Legislature considers ban on police 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 fugitive searches, Amber Alerts or checks for invasive species.

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.