author: Justice Scalia

text:
    ARTUZ, SUPERINTENDENT, GREEN HAVEN CORRECTIONAL FACILITY v. BENNETT
    No. 99-1238.
    Argued October 10,2000
    Decided November 7, 2000
    Scalia, J., delivered the opinion for a unanimous Court.

      John M. Castellano argued the cause for petitioner. With him on the briefs were Richard A. Brown and Gary S. Fidel.

      Dan Schweitzer argued the cause for the State of Florida et al. as amici curiae urging reversal. With him on the brief were Robert A. Butterworth, Attorney General of Florida, Carolyn M. Snurkowski, Assistant Deputy Attorney General, Denise O. Simpson, Assistant Attorney General, and John M. Bailey, Chief State’s Attorney of Connecticut, joined by the Attorneys General for their respective States as follows: Bruce M. Botelho of Alaska, Mark Pryor of Arkansas, Ken Salazar of Colorado, M. Jane Brady of Delaware, Thurbert E. Baker of Georgia, James E. Ryan of Illinois, Richard P. Ieyoub of Louisiana, Michael C. Moore of Mississippi, Joseph P. Mazurek of Montana, Don Stenberg of Nebraska, Frankie Sue Del Papa of Nevada, Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota, Betty Montgomery of Ohio, W. A. Drew Edmondson of Oklahoma, Hardy Myers of Oregon, Charles M. Condon of South Carolina, Mark Barnett of South Dakota, Jan Graham of Utah, and Mark L. Earley of Virginia.

      Alan S. Futerfas argued the cause for respondent. With him on the brief were John H. Blume and Keir M. Weyble.

   Justice Scalia

delivered the opinion of the Court.

Section 2244(d)(2) of Title 28 U. S. C. (1994 ed., Supp. IV) provides that “[tjhe time during which a properly filed application for State post-conviction or other collateral review with respect to the pertinent judgment or claim is pending shall not be counted toward any period of limitation under this subsection.” This case presents the question whether an application for state postconviction relief containing claims that are procedurally barred is “properly filed” within the meaning of this provision.

I

After a 1984 jury trial in the Supreme Court of New York, Queens County, respondent was convicted of attempted murder, criminal possession of a weapon, reckless endangerment, criminal possession of stolen property, and unauthorized use of a motor vehicle. The Appellate Division affirmed, and the New York Court of Appeals denied leave to appeal. After unsuccessfully pursuing state postconvietion relief in 1991, respondent in 1995 moved pro se to vacate his judgment of conviction. On November 30, 1995, the state trial court denied the motion in an oral decision on the record; no reasons were given. Respondent claims never to have received a copy of a written order reflecting the denial, despite several written requests.

In February 1998, respondent filed a petition for writ of habeas corpus in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York, alleging, inter alia, that the state trial court’s refusal to allow a defense witness to testify deprived him of his right to a fair trial and his right to present witnesses in his own defense, that his absence from a pretrial hearing violated due process, and that his trial counsel was constitutionally ineffective in failing to object to allegedly improper remarks made by the prosecutor in summation. The District Court summarily dismissed the petition as untimely, noting that it had been filed more than one year and nine months after the effective date of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA), 110 Stat. 1214.

The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit reversed and remanded. 199 F. 3d 116 (1999). The panel first concluded that 28 U. S. C. § 2244(d)(2) (1994 ed., Supp. IV), which tolls AEDPA’s 1-year period of limitation on ha-beas corpus applications by state prisoners, should also toll the 1-year grace period (commencing on AEDPA’s effective date of April 24,1996), which the Second Circuit has allowed for the filing of habeas corpus applications challenging pre-AEDPA convictions. See Ross v. Artuz, 150 F. 3d 97, 98 (CA2 1998). The panel assumed, for purposes of the appeal, that respondent had not yet received a written order denying his 1995 motion to vacate the conviction. Since respondent could not appeal the denial absent such written order; and since, in the panel’s view, “a state-court petition is ‘pending’ from the time it is first filed until finally disposed of and further appellate review is unavailable under the particular state’s procedures,” 199 F. 3d, at 120; the panel concluded that respondent’s 1995 motion was still “pending” for purposes of § 2244(d)(2). Finally (and this is the sole point on which we granted certiorari), the panel held that respondent’s 1995 motion was “properly filed” within the meaning of § 2244(d)(2) because it complied with those rules “governing” whether “an application for state post-conviction relief [is] recognized as such” under state law. Id., at 123. It rejected petitioner’s contention that the application was not properly filed because the claims it contained were subject to two procedural bars under New York law: a bar against raising an issue that had been “previously determined on the merits upon an appeal from the judgment,” N. Y. Crim. Proc. Law §440.10(2)(a) (McKinney 1994), and a bar against raising a claim that was available on direct appeal but was not raised because of the defendant’s “unjustifiable failure,” §440.10(2)(c). 199 F. 3d, at 123. We granted certiorari. 529 U. S. 1065 (2000).

