a corresponding increase in criminal activity. Well, make that unofficial criminal activity. One township, Novi, went from $12,278 in 2003 to $2.7 million in 2007. The Wayne County Sheriff’s Office netted $8.69 million in 2007, four times the haul its banditti seized in 2001.
Sgt. Dave Schreiner, who is in charge of Canton Township’s forfeiture unit — which is to say that he’s the kingpin of that community’s most notorious criminal gang — is astonishingly candid: “Police departments right now are looking for ways to generate revenue, and forfeiture is a way to offset the costs of doing business…. You’ll find that departments are doing more forfeitures than they used to because they’ve got to — they’re running out of money and they’ve got to find it somewhere.”
A growing scandal in Romulus indicates that the money and property seized in the name of drug enforcement is actually abetting institutional corruption within law enforcement, a development that should come as a surprise to nobody.
Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy recently announced criminal charges against former Romulus Police Chief Michael St. Andre, his wife Sandra Vlaz-St. Andre, and five Romulus detectives — Det. Sargent Richard Balzer, Det. Richard Landy, Det. Donald Hopkins, Det. Jeremy Channells and Det. Larry Droege — for misconduct, corruption, embezzlement, and witness intimidation.
“All seven are accused of participating in a scheme to improperly use drug forfeiture funds for personal benefit,” reported MLive.com. “Worthy says the allegations include purchasing a Westland tanning salon operated by Vlaz-St. Andre, hiring prostitutes and spending $40,000 on marijuana and alcohol in a one-year period.”
Drug Checkpoints aren’t a public safety measure. They’re highway robbery carried out under color of the “law.”
Read more about this at the Detroit Free Press.
