Iowa Roadblocks Are Limited to Four Statutory Purposes

Iowa Code chapter 321K is a single section, enacted by 86 Acts, chapter 1220, section 23 and last touched by 2003 Acts, chapter 6, section 4. It splits roadblocks in two. Emergency vehicle roadblocks may be conducted in response to immediate threats to the health, safety, and welfare of the public, which is the manhunt and escaped-prisoner situation and has no list attached. Everything else is a routine vehicle roadblock, and section 321K.1(1) says agencies may conduct those only as provided in this section, then enumerates what they may enforce: the licensing of operators of motor vehicles, the registration of motor vehicles, the safety equipment required on motor vehicles, and the provisions of chapters 481A and 483A, which are Iowa's wildlife conservation and hunting and fishing license chapters.

Operating while intoxicated does not appear on that list. Nor does it appear anywhere else in the roadblock context: chapter 321J, the operating while intoxicated chapter that supplies Iowa's implied consent scheme, its preliminary screening test and its license revocations, contains no instance of the words roadblock, checkpoint or sobriety, and neither does chapter 321, the 2 megabyte motor vehicle chapter. Chapter 321K is the whole of Iowa's statutory roadblock law, and it names four subjects.

The procedural requirements in section 321K.1(2) are unusually detailed for a state roadblock statute, and each one is a checkable fact if you are ever stopped at one. The location, the time during which the roadblock will be conducted, and the procedure to be used must all be determined by policymaking administrative officers of the law enforcement agency, not by the officers on the road. The location must be selected for its safety and visibility to oncoming motorists, and adequate advance warning signs, illuminated at night or under conditions of poor visibility, must be erected to give approaching motorists timely information about the roadblock and its nature. There must be uniformed officers and marked official vehicles in sufficient quantity and visibility to demonstrate the official nature of the roadblock. The selection of motor vehicles to be stopped shall not be arbitrary, which is the statutory basis for requiring a fixed pattern such as every vehicle or every fifth vehicle. And the roadblock must be conducted to assure the safety of and to minimize the inconvenience of the motorists involved.

Section 321K.1(3) adds one document power: an agency conducting a roadblock in accordance with the section may require the driver to provide proof of financial liability coverage required under section 321.20B. That is the only thing chapter 321K lets an officer demand beyond what the roadblock's stated purpose already covers.

A driver who is lawfully stopped at a licensing or registration roadblock is not immune from an impaired driving investigation that develops on the spot. Iowa Code section 321J.5(1) lets a peace officer who has reasonable grounds to believe an operator may be violating or has violated section 321J.2 or 321J.2A request a preliminary breath screening sample, and section 321J.6(1) then makes the driver deemed to have consented to a chemical test in the circumstances that section lists, including a lawful arrest for a section 321J.2 violation. Those powers turn on individualized reasonable grounds, not on the roadblock itself.

20B, subsection 1. 94, 25 percent to the county where the fine is imposed and 25 percent to the state general fund. 8A, subsection 3. 9 and the revocation scheme in chapter 321J rather than anything in chapter 321K. 1(2), the challenge is made by motion in the criminal case in the Iowa district court for the county where the stop occurred, because chapter 321K creates no separate complaint procedure.