II

Petitioner contends here, as he did below, that an application for state postconviction or other collateral review is not “properly filed” for purposes of § 2244(d)(2) unless it complies with all mandatory state-law procedural requirements that would bar review of the merits of the application. We disagree.

An application as stood, when it is delivered to, and accepted by, the appropriate court officer for placement into the official record. See, e. g., United States v. Lombardo, 241 U. S. 73, 76 (1916) (“A paper is filed when it is delivered to the proper official and by him received and filed”); Black’s Law Dictionary 642 (7th ed. 1999) (defining “file” as “[t]o deliver a legal document to the court clerk or record custodian for placement into the official record”). And an application is “'properly filed” when its delivery and acceptance are in compliance with the applicable laws and rules governing filings. These usually prescribe, for example, the form of the document, the time limits upon its delivery, the court and office in which it must be lodged, and the requisite filing fee. See, e. g., Habteselassie v. Novak, 209 F. 3d 1208, 1210-1211 (CA10 2000); 199 F. 3d, at 121 (case below); Villegas v. Johnson, 184 F. 3d 467, 469-470 (CA5 1999); Lovasz v. Vaughn, 134 F. 3d 146, 148 (CA3 1998). In some jurisdictions the filing requirements also include, for example, preconditions imposed on particular abusive filers, cf. Martin v. District of Columbia Court of Appeals, 506 U.S. 1 (1992) (per curiam), or on all filers generally, cf. 28 U.S.C. § 2253(c) (1994 ed., Supp. IV) (conditioning the taking of an appeal on the issuance of a "certificate of appealability”). But in common usage, the question whether an application has been “properly filed” is quite separate from the question whether the claims contained in the application are meritorious and free of procedural bar.

Petitioner contends that such an interpretation of the statutory phrase renders the word “properly,” and possibly both words (“properly filed”), surplusage, since if the provision omitted those words, and tolled simply for “[t]he time during which a[n]... application for State post-conviction [relief] is pending,” it would necessarily condition tolling on compliance with filing requirements of the sort described above. That is not so. If, for example, an application is erroneously accepted by the clerk of a court lacking jurisdiction, or is erroneously accepted without the requisite filing fee, it will be pending, but not properly filed.

Petitioner’s interpretation is flawed for a more fundamen-reason. By construing “properly filed application” to mean “application raising claims that are not mandatorily procedurally barred,” petitioner elides the difference between an “application” and a “claim.” Only individual claims, and not the application containing those claims, can procedurally defaulted under state law pursuant to our holdings in Coleman v. Thompson, 501 U.S. 722 (1991), and Wainwright v. Sykes, 433 U. S. 72 (1977), which establish the of procedural bar on which petitioner relies. Compare 2244(b)(1) (“A claim presented in a second or successive habeas corpus application under section 2254 that was pre-in a prior application shall be dismissed”) with 2244(b)(3)(A) (“Before a second or successive application permitted by this section is filed in the district court, the applicant shall move in the appropriate court of appeals for order authorizing the district court to consider the appli-(emphases added)). See also O’Sullivan v. Boerckel, 526 U.S. 838, 839-840 (1999) (“In this case, we are asked to decide whether a state prisoner must present his claims to a state supreme court in a petition for discretionary review in order to satisfy the exhaustion requirement” (emphases added)). Ignoring this distinction would require judges to engage in verbal gymnastics when an application contains some claims that are procedurally barred and some that are not. Presumably a court would have to say that the application is “properly filed” as to the nonbarred claims, and not “properly filed” as to the rest. The statute, however, refers only to “properly filed” applications and does not contain the peculiar suggestion that a single application can be both “properly filed” and not “properly filed.” Ordinary English would refer to certain claims as having been properly presented or raised, irrespective of whether the application containing those claims was properly filed.

Petitioner’s remaining arguments are beside the point. He argues, for example, that tolling for applications that raise procedurally barred claims does nothing to enable the exhaustion of available state remedies — which is the object of § 2244(d)(2). Respondent counters that petitioner’s view would trigger a flood of protective filings in federal courts, absorbing their resources in threshold interpretations of state procedural rules. Whatever merits these and other policy arguments may have, it is not the province of this Court to rewrite the statute to accommodate them. We hold as we do because respondent’s view seems to us the only permissible interpretation of the text — which may, for all we know, have slighted' policy concerns on one or the other side of the issue as part of the legislative compromise that enabled the law to be enacted.

