Wyoming Roadblock Statute Authorises Only Fugitive Roadblocks, Not Sobriety Checkpoints

Wyoming legislates roadblocks in a single short chapter, Title 7 chapter 17, running from W.S. 7-17-101 to 7-17-103. W.S. 7-17-101(a)(ii) defines a temporary roadblock as any device or means used by a peace officer to control all traffic through a point on any highway in the state whereby all vehicles may be slowed or stopped for the purposes defined in W.S. 7-17-102. Highway takes the broad Title 31 meaning through W.S. 31-1-101(a)(viii), which reaches the entire width between the boundary lines of every publicly maintained way open to vehicular travel, so the chapter is not confined to interstates.

The grant of authority in W.S. 7-17-102 is a single sentence, and it is purpose-limited on its face. Peace officers may establish temporary roadblocks in their respective or adjacent jurisdictions for the purpose of apprehending persons reasonably believed by the officers to be wanted for violation of the laws of this or any other state, or of the United States, and who are using any highway within the state. Nothing in the sentence reaches impaired driving as such, licence and registration verification, seat belt compliance or general traffic safety. The adjacent-jurisdictions language matters practically: it is what lets a county sheriff's office set a roadblock just over a line into a neighbouring county during a pursuit.

W.S. 7-17-103(a) then attaches minimum requirements for warning and protecting the travelling public, qualified by the phrase if time and circumstances allow. The roadblock must sit at a point on the highway clearly visible for not less than two hundred yards in either direction. Flashing warning lights must be visible to oncoming traffic for not less than two hundred yards, and the statute expressly says the flashing emergency lights on a marked law enforcement vehicle are enough to satisfy that. At least one person working the roadblock must be in uniform and visible, and at least one vehicle used must be clearly marked as a law enforcement vehicle. Because the qualifier applies to the whole list, a roadblock thrown up in seconds against a fleeing suspect is not automatically unlawful for missing one of those items.

The contrast with what the Legislature has authorised elsewhere is the strongest evidence that no sobriety checkpoint scheme exists. Wyoming knows perfectly well how to write a suspicionless stop-and-inspect programme when it wants one. W.S. 23-3-308 requires hunters and fishermen to stop and report at Game and Fish check stations established under W.S. 23-1-302(a)(xxi), whose locations must be published in the yearly hunting regulations. W.S. 23-4-203(b) requires every conveyance to stop at authorized mandatory aquatic invasive species check stations, W.S. 23-4-203(j) allows those stations at ports of entry, and W.S. 23-4-203(k) imposes a forty-eight hour reporting duty backed by a fine of up to $5,000. On the commercial side, W.S. 31-18-301(c) lets department investigators, troopers and port-of-entry personnel compel a driver to stop and submit a commercial vehicle to inspection by signs or warning devices, and W.S. 31-18-805(c) requires a driver to stop and submit to weighing on a trooper's demand within five miles of the declared route. Four separate suspicionless stop regimes, each written out in terms, and not one of them is about alcohol.

What that leaves is the ordinary stop. Wyoming's impaired driving offence is W.S. 31-5-233(b), which prohibits driving or having actual physical control of a vehicle with an alcohol concentration of 0.08% or more, or while under the influence of alcohol, a controlled substance or a combination to a degree that renders the driver incapable of safely driving. W.S. 31-5-233(b)(ii), the version that measures the 0.08% within two hours of driving, is drafted to apply only following a lawful arrest resulting from a valid traffic stop, so the validity of the stop is written into the elements of that branch of the offence. W.S. 31-5-233(c) sets the presumption ladder: 0.05% or less presumes the driver was not under the influence, and between 0.05% and 0.08% raises no presumption either way but may be weighed with other evidence.

The chemical test scheme in W.S. 31-6-102(a) is likewise arrest-anchored. Consent is deemed given only if arrested for an offence as defined by W.S. 31-5-233, and the test must be incidental to a lawful arrest, given as promptly as possible after the arrest, and administered at the direction of a peace officer who has probable cause to believe the person was driving or in actual physical control in violation of W.S. 31-5-233(b). The officer picks breath, blood or urine, but if blood or urine is directed the driver chooses between those two, unless the officer has probable cause to believe the impairment is by a controlled substance that a breath test cannot detect.

Failing to stop is its own crime. S. 6-5-205 a person commits a misdemeanour punishable by imprisonment for not more than six months, a fine of not more than $750, or both, by proceeding or travelling through a roadblock supervised by a uniformed peace officer without stopping and obeying the officer's instructions. S. 7-17-103(a)(iii). S. 31-6-102(a)(ii)(B) requires the arrested person to be advised that a test result showing influence can bring criminal penalties, a ninety day suspension of the Wyoming driver's license or privilege to operate, and a possible ignition interlock restriction.

A refusal is handled administratively through the same chapter rather than by force at the roadside. Because Title 7 chapter 17 contains no exclusionary provision of its own, a driver challenging a roadblock stop in Wyoming litigates it as a Fourth Amendment and Wyoming Constitution article 1 section 4 suppression question in the district or circuit court, not under a statutory remedy.