Hawaii Intoxicant Control Roadblocks: Fixed Location, Three-Hour Cap

Hawaii is unusual in that there are no incorporated cities and no municipal police forces, so the phrase "the police departments of the respective counties" in §291E-19 names the complete list of agencies that may run a checkpoint anywhere in the state: the Honolulu Police Department, the Hawaii County Police Department, the Maui Police Department and the Kauai Police Department. Each chief who wants a roadblock program must "specify the procedures to be followed in carrying out the program in rules adopted under chapter 91," the Hawaii Administrative Procedure Act, and those procedures must be "in conformity with and not more intrusive than" the §291E-20 standards. A county cannot make its program harsher than the statute; §291E-20(b) expressly allows it to be gentler.

The selection rule in §291E-20(a)(1) is the heart of the scheme. A program must require that all approaching vehicles be stopped, or that certain vehicles be stopped "by selecting vehicles in a specified numerical sequence or pattern" fixed in advance, such as every third or every fifth car. Officer-by-officer choice is not one of the two permitted options. Paragraph (a)(2) then caps the operation: roadblocks must sit "at fixed locations for a maximum three-hour period," so a roving patrol dressed up as a checkpoint, or a site that runs all night without moving, falls outside the authorisation. Paragraph (a)(3) lists five safety conditions in order, ending with the requirement that the roadblock be terminated at the discretion of the officer in charge where traffic congestion would otherwise result, and (a)(4) requires enough uniformed officers and official vehicles to move traffic "with a minimum of inconvenience."

A 2021 amendment, Act 230, added the savings clause at the end of §291E-19. Where a department's internal standards are not "rules" as HRS §91-1 defines that word, a failure to comply scrupulously with those internal procedures does not invalidate a roadblock that still meets the statutory minimums of §291E-20. The statutory criteria, not a department's internal checklist, are the test.

Avoiding a checkpoint is treated separately. The case note printed under both §291E-19 and §291E-20 in the official statutes records State v. Heapy, 113 H. 283, 151 P.3d 764 (2007), which held that §291E-20 does not authorize officers conducting sobriety checkpoints to pursue and detain drivers who appear to avoid the checkpoint in a lawful manner, and that doing so is more intrusive than the statutory standards allow and therefore violates §291E-19. Turning off before the cones, using a legal driveway or making a lawful turn is not by itself a reason to be stopped.

What happens once you are stopped runs on HRS §291E-11. Operating a vehicle on a public way in Hawaii, or on or in the waters of the State, is deemed consent to a breath, blood or urine test approved by the director of health, but under §291E-11(b) the test may only be requested by an officer who has probable cause, and only after a lawful arrest and after the person has been told that they may refuse. A roadside preliminary alcohol screening device does not count: §291E-11(f) says its analysis "shall only be used in determining probable cause for the arrest" and cannot replace the evidentiary test.

Refusal is not itself a crime for an adult driver in Hawaii, but it triggers the administrative machinery. " Where the refusal stands, the revocation periods in §291E-41(b) apply: one year with no prior alcohol or drug enforcement contact in the preceding ten years, two years with one prior contact, and four years with two or more. A respondent classed as a highly intoxicated driver with no prior contact faces either an eighteen-month revocation with an ignition interlock device installed in every vehicle they operate or a two-year revocation without one, and installation and maintenance are at the respondent's own expense except as §291E-5 provides.

For a driver under twenty-one arrested under §291E-64, §291E-65 sends the refusal to a district judge by affidavit and requires a hearing within twenty days. A driver who believes the roadblock itself failed the §291E-20 minimums challenges it by moving to suppress in the criminal case; the administrative revocation runs on its own track through the director, with judicial review under §291E-40.