The Utah Supreme Court has upheld appellate judges' ruling that evidence seized during a vehicle search at an illegal roadblock should have been suppressed at trial.
The ruling, released Friday, stems from the Sept. 29, 1988, arrest of Dennis Shoulderblade at a roadblock set up by the Utah Highway Patrol and Millard County Sheriff's Department.While Shoulderblade and his passenger, Lemuel Small, were stopped, a police officer asked for their drivers licenses and the vehicle registration. While waiting for radio confirmation, the officer asked permission to search the car. Small consented.
Both men were arrested after drugs, drug paraphernalia, firearms and cash were found. At their joint trial, Shoulderblade and Small moved for suppression of evidence seized during the search. The court denied the motion and convicted the men on charges of drug possession and possession with intent to distribute.
In a separate appeal, the Utah Court of Appeals reversed Small's conviction, ruling the search was tainted because of the illegality of the roadblock. Shoulderblade's initial appeal failed, not directly addressing the relationship of the roadblock to the search.
It was Shoulderblade's subsequent appeal, filed by Salt Lake attorneys G. Fred Metos and Stephen R. McCaughey, which focused specifically on the roadblock's illegality and won reversal in the high court in 1993.
Ordered to take another look at the issue, appellate judges found that Shoulderblade's revised appeal should be granted. The justices, once more reviewing the case on appeal by the state, this week agreed.
"The roadblock in question was a suspicionless, investigatory roadblock. All vehicles were stopped and their occupants questioned. No articulable, individualized suspicion of wrongdoing was present," the high court wrote in an unsigned opinion. "In sum, the police purposely conducted a roadblock without justifiable reasons."
Justice Gordon Howe dissented, arguing that at the time the roadblock was conducted, there had been no court decisions ruling them illegal as it was carried out. He favored reversing the appellate court and affirming Shoul-der-blade's conviction.
McCaughey said the ruling means Shoulderblade's case will be remanded to 4th District Court and dismissed, since prosecutors will now have no evidence.