Brown v. Georgia
Annotate this CaseAppellant Douglas Brown was charged with driving under the influence (and other crimes) after he was stopped and arrested by officers at a vehicle checkpoint. Appellant filed a motion to suppress on the ground that the roadblock violated the Fourth Amendment. The trial court granted the motion, and on interlocutory appeal, the Court of Appeals reversed. The issue on appeal to the Supreme Court was whether the Court of Appeals used the correct legal analysis in assessing whether the decision to implement the roadblock was made by supervisory personnel rather than field officers, for a legitimate primary purpose. The Supreme Court rejected appellant's initial argument that the checkpoint was unconstitutional because the officer who authorized it was not a programmatic-level executive. However, the trial court's determination that the officer made the decision while acting as a field officer and not in advance as a supervisor was correct, and the appellate court erred in reversing the trial court on that point.
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