I — I b-t I — I

The state procedural bars at issue in this case — N. Y. Crim. Proc. Law §§440.10(2)(a) and (c) (McKinney 1994)— simply prescribe a rule of decision for a court confronted with claims that were “previously determined on the merits upon an appeal from the judgment” of conviction or that could have been raised on direct appeal but were not: “[T]he court must deny” such claims for relief. Neither provision purports to set forth a condition to filing, as opposed to a condition to obtaining relief. Motions to vacate that violate these provisions will not be successful, but they have been properly delivered and accepted so long as the filing conditions have been met. Consequently, the alleged failure of respondent’s application to comply with §§440.10(2)(a) and (c) does not render it “[im]properly filed” for purposes of § 2244(d)(2). The judgment of the Court of Appeals must therefore be affirmed.

It is so ordered.

       The cited provisions read in full as follows:
      “Notwithstanding the provisions of subdivision one [which sets forth various grounds upon which a court may vacate its earlier judgment], the court must deny a motion to vacate a judgment when:
      “(a) The ground or issue raised upon the motion was previously determined on the merits upon an appeal from the judgment, unless since the time of such appellate determination there has been a retroactively effective change in the law controlling such issue; or
      “(e) Although sufficient facts appear on the record of the proceedings underlying the judgment to have permitted, upon appeal from such judgment, adequate review of the ground or issue raised upon the motion, no such appellate review or determination occurred owing to the defendant’s unjustifiable failure to take or perfect an appeal during the prescribed period or to his unjustifiable failure to raise such ground or issue upon an appeal actually perfected by him; . . . .” N. Y. Crim. Proc. Law §§440.10(2)(a) and (e) (McKinney 1994).

       We express no view on exceptions to a timely filing requirement can prevent a late application from being considered improperly filed. See, e.g., Smith v. Ward, 209 F. 3d 383, 385 (CA5 2000).


source: Caselaw Access Project

author: Justice Ginsburg

license: Public Domain

text:
    CLEVELAND v. UNITED STATES
    No. 99-804.
    October 10, 2000
    Decided November 7, 2000

      Ginsbukg, J., delivered the opinion for a unanimous Court.

      Paul Mogin argued the cause for petitioner. With him on the briefs were Robert B. Barnett and Joseph G. Petrosinelli.

      Deputy Solicitor General Dreeben argued the cause for the United States. With him on the brief were Solicitor General Waxman, Assistant Attorney General Robinson, Barbara McDowell, and Joel M. Gershowitz

        Lisa Kemler and Ellen S. Podgor filed a brief for the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers as amicus curiae urging reversal.
      Briefs of amici curiae were filed for the Chamber of Commerce of the United States by Robin S. Conrad, Carter G. Phillips, Richard D. Bernstein, and Joseph S. Miller; and for Samsung Electronics Co. by Richard L. Stanley, Cecilia H. Gonzalez, David J. Healey, and Lisa S. McCalmont.

   Justice Ginsburg

delivered the opinion of the Court.

This case presents the question whether the federal mail fraud statute, 18 U. S. C. § 1341, reaches false statements made in an application for a state license. Section 1341 proscribes use of the mails in furtherance of “any scheme or artifice to defraud, or for obtaining money or property by means of false or fraudulent pretenses, representations, or promises.” Petitioner Carl W. Cleveland and others were prosecuted under this federal measure for making false statements in applying to the Louisiana State Police for permission to operate video poker machines. We conclude that permits or licenses of this order do not qualify as “property” within § 1341’s compass. It does not suffice, we clarify, that the object of the fraud may become property in the recipient’s hands; for purposes of the mail fraud statute, the thing obtained must be property in the hands of the victim. State and municipal licenses in general, and Louisiana’s video poker licenses in particular, we hold, do not rank as “property,” for purposes of §1341, in the hands of the official licensor.

I

Louisiana law allows certain businesses to operate video poker machines. La. Rev. Stat. Ann. §§27:301 to 27:324 (West Supp. 2000). The State itself, however, does not run such machinery. The law requires prospective owners of video poker machines to apply for a license from the State. §27:306. The licenses are not transferable, §27:311(G), and must be renewed annually, La. Admin. Code, tit. 42, § 2405(B)(3) (2000). To qualify for a license, an applicant must meet suitability requirements designed to ensure that licensees have good character and fiscal integrity. La. Rev. Stat. Ann. §27:310 (West Supp. 2000).

In 1992, Fred Goodson and his family formed a limited partnership, Truck Stop Gaming, Ltd. (TSG), in order to participate in the video poker business at their truck stop in Slidell, Louisiana. Cleveland, a New Orleans lawyer, assisted Goodson in preparing TSG’s application for a video poker license. The 'application required TSG to identify its partners and to submit personal financial statements for all partners. It also required TSG to affirm that the listed partners were the sole beneficial owners of the business and that no partner held an interest in the partnership merely as an agent or nominee, or intended to transfer the interest in the future.

TSG’s application identified Goodson’s adult children, Alex and Maria, as the sole beneficial owners of the partnership; It also showed that Goodson and Cleveland’s law firm had loaned Alex and Maria all initial capital for the partnership and that Goodson was TSG’s general manager. In May 1992, the State approved the application and issued a license. TSG successfully renewed the license in 1993,1994, and 1995 pursuant to La. Admin. Code, tit. 42, § 2405(B)(3) (2000). Each renewal application identified no ownership interests other than those of Alex and Maria.

