Lawsuit: DC roadblocks unconstitutional under the Fourth Amendment

Residents of Washington, D.C., are turning out in force to protest the Trump administration's takeover of the city's law enforcement, which has included police checkpoints on popular streets staffed by federal agents, reported Reason Magazine.

NBC News and other outlets reported that more than 100 protesters turned out on Wednesday night to heckle federal law enforcement at a checkpoint on 14th Street Northwest and warn drivers of the police ahead. 

And good for them.

Leaving aside the dubious overall legality of the White House's takeover—the D.C. attorney general filed a lawsuit over that issue Friday—the use of such generalized roadblocks is obnoxious, impinges on Americans' traditional freedom to travel, and is unconstitutional under the Fourth Amendment's protections against unreasonable searches and seizures. 

Scott Michelman, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of the District of Columbia, tells Reason police checkpoints "are inherently problematic."

"They're evocative of a police state where law enforcement stops ordinary people going about their business for no reason at all," Michelman says.

And that's why, Michelman says, the Supreme Court sharply limited the use of police checkpoints. "They can't be used as a pretext for general crime control activities, and they can't be used just to harass the community, which is what I fear was happening this week on 14th Street," he says.

The Court ruled in the 2000 case City of Indianapolis v. Edmond that police roadblocks or checkpoints are only legal when they serve a specific road safety concern—such as stopping drunk drivers—not when they're used for general crime control.

"We cannot sanction stops justified only by the generalized and everpresent possibility that interrogation and inspection may reveal that any given motorist has committed some crime," the Court wrote.

A Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) spokesperson told The Washington Post that the roadblock was a "traffic safety compliance checkpoint," which the department has been setting up around the city weekly since 2023. The spokesperson said officers "stopped 28 vehicles, issued 38 infraction notices and arrested one man for driving without a permit and counterfeit tags," reports the Post.

The focus on car safety would at least arguably pass muster under Indianapolis v. Edmond, but that then raises the question of why federal agents from Homeland Security Investigations, who are typically tasked with investigating complex international crimes, were spending their time enforcing local traffic laws and checking vehicle tags.

However, The New York Times reported that federal agents were running sobriety checkpoints, not vehicle safety checkpoints.

"It's hard to take any of these conflicting explanations very seriously," Michelman says. "Instead, it appears that in keeping with President Trump's general contempt for the people of D.C., he's just interested in a campaign of harassment."

It's this sort of ambiguity that could get D.C. in trouble, as it has in the past. MPD used to operate "Neighborhood Safety Zone" checkpoints in the Trinidad neighborhood until a federal appeals court ruled they were unconstitutional in 2009.

Despite the fairly clear rule from the Supreme Court, police departments across the country still try to get away with setting up general anti-crime checkpoints.

In 2022, the Mississippi Justice Center filed a lawsuit challenging Jackson, Mississippi's use of "ticket, arrest, and tow" checkpoints, causing the city to overhaul its policies. 

In 2019, Madison County, Mississippi, also settled a lawsuit over police roadblocks that happened to predominantly appear in black neighborhoods. As Reason reported in a 2017 investigation, black residents of Madison County had felt under siege from their sheriff's office for generations.

Several New England ACLU chapters also successfully sued to shut down a Customs and Border Protection (CBP) checkpoint in New Hampshire in 2023 that was nearly 100 miles from the Canadian border. The civil rights groups argued that the CBP was using the checkpoint to detain and search motorists, well beyond its authority and far from its jurisdiction.

Using vehicle safety regulations as a fig leaf to allow federal law enforcement to harass and investigate drivers shouldn't be tolerated by courts, and from the looks of it, it rightfully won't be tolerated by D.C. residents.

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