The Seguin Police Department has begun running random traffic roadblocks. With a photo of an officer captioned "Just Checking" detaining someone at a roadblock, the Seguin Gazette-Enterprise reported that the Seguin Police Department recently conducted a roadblock in a heavily-Hispanic neighborhood of Northwest Seguin, stopping over 215 drivers, with plans to run more such roadblocks over the coming months.
The Seguin Police Department apparently forgot to check whether or not such roadblocks are legal. They aren't. Of the 215 drivers stopped, 43 received citations. But besides the dubious wisdom behind stopping 172 innocent people for no good reason at all, a more important reason not to do them is that random check points have been illegal in Texas for 16 years. In Holt v. State, 887 S.W.2d 16 (Tex.Crim.App. 1994), the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals held that police roadblocks are illegal unless they are adopted pursuant to a statewide plan authorized by the Legislature. At every single session of the Legislature since the Holt decision, there has been an attempt to pass a statewide plan to allow roadblocks, and every single attempt has failed.
In 2008, the Department of Public Safety announced that it had requested a Texas Attorney General opinion concerning the legality of checkpoints and that it intended to roll out a statewide plan for roadblocks. Shortly after the announcement, DPS backtracked after widespread protests from legislators and state civil rights groups. In fact, since Holt, only one Texas appellate case has upheld the legality of checkpoints, but that case involved the authority of game wardens to randomly stops boats to check for safety equipment, which the Legislature has specifically allowed by statute. Not only are the Seguin police detaining people illegally at roadblocks, but any evidence seized at an illegal roadblock is inadmissible in any subsequent criminal case. In my business, you don't usually make many guarantees, but I can guarantee you that any case our office gets out of an illegal Seguin police roadblock is getting a suppression motion filed, and any client stopped at such a roadblock is getting referred to a plaintiff's attorney. Does the City of Seguin have it's liability insurance paid up? Just checking.