In 1996, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) discovered evidence that Cleveland and Goodson had participated in a scheme to bribe state legislators to vote in a manner favorable to the video poker industry. The Government charged Cleveland and Goodson with multiple counts of money laundering under 18 U. S. C. § 1957, as well as racketeering and conspiracy under § 1962. Among the predicate acts supporting these charges were four counts of mail fraud under § 1341. The indictment alleged that Cleveland and Goodson had violated § 1341 by fraudulently concealing that they were the true owners of TSG in the initial license application and three renewal applications mailed to the State. They concealed their ownership interests, according to the Government, because they had tax and financial problems that could have undermined their suitability to receive a video poker license. See La. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 27:310(B)(1) (West Supp. 2000) (suitability requirements).

Before trial, Cleveland moved to dismiss the mail fraud counts on the ground that the alleged fraud did not deprive the State of “property” under § 1341. The District Court denied the motion, concluding that “licenses constitute property even before they are issued.” 951 F. Supp. 1249, 1261 (ED La. 1997). A jury found Cleveland guilty on two counts of mail fraud (based on the 1994 and 1995 license renewals) and on money laundering, racketeering, and conspiracy counts predicated on the mail fraud. The District Court sentenced Cleveland to 121 months in prison.

On appeal, Cleveland again argued that Louisiana had no property interest in video poker licenses, relying on several Court of Appeals decisions holding that the government does relinquish “property” for purposes of § 1341 when it isa permit or license. See United States v. Shotts, 145 3d 1289, 1296 (CA11 1998) (license to operate a bail bonds business); United States v. Schwartz, 924 F. 2d 410, 418 (CA2 (arms export license); United States v. Granberry, 908 2d 278, 280 (CA8 1990) (school bus operator’s permit); Toulabi v. United States, 875 F. 2d 122, 125 (CA7 1989) (chauffeur’s license); United States v. Dadanian, 856 F. 2d 1392 (CA9 1988) (gambling license); United States v. Murphy, 836 F. 2d 248, 254 (CA6 1988) (license to conduct charitable bingo games).

The Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit nevertheless affirmed Cleveland’s conviction and sentence, United States v. Bankston, 182 F. 3d 296, 309 (1999), considering itself bound by its holding in United States v. Salvatore, 110 F. 3d 1131, 1138 (1997), that Louisiana video poker licenses constitute “property” in the hands of the State. Two other Circuits have concluded that the issuing authority has a property interest in unissued licenses under §1341. United States v. Bucuvalas, 970 F. 2d 937, 945 (CA1 1992) (entertainment and liquor license); United States v. Martinez, 905 F. 2d 709, 715 (CA3 1990) (medical license).

We granted certiorari to resolve the conflict among the Courts of Appeals, 529 U.S. 1017 (2000), and now reverse the Fifth Circuit’s judgment.

II

In McNally v. United States, 483 U. S. 350, 360 (1987), this Court held that the federal mail fraud statute is “limited in scope to the protection of property rights.” McNally reversed the mail fraud convictions of two individuals charged with participating in “a self-dealing patronage scheme” that defrauded Kentucky citizens of “the right to have the Commonwealth’s affairs conducted honestly.” Id., at 352. At the time McNally was decided, federal prosecutors had been using § 1341 to attack various forms of corruption that deprived victims of “intangible rights” unrelated to money or property. Reviewing the history of §1341, we concluded that “the original impetus behind the mail fraud statute was to protect the people from schemes to deprive them of their money or property.” Id., at 356.

As first enacted in 1872, § 1341 proscribed use of the mails to further “'any scheme or artifice to defraud.’” Ibid. In 1896, this Court held in Durland v. United States, 161 U.S. 306, 313, that the statute covered fraud not only by “representations as to the past or present,” but also by “suggestions and promises as to the future.” In 1909, Congress amended § 1341 to add after “any scheme or artifice to defraud” the phrase “or for obtaining money or property by means of false or fraudulent pretenses, representations, or promises.” McNally, 483 U.S., at 357. We explained in McNally that the 1909 amendment “codified the holding of Durland,” ibid., and “simply made it unmistakable that the statute reached false promises and misrepresentations as to the future as well as other frauds involving money or property,” ibid. Rejecting the argument that “the money-or-property requirement of the latter phrase does not limit schemes to defraud to those aimed at causing deprivation of money or property,” id., at 358, we concluded that the 1909 amendment signaled no intent by Congress to “depar[t] from [the] common understanding” that “the words 'to defraud’ commonly refer ‘to wronging one in his property rights,’” id., at 358-359 (quoting Hammerschmidt v. United States, 265 U. S. 182, 188 (1924)).

