Vermont Never Legislated a Sobriety Checkpoint, Only a VIN Stop

Reading all 27 chapters of Title 23, all 77 chapters of Title 13, and all 55 chapters of Title 20 produces exactly one hit for the word sobriety, at 23 V.S.A. § 1201(i), and none at all for checkpoint or roadblock. Some states solved this question explicitly, either by authorising checkpoints or by writing a scheme the Legislature could point at. Vermont did neither, which means no statutory notice requirement, no published-site rule, no supervisory approval requirement, and no statutory limit on duration or on which vehicles may be stopped. The framework a Vermont driver meets at a checkpoint is instead constitutional plus the ordinary stop-and-test statutes described below.

Section 1601 is the closest thing in the statute books to a suspicionless-stop authority, and it is worth reading precisely because it is narrower than it first looks. It empowers the Commissioner of Public Safety, deputies, and all enforcement officers to stop any motor vehicle to examine identification numbers and marks and to raise the hood or engine cover if necessary for that purpose, to demand and inspect the driver's licence, registration certificate, and permits, to enter public garages, parking places, and public buildings where vehicles are stored, and to examine any vehicle to ascertain whether its equipment complies with the law. Impairment is not among the purposes listed. What § 1601 does supply at a checkpoint is the lawful basis for asking for documents, which is separately backed by 23 V.S.A. § 1012(b), requiring a driver to produce the licence and registration and to stop promptly and carefully when signalled by an officer wearing identifying insignia, and by § 1013, under which no person may knowingly fail or refuse to comply with a lawful order or direction of an enforcement officer.

Once an officer forms reasonable grounds, Vermont's implied consent scheme takes over. 23 V.S.A. § 1202(a)(1) deems every person who operates, attempts to operate, or is in actual physical control of a vehicle on a Vermont highway to have consented to an evidentiary breath test administered at the direction of a law enforcement officer. Subdivision (a)(2) extends the deemed consent to blood where breath equipment is not reasonably available, the person cannot give a sufficient breath sample, or the officer has reasonable grounds to believe a drug other than alcohol is involved, and (a)(3) extends it to saliva where a drug or a combination is suspected. Section 1203(b)(1) draws a bright line about location: no withdrawal of blood may be taken at roadside, and a law enforcement officer may not draw blood even if trained to do so, with the same roadside prohibition applied to saliva by (b)(2). The facility or business may not charge more than $75.00 when someone is brought in solely for an evidentiary blood sample.

The driver keeps several concrete rights. Section 1203(c) requires enough blood or saliva to be taken for an independent analysis and held at least 45 days, during which the person may direct the sample to a laboratory of their own choosing, and a person tested on an infrared breath instrument may have a second infrared test immediately after seeing the first result. Section 1203a(a) gives a right, at the person's own expense, to have a test administered by someone of their own choosing in addition to the officer's test, and § 1203a(c) requires the officer to provide or arrange transportation to a testing facility where an infrared-tested person cannot reasonably arrange it themselves. Under § 1201(i), results of a standardized field sobriety test conducted by an officer trained in Advanced Roadside Impaired Driving Enforcement, or a certified Drug Recognition Expert's systematic evaluation, are presumptively admissible at trial.

The legal limits themselves are set by 23 V.S.A. § 1201(a): 0.08 or more generally, 0.02 or more for a school bus operator, and 0.04 or more for a commercial vehicle operator, plus the separate offences of operating under the influence of alcohol, of another drug, or of a combination. Section 1201(h) defines being under the influence of a drug as having the ability to operate safely diminished or impaired in the slightest degree.

Two tracks run in parallel after a Vermont stop, and the licence one moves first. § 1205(a)(1), on the officer's affidavit that there were reasonable grounds to believe the person was operating in violation of § 1201 and that the person refused a test, the Commissioner suspends the licence or operating privilege for six months and until the person complies with § 1209a. Under § 1205(a)(2), where the person took the test and the result was at or above a § 1201(a) limit, the suspension is 90 days and until § 1209a compliance.

02 or more is suspended for life. In each case an eligible person may still drive under an ignition interlock restricted driver's licence or certificate issued under § 1213. § 1206(a) requires a further 90-day suspension for a first offence, extended to one year under § 1206(b) where the case involved a fatality or serious bodily injury to someone other than the defendant. 00 or 10 years for a fourth or subsequent, with at least 192 consecutive hours served. A refusal is itself criminal under § 1201(b) for a person with a prior conviction and under § 1201(c) where a crash caused serious bodily injury or death. Failure to provide an adequate breath or saliva sample counts as a refusal under § 1203(d).