Originally Posted by
Firebug4
The checkpoint is legal. The questions are legal. You don't have to answer the questions hence when you said I am not answering anymore questions he said have a good trip. He did not develop any reasonable suspicion and off you go. The checkpoints have been challenged in court and have passed those legal challenges albeit with some changes in procedure over the years.
I question the legality of the drug dog; that is not part of the exception the Supreme Court gave you. ("Give a camel an inch . . .")
I also question how the
Mendenhall factors would play out in the context of this roadblock; one can be stopped at a roadblock and detained briefly for a specific purpose and asked questions. The notion that the citizen has to "self-terminate" the encounter is questionable given that the driver sees the cars in front of them stop, answer questions and wait until instructed to proceed. The encounter didn't start as voluntary-- at what point do you suggest it becomes one? You seem to be advocating a position that the detention can last until the subject figures out that the continued detention is a fishing expidition and questions it, but until it is questioned there is nothing wrong with peppering a driver with questions unrealted to the purpose of the checkpoint. Or does a driver constantly have to ask if they are free to go throughout the questioning.