Indianapolis v. Edmond, 531 U.S. 32, 22 (2000)

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Cite as: 531 U. S. 32 (2000)

Rehnquist, C. J., dissenting

pose anything other than the contraband items. United States v. Place, 462 U. S. 696, 706-707 (1983). And there is nothing in the record to indicate that the dog sniff lengthens the stop. Finally, the checkpoints' success rate—49 arrests for offenses unrelated to drugs—only confirms the State's legitimate interests in preventing drunken driving and ensuring the proper licensing of drivers and registration of their vehicles. 183 F. 3d, at 661.5

These stops effectively serve the State's legitimate interests; they are executed in a regularized and neutral manner; and they only minimally intrude upon the privacy of the motorists. They should therefore be constitutional.

II

The Court, unwilling to adopt the straightforward analysis that these precedents dictate, adds a new non-law-enforcement primary purpose test lifted from a distinct area of Fourth Amendment jurisprudence relating to the searches of homes and businesses. As discussed above, the question that the Court answers is not even posed in this case given the accepted reasons for the seizures. But more fundamentally, whatever sense a non-law-enforcement primary purpose test may make in the search setting, it is ill suited to brief roadblock seizures, where we have consistently looked at "the scope of the stop" in assessing a program's constitutionality. Martinez-Fuerte, 428 U. S., at 567.

We have already rejected an invitation to apply the nonlaw-enforcement primary purpose test that the Court now finds so indispensable. The respondents in Sitz argued that the Brown v. Texas balancing test was not the "proper method of analysis" with regards to roadblock seizures:

"Respondents argue that there must be a showing of some special governmental need 'beyond the normal

5 Put in statistical terms, 4.2 percent of the 1,161 motorists stopped were arrested for offenses unrelated to drugs.

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