Soon after McNally, in Carpenter v. United States, 484 U. S. 19, 25 (1987), we again stated that § 1341 protects property rights only. Carpenter upheld convictions under § 1341 and the federal wire fraud statute, 18 U.S.C. § 1343, of defendants who had defrauded the Wall Street Journal of confidential business information. Citing decisions of this Court as well as a corporate law treatise, we observed that “Confidential business information has long been recognized as property.” 484 U.S., at 26.

The following year, Congress amended the law specifically to cover one of the “intangible rights” that lower courts had protected under § 1341 prior to McNally: “the .intangible right of honest services.” Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988, § 7603(a), 18 U.S.C. § 1346. Significantly, Congress covered only the intangible right of honest services even though federal courts, relying on McNally, had dismissed, for want of monetary loss to any victim, prosecutions under § 1341 for diverse forms of public corruption, including licensing fraud.

I — 1 1 — <

In this case, there is no assertion that Louisiana s video poker licensing scheme implicates the intangible right of honest services. The question presented is whether, for purposes of the federal mail fraud statute, a government regulator parts with “property” when it issues a license. For the reasons we now set out, we hold that §1341 does not reach fraud in obtaining a state or municipal license of the kind here involved, for such a license is not “property” in the government regulator’s hands. Again, as we said in Mc-Nally, “[i]f Congress desires to go further, it must speak more clearly than it has.” 483 U.S., at 360.

To begin with, we think it beyond genuine dispute that whatever interests Louisiana might be said to have in its video poker licenses, the State’s core concern is regulatory. Louisiana recognizes the importance of “public confidence and trust that gaming activities . . . are conducted honestly and are free from criminal and corruptive elements.” La. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 27:306(A)(1) (West Supp. 2000). The video poker licensing statute accordingly asserts the State’s “legitimate interest in providing strict regulation of all persons, practices, associations, and activities related to the operation of... establishments licensed to offer video draw poker devices.” Ibid. The statute assigns the Office of State Police, a part of the Department of Public Safety and Corrections, the responsibility to promulgate rules and regulations concerning the licensing process. § 27:308(A). It also authorizes the State Police to deny, condition, suspend, or revoke licenses, to levy fines of up to $1,000 per violation of any rule, and to inspect all premises where video poker devices are offered for play. §§ 27:308(B), (E)(1). In addition, the statute defines criminal penalties for unauthorized use of video poker devices, §27:309, and prescribes detailed suitability requirements for licensees, §27:310.

In short, the statute establishes a typical regulatory program. It licenses, subject to certain conditions, engagement in pursuits that private actors may not undertake without official authorization. In this regard, it resembles other licensing schemes long characterized by this Court as exercises of state police powers. E. g., Ziffrin, Inc. v. Reeves, 308 U.S. 132, 138 (1939) (license to transport alcoholic beverages); Hall v. Geiger-Jones Co., 242 U.S. 539, 558 (1917) (license to sell corporate stock); Fanning v. Gregoire, 16 How. 524, 534 (1854) (ferry license); License Cases, 5 How. 504, 589 (1847) (license to sell liquor) (opinion of McLean, J.), overruled on other grounds, Leisy v. Hardin, 135 U.S. 100 (1890).

Acknowledging Louisiana’s regulatory interests, the Government offers two reasons why the State also has a property interest in its video poker licenses. First, the State receives a substantial sum of money in exchange for each license and continues to receive payments from the licensee as long as the license remains in effect. Second, the State has significant control over the issuance, renewal, suspension, and revocation of licenses.

Without doubt, Louisiana has a substantial economic stake in the video poker industry. The State collects an upfront “processing fee” for each new license application, La. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 27:311(H)(2) (West Supp. 2000) ($10,000 for truck stops), a separate “processing fee” for each renewal application, §27:311(H)(4) ($1,000 for truck stops), an “annual fee” from each device owner, §27:811(A)(4) ($2,000), an additional “device operation” fee, §27:311(A)(5)(c) ($1,000 for truck stops), and, most importantly, a fixed percentage of net revenue from each video poker device, § 27:311(D)(1)(b) (32.5% for truck stops). It is hardly evident, however, why these tolls should make video poker licenses “property” in the hands of the State. The State receives the lion’s share of its expected revenue not while the licenses remain in its own hands, but only after they have been issued to licensees. Licenses pre-issuance do not generate an ongoing stream of revenue. At most, they entitle the State to collect a processing fee from applicants for new licenses. Were an entitlement of this order sufficient to establish a state property right, one could scarcely avoid the conclusion that States have property rights in any license or permit requiring an upfront fee, including drivers’ licenses, medical licenses, and fishing and hunting licenses. Such licenses, as the Government itself concedes, are “purely regulatory.” Tr. of Oral Arg. 24-25.

