DWI Checking Stations and Roadblocks in North Carolina

North Carolina did not leave checkpoint authority to the courts. Session Laws 1983, c. 435, s. 22 wrote G.S. 20-16.3A into the Motor Vehicle chapter, and it has been rewritten twice since, by S.L. 2006-253, s. 4 and S.L. 2011-216, s. 1. Subsection (a) states plainly that a law enforcement agency may conduct checking stations to determine compliance with the provisions of Chapter 20, which covers impaired driving, licensing, registration and financial responsibility alike. That means a North Carolina checking station is not limited to DWI: a license and registration check is exactly what the statute contemplates.

The conditions are where the statute does its work. Under subsection (a)(2) the agency must designate in advance the pattern both for stopping vehicles and for deciding which stopped drivers are asked to produce a drivers license, registration, or insurance information. Those are two separate patterns, and both have to be fixed before the checkpoint opens. Subsection (a)(2a) then requires the agency to operate under a written policy providing guidelines for the pattern, while expressly saying the pattern itself need not be in writing. A small department without its own policy may borrow another agency's, but if it does, that arrangement must be stated in writing. The policy may carry contingency provisions for changing either pattern when real traffic conditions differ from what was expected. The hard limit sits at the end of the same subdivision: no individual officer may be given discretion as to which vehicle is stopped, or, of the vehicles stopped, which driver is asked for documents.

Subsection (a)(3) sets the notice floor. The agency must advise the public that an authorized checking station is operating by having, at a minimum, one law enforcement vehicle with its blue light in operation for the duration of the stop point. There is no statutory requirement of advance press notice, signage, or a posted end time. Subsection (a1), added in 2011, forbids building the pattern around a particular vehicle type, with one carve-out: the pattern may designate any type of commercial motor vehicle as defined in G.S. 20-4.01(3d).

Once you are stopped, subsection (b) governs what can happen next. An officer who determines there is reasonable suspicion that an occupant violated Chapter 20 or any other provision of law may detain the driver to investigate further. A driver may be asked to blow into a roadside screening device under G.S. 20-16.3, but only if during the course of the stop the officer determines the driver had previously consumed alcohol or has an open container of alcoholic beverage in the vehicle. That is a real gate: the checkpoint stop alone does not entitle an officer to a screening test. G.S. 20-16.3(a) says requiring the test does not in itself constitute an arrest, and G.S. 20-16.3(d) allows only the positive or negative result, not the actual alcohol concentration reading, to be used by the officer or admitted in court.

Subsection (d) contains one of the odder provisions in the North Carolina motor vehicle code. It says checkpoint placement should be random or statistically indicated and that agencies shall avoid placing checkpoints repeatedly in the same location or proximity, and then immediately removes the remedy: that subsection is not grounds for a motion to suppress or a defense to any offense arising out of the operation of a checking station. A driver who shows the same intersection is used every Friday has proved a violation of subsection (d) and gained nothing from it. Subsection (c) is the catch-all, permitting agencies to run any type of checking station or roadblock as long as it is established and operated in accordance with the United States Constitution and the Constitution of North Carolina, which is where non-Chapter 20 checkpoints, and the reasonableness of any given checkpoint, are actually tested.

S. 3A itself; the statute constrains agencies, not drivers. A driver who believes a checking station was run outside the statute challenges it through a motion to suppress. C. Gen. § 15A-974(a)(1) requires suppression where exclusion is required by the United States or North Carolina Constitution, and § 15A-974(a)(2) reaches evidence obtained as a result of a substantial violation of Chapter 15A, weighing the importance of the interest violated, the extent of the deviation from lawful conduct, how willful it was, and whether exclusion will deter future violations.

Because the checkpoint rules sit in Chapter 20 rather than Chapter 15A, a departure from the pattern or written policy requirements is argued as a constitutional defect under subdivision (a)(1). L. 2011-6: evidence is not suppressed if the officer acted under an objectively reasonable, good faith belief that the actions were lawful. Under § 15A-974(b) the court must put findings of fact and conclusions of law in the record pursuant to § 15A-977(f). In superior court, § 15A-975(a) generally requires the motion to be made before trial. S. 20-29.