The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution requires that searches and seizures of persons and property be reasonable. And the U.S. Supreme Court has held that a search or seizure is generally unreasonable unless the police officer or other government agent performing the search or seizure can state a basis for individualized suspicion of wrongdoing by the person searched or seized—as opposed to the search or seizure being motivated by a general interest in crime control.

The Supreme Court has recognized limited circumstances in which the usual requirement of individualized suspicion does not apply because the search program is designed to serve special needs beyond the normal need for law enforcement and crime control. On that basis, the Supreme Court has upheld search programs that are not based on individualized suspicion for (1) random drug testing of student athletes; (2) drug testing for United States Customs service employees seeking transfer or promotion to certain positions; and (3) drug and alcohol tests for railway employees involved in train accidents or found to be in violation of specific safety regulations.

The Supreme Court has also allowed searches for government administrative purposes without particularized suspicion of misconduct, when the searches are appropriately limited—including (1) a warrantless inspection of a closely regulated business (an automobile junkyard); (2) a warrantless inspection by city firefighters and the fire chief of fire-damaged business premises to determine the cause of the fire (arson); and (3) a warrantless inspection to ensure compliance with the city housing code. And regarding traffic checkpoint searches and seizures, the Supreme Court has allowed searches and seizures of motorists without individualized suspicion at (1) a fixed Border Patrol checkpoint designed to intercept illegal aliens; (2) a sobriety checkpoint aimed at removing drunk drivers from the road; and (3) a checkpoint or roadblock for the purpose of verifying drivers’ licenses and vehicle registrations.

The Supreme Court has declined to approve traffic checkpoint programs whose primary purpose was to detect evidence of general criminal wrongdoing—such as a random spot check of a motorist’s driver’s license and vehicle registration, or a narcotics checkpoint using a trained narcotics detection dog. The Court held that these programs do not seek to protect society from the same type of immediate, vehicle-bound threat to life and limb as a sobriety checkpoint, for example, and are primarily for general crime control purposes. When law enforcement authorities pursue what are primarily general crime control purposes at traffic checkpoints, stops (searches and seizures) can only be justified by some amount of individualized suspicion.

In New York, as in the rest of the United States, the Fourth Amendment's protection against unreasonable searches and seizures requires that law enforcement officers have individualized suspicion of wrongdoing to conduct searches or seizures. However, the U.S. Supreme Court has carved out exceptions for certain 'special needs' beyond ordinary law enforcement where individualized suspicion is not necessary. These include random drug testing of student athletes, certain U.S. Customs employees, and railway employees after accidents or safety violations. Administrative searches without individualized suspicion are also permitted in narrowly defined circumstances, such as inspections of regulated businesses, fire-damaged premises, and housing code compliance. Traffic checkpoints for immigration enforcement, drunk driving prevention, and driver's license verification are allowed without individualized suspicion. However, checkpoints aimed at detecting general criminal activity, like random checks for narcotics without a specific threat to public safety, are not permitted without individualized suspicion. New York law enforcement must adhere to these principles, ensuring that any search or seizure without individualized suspicion falls within the recognized exceptions established by the Supreme Court.