Tellingly, as to the character of Louisiana’s stake in its video poker licenses, the Government nowhere alleges that Cleveland defrauded the State of any money to which the State was entitled by law. Indeed, there is no dispute that TSG paid the State of Louisiana its proper share of revenue, which totaled more than $1.2 million, between 1993 and 1995. If Cleveland defrauded the State of “property,” the nature of that property cannot be economic.

Addressing this concern, the Government argues that Cleveland frustrated the State’s right to control the issuance, renewal, and revocation of video poker licenses under La. Rev. Stat. Ann. §§27:306, 27:308 (West Supp. 2000). The Fifth Circuit has characterized the protected interest as “Louisiana’s right to choose the persons to whom it issues video poker licenses.” Salvatore, 110 F. 3d, at 1140. But far from composing an interest that “has long been recognized as property,” Carpenter, 484 U. S., at 26, these intangible rights of allocation, exclusion, and control amount to no more and no less than Louisiana’s sovereign power to regulate. Notably, the Government overlooks the fact that these rights include the distinctively sovereign authority to impose criminal penalties for violations of the licensing scheme, La. Rev. Stat. Ann. §27:309 (West Supp. 2000), including making false statements in a license application, §27:309(A). Even when tied to an expected stream of revenue, the State’s right of control does not create a property interest any more than a law licensing liquor sales in a State that levies a sales tax on liquor. Such regulations are paradigmatic exercises of the States’ traditional police powers.

The Government compares the State’s interest in video poker licenses to a patent holder’s interest in a patent that she has not yet licensed. Although it is true that both involve the right to exclude, we think the congruence ends there. Louisiana does not conduct gaming operations itself, it does not hold video poker licenses to reserve that prerogative, and it does not “sell” video poker licenses in the ordinary commercial sense. Furthermore, while a patent holder may sell her patent, see 35 U. S. C. §261 (“patents shall have the attributes of personal property”), the State may not sell its licensing authority. Instead of a patent holder’s interest in an unlicensed patent, the better analogy is to the Federal Government’s interest in an unissued patent. That interest, like the State’s interest in licensing video poker operations, surely implicates the Government’s role as sovereign, not as property holder. See U. S. Const., Art. I, §8, cl. 8.

The Government also compares the State’s licensing power to a franchisor’s right to select its franchisees. On this view, Louisiana’s video poker licensing scheme represents the State’s venture into the video poker business. Although the State could have chosen to run the business itself, the Government says, it decided to franchise private entities to carry out the operations instead. However, a franchisor’s right to select its franchisees typically derives from its ownership of a trademark, brand name, business strategy, or other product that it may trade or sell in the open market. Louisiana’s authority to select video poker licensees rests on no similar asset. It rests instead upon the State’s sovereign right to exclude applicants deemed unsuitable to run video poker operations. A right to exclude in that governing capacity is not one appropriately labeled “property.” See Tr. of Oral Arg. 25. Moreover, unlike an entrepreneur or business partner who shares both losses and gains arising from a business venture, Louisiana cannot be said to have put its labor or capital at risk through its fee-laden licensing scheme. In short, the State did not decide to venture into the video poker business; it decided typically to permit, regulate, and tax private operators of the games.

We reject the Government’s theories of property rights not simply because they stray from traditional concepts of property. We resist the Government’s reading of § 1341 as well because it invites us to approve a sweeping expansion of federal criminal jurisdiction in the absence of a clear statement by Congress. Equating issuance of licenses or permits with deprivation of property would subject to federal mail fraud prosecution a wide range of conduct traditionally regulated by state and local authorities. We note in this regard that Louisiana’s video poker statute typically and unambiguously imposes criminal penalties for making false statements on license applications. La. Rev. Stat. Ann. §27:309(A) (West Supp. 2000). As we reiterated last Term, “‘unless Congress conveys its purpose clearly, it will not be deemed to have significantly changed the federal-state balance’ in the prosecution of crimes.” Jones v. United States, 529 U. S. 848, 858 (2000) (quoting United States v. Bass, 404 U. S. 336, 349 (1971)).

Moreover, to the extent that the word “property” is ambiguous as placed in § 1341, we have instructed that “ambiguity concerning the ambit of criminal statutes should be resolved in favor of lenity.” Rewis v. United States, 401 U. S. 808, 812 (1971). This interpretive guide is especially appropriate in construing § 1341 because, as this case demonstrates, mail fraud is a predicate offense under RICO, 18 U. S. C. § 1961(1) (1994 ed., Supp. IV), and the money laundering statute, § 1956(c)(7)(A). In deciding what is “property” under § 1341, we think “it is appropriate, before we choose the harsher alternative, to require that Congress should have spoken in language that is clear and definite.” United States v. Universal C. I. T. Credit Corp., 344 U. S. 218, 222 (1952).

