et al. Michigan Department of State Police v. Sitz

The Michigan State Police then filed an appeal with the Michigan State Court of Appeals. Like the lower court, this judicial body used the Brown v. Texas balancing test. Brown, named after a U.S. Supreme Court decision, provided guidelines for establishing the constitutionality of intrusions onto citizens' rights against unreasonable search and seizure. (It had already been determined that stopping an automobile constituted "seizure," and courts had ruled that a person inside a car does not have the same privacy rights as someone inside a house.) Brown asked if the gravity of public concerns justified the seizure. In this case, alcohol-related traffic deaths were described as a cause for public concern, and the sobriety checkpoints were designed to keep all citizens safe on the road. Brown also queried to what degree the seizure advanced the public interest--whether sobriety checkpoints actually worked. Finally, the third question of the balancing test dealt with just how far an intrusion, or inconvenience, a sobriety checkpoint presented to the normal, law-abiding motorist.

In 1988, the Michigan State Court of Appeals decided in favor of upholding Stacey's decision banning checkpoints. State Attorney General Frank Kelley appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn the ruling and allow reinstatement of the checkpoints. It would be the first such case dealing with sobriety checkpoints heard before the Court. Since the Michigan program had been carefully conceived to circumvent legal challenges, other states anticipated the decision--if the High Court declared Michigan's program unconstitutional, it was unlikely any other version of the checkpoint would ever be allowed. Twenty-eight other state attorney generals filed briefs in support of the Michigan State Police's appeal, as did an insurance-industry group and the grass-roots organization Mothers Against Drunk Driving.