Connecticut Sobriety Checkpoints: No Authorizing Statute, Implied Consent at the Stop

The absence is worth stating precisely because it is easy to assume otherwise. Connecticut has no counterpart to the statutory checkpoint schemes some states enacted, and no statute setting out how a checkpoint site is chosen, how long a driver may be held, or what signage is required. The only official statement on the practice printed with the Connecticut statutes is a case annotation to CGS § 14-227a recording that detention at a roadside sobriety checkpoint did not constitute an unreasonable seizure or violate a defendant’s due process rights (56 Conn. App. 252). Checkpoint authority in Connecticut is therefore judicial and constitutional, not statutory, which is why the operative rules a driver meets at a Connecticut checkpoint all come from other sections.

The first of those is implied consent. CGS § 14-227b(a) deems any person who operates a motor vehicle in Connecticut to have consented to a chemical test of blood, breath or urine and to the nontestimonial portion of a drug influence evaluation conducted by a drug recognition expert. Where the operator is a minor the parents or guardian are deemed to have consented as well, and the section expressly extends "motor vehicle" to a snowmobile and an all-terrain vehicle as defined in § 14-379.

That deemed consent does not let an officer demand a test at the roadside. Under § 14-227b(b)(1) the request may only be made of a person already placed under arrest for a violation of § 14-227a, § 14-227m or § 14-227n(a)(1) or (2), and only after the person has been apprised of constitutional rights, afforded a reasonable opportunity to telephone an attorney before the test, informed that evidence of refusal is admissible under § 14-227a(e), and informed that the license or operating privilege may be suspended. If the person refuses, § 14-227b(b)(2) says the test shall not be given, except that where the refusal or inability concerns a blood test the officer must designate another test.

The immediate consequence sits in § 14-227b(c). On a refusal, or on a test commenced within two hours of the time of operation showing an elevated blood alcohol content, the officer acting for the Commissioner of Motor Vehicles immediately revokes and takes possession of the license, or suspends the operating privilege of an unlicensed person or a nonresident, for a twenty-four hour period. The officer files a report not later than six business days after the arrest, sworn under penalty of false statement as provided in § 53a-157b, and a report of a refusal must be endorsed by a third person who witnessed that refusal.

Administratively the case then moves to the Department of Motor Vehicles. Under § 14-227b(e)(1) the commissioner may suspend effective on a date not later than thirty days from the later of notice of arrest or the results of a blood or urine test or a drug influence evaluation, the driver is automatically entitled to a hearing before the effective date, and the driver must contact the department to schedule it not later than seven days after the suspension notice is mailed. Section 14-227b(g)(2) limits that hearing to four questions: whether the officer had probable cause to arrest for operating under the influence, whether the person was placed under arrest, whether the person refused or gave a test showing an elevated blood alcohol content within two hours of operation, and whether the person was operating the motor vehicle. A negative finding on any one of the four requires reinstatement under § 14-227b(h). Hearings are conducted under chapter 54, Connecticut’s Uniform Administrative Procedure Act.

Two further rules shape a Connecticut stop that begins as a checkpoint. CGS § 54-33p(a)(1) bars the odour of cannabis or burnt cannabis from constituting probable cause or reasonable suspicion in part or in whole for any stop or search, but § 54-33p(c) preserves an officer’s power to conduct a test for impairment based on that odour where the officer reasonably suspects a violation of § 14-227a, § 14-227m or § 14-227n. And CGS § 54-33o(b) limits the officer, on a stop made solely for a motor vehicle violation, to asking for the operator’s license, registration, insurance identity card and documentation directly related to the stop.

A refusal is punished administratively rather than criminally. Under CGS § 14-227b(i)(1) the commissioner suspends the operator’s license or operating privilege for forty-five days where the driver did not schedule a hearing, failed to appear, or lost at the hearing. Restoration is conditional: the driver must install an ignition interlock device, as defined in § 14-227j, on each motor vehicle owned or operated by that person, and may not operate a vehicle without a functioning approved device for the longer of the period set by § 14-227b(i)(2) or the period attached to any conviction under § 14-227a(g), § 14-227m(c) or § 14-227n(c).

Section 14-227b(i)(2) sets the device periods. A person aged twenty-one or over who tested over the limit serves six months for a first suspension, one year for a second and two years for a third or subsequent. A person under twenty-one serves one year, two years and three years respectively. A person of any age who refused the test or the nontestimonial portion of a drug influence evaluation serves one year, two years and three years. A suspension of a safe boating certificate under § 15-140q(i) counts as a previous suspension for these purposes, and the commissioner must transmit the suspension notice to the Commissioner of Energy and Environmental Protection, who suspends the boating certificate as well.

Evidence of the refusal is separately admissible against the driver in a criminal prosecution under § 14-227a(e). Every stop, checkpoint or otherwise, is logged under § 54-1m, and § 54-1m(i) requires the Office of Policy and Management to review the prevalence and disposition of traffic stops including any conducted on suspicion of a violation of § 14-227a, § 14-227g, § 14-227m, § 14-227n or § 14-230a, and to publish that annual review on its web site.