Finally, in an argument not raised below but urged as an alternate ground for affirmance, the Government contends that § 1341, as amended in 1909, defines two independent offenses: (1) “any scheme or artifice to defraud” and (2) “any scheme or artifice ... for obtaining money or property by means of false or fraudulent pretenses, representations, or promises.” Because a video poker license is property in the hands of the licensee, the Government says, Cleveland “obtained] . . . property” and thereby committed the second offense even if the license is not property in the hands of the State.

Although we do not here question that video poker licensees may have property interests in their licenses, we nevertheless disagree with the Government’s reading of §1341. In McNally, we recognized that “[bjecause the two phrases identifying the proscribed schemes appear in the disjunctive; it is arguable that they are to be construed independently.” 483 U. S., at 358. But we rejected that construction of the statute, instead concluding that the second phrase simply modifies the first by “ma[king] it unmistakable that the statute reached false promises and misrepresentations as to the future as well as other frauds involving money or property.” Id., at 359. Indeed, directly contradicting the Government’s view, we said that “the mail fraud statute ... had its origin in the desire to protect individual property rights, and any benefit which the Government derives from the statute must be limited to the Government’s interests as -property holder.” Id., at 359, n. 8 (emphasis added). We reaffirm our reading of § 1341 in McNally. See Hilton v. South Carolina Public Railways Comm’n, 502 U. S. 197, 205 (1991) (“stare decisis is most compelling” where “a pure question of statutory construction” is involved). Were the Government correct that the second phrase of §1341 defines a separate offense, the statute would appear to arm federal prosecutors with power to police false statements in an enormous range of submissions to state and local authorities. For reasons already stated, see supra, at 24-25, we decline to attribute to § 1341 a purpose so encompassing where Congress has not made such a design clear.

IV

We conclude that § 1341 requires the object of the fraud to be “property” in the victim’s hands and that a Louisiana video poker license in the State’s hands is not “property” under § 1341. Absent clear statement by Congress, we will not read the mail fraud statute to place under federal superintendence a vast array of conduct traditionally policed by the States. Our holding means that Cleveland’s § 1341 conviction must be vacated. Accordingly, the judgment of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

It is so ordered.

       Title 18 U.S.C. § 1341 provides in relevant part: “Whoever, having devised or intending to devise any scheme or artifice to defraud, or for obtaining money or property by means of false or fraudulent pretenses, representations, or promises,... for the purpose of executing such scheme or artifice or attempting so to do, [uses the mails or causes them to be used], shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both.” The Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) prohibits participation and conspiracy to participate in a pattern of “racketeering activity,” 18 U.S.C. §§ 1962(c), (d), and defines “racketeering activity” to include “any act which is indictable under... section 1341,” § 1961(1). The money laundering statute prohibits various activities designed to conceal or promote “specified unlawful activity,” § 1956, and defines “specified unlawful activity” to include (with an exception not relevant here) “any act or activity constituting an offense listed in section 1961(1) of this title,” § 1956(c)(7)(A).

         E. g., United States v. Clapps, 732 F. 2d 1148, 1153 (CA3 1984) (electoral body’s right to fair elections); United States v. Bronston, 658 F. 2d 920, 927 (CA2 1981) (client’s right to attorney’s loyalty); United States v. Bohonus, 628 F. 2d 1167, 1172 (CA9 1980) (right to honest services of an agent or employee); United States v. Isaacs, 493 F. 2d 1124, 1150 (CA7 1974) (right to honest services of public official).

       For example, in United States v. Murphy, 836 F. 2d 248, 254 (CA6 1988), the court overturned the mail fraud conviction of a state official charged with using false information to help a charitable organization obtain a state bingo license. Acknowledging “the McNally limitations” on § 1341, the court said that the issue “distills to a consideration of whether Tennessee’s ‘right to control or object’ with respect to the issuance of a bingo permit to a charitable organization constitutes ‘pi’operty.’ ” Id., at 253. It then held that “the certificate of registration or the bingo license may well be ‘property’ once issued, insofar as the charitable organization is concerned, but certainly an unissued certificate of registration is not property of the State of Tennessee and once issued, it is not the property of the State of Tennessee.” Id., at 253-254.

       Notwithstanding the State’s declaration that “[a]ny license issued or renewed... is not property or a protected interest under the constitutions of either the United States or the state of Louisiana,” La. Rev. Stat. Ann. §27:301(D) (West Supp. 2000), “[t]he question whether a state-law right constitutes 'property’ or ‘rights to property’ is a matter of federal law,” Drye v. United, States, 528 U. S. 49, 58 (1999) (citing United States v. National Bank of Commerce, 472 U. S. 713, 727 (1985)). In some contexts, we have held that individuals have constitutionally protected property interests in state-issued licenses essential to pursuing an occupation or livelihood. See, e. g., Bell v. Burson, 402 U. S. 535, 539 (1971) (driver’s license).


author: Per Curiam.

text:
    SINKFIELD et al. v. KELLEY, et al.
    No. 00-132.
    Decided November 27, 2000

      Together with No. 00-133, Bennett, Secretary of State of Alabama, et al. v. Kelley et al., also on appeal from the same court.

   Per Curiam.

These cases involve a challenge to Alabama state legislative districts under the equal protection principles announced by this Court in Shaw v. Reno, 509 U. S. 630 (1993). Appellees, the plaintiffs below, are white Alabama voters who are residents of various majority-white districts. The districts in which appellees reside are adjacent to majority-minority districts. All of the districts were created under a state redistricting plan whose acknowledged purpose was the maximization of the number of majority-minority districts in Alabama. Appellants in No. 00-132 are a group of African-American voters whose initial state lawsuit resulted in the adoption of the redistricting plan at issue. Appellants in No. 00-133 are Alabama state officials.

Appellees brought suit in the United States District Court for the Middle District of Alabama challenging their own districts as the products of unconstitutional racial gerrymandering. A three-judge court convened to hear the case pursuant to 28 U. S. C. §2284. The District Court ultimately held that seven of the challenged majority-white districts were the product of unconstitutional racial gerrymandering and enjoined their use in any election. 96 F. Supp. 2d 1301 (MD Ala. 2000). On direct appeal to this Court pursuant to 28 U. S. C. § 1253, appellants in both cases contend, among other things, that appellees lack standing to maintain this suit under our decision in United States v. Hays, 515 U. S. 737 (1995). We agree.

Hays involved a challenge to Louisiana’s districting plan for its Board of Elementary and Secondary Education. The plan contained two majority-minority districts. The appel-lees lived in a majority-white district that bordered on one of the majority-minority districts. The appellees challenged the entire plan, including their own district, as an unconstitutional racial gerrymander under our decision in Shaw v. Reno, supra. United States v. Hays, 515 U. S., at 739-742.

We concluded that the appellees lacked standing to maintain their challenge. We assumed for the sake of argument that the evidence was sufficient to state a Shaw claim with respect to the neighboring majority-minority district. Id., at 746. But we concluded that the appellees had not shown a cognizable injury under the Fourteenth Amendment because they did not reside in the majority-minority district and had not otherwise shown that they had “personally been denied equal treatment.” Id., at 744-746 (internal quotation marks omitted). The appellees’ failure to show the requisite injury, we noted, was not changed by the fact that the racial composition of their own district might have been different had the legislature drawn the adjacent majority-minority district another way. Id., at 746.

Appellees’ position here is essentially indistinguishable from that of the appellees in Hays. Appellees are challenging their own majority-white districts as the product of unconstitutional racial gerrymandering under a redistricting plan whose purpose was the ereation of majority-minority districts, some of which border appellees’ districts. Like the appellees in Hays, they have neither alleged nor produced any evidence that any of them was assigned to his or her district as a direct result of having “personally been subjected to a racial classification.” Id., at 745; see also Shaw v. Hunt, 517 U. S. 899, 904 (1996). Rather, appellees suggest that they are entitled to a presumption of injury-in-fact because the bizarre shapes of their districts reveal that the districts were the product of an unconstitutional racial gerrymander. See App. to Pet. for Cert. 120a, 148a, 153a.

The shapes of appellees’ districts, however, were necessarily influenced by the shapes of the majority-minority districts upon which they border, and appellees have produced no evidence that anything other than the deliberate creation of those majority-minority districts is responsible for the districting lines of which they complain. Appellees’ suggestion thus boils down to the claim that an unconstitutional use of race in drawing the boundaries of majority-minority districts necessarily involves an unconstitutional use of race in drawing the boundaries of neighboring majority-white districts. We rejected that argument in Hays, explaining that evidence sufficient to support a Shaw claim with respect to a majority-minority district did “not prove anything” with respect to a neighboring majority-white district in which the appellees resided. 515 U. S., at 746. Accordingly, “an allegation to that effect does not allege a cognizable injury under the Fourteenth Amendment.” Ibid.

The judgment of the District Court is vacated, and the cases are remanded with instructions to dismiss the complaint.

It is so ordered.


author: Justice O’Connor ChieF Justice Rehnquist, Justice Thomas,

text:
    CITY OF INDIANAPOLIS et al. v. EDMOND et al.
    No. 99-1030.
    Argued October 3, 2000
    Decided November 28, 2000

      O’Connor, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Stevens, Kennedy, Souter, Ginsburg, and Breyer, JJ., joined. Rehnquist, C. J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which Thomas, J., joined, and in which Scalia, J., joined as to Part I, post, p. 48. Thomas, J., filed a dissenting opinion, post, p. 56.

      A. Scott Chinn argued the cause for petitioners. With him on the briefs were Anthony W. Overholt, Matthew R. Gutwein, and Thomas M. Fisher.

      Patricia A. Millett argued the cause for the United States as amicus curiae urging reversal. With her on the brief were Solicitor General Waxman, Assistant Attorney General Robinson, and Deputy Solicitor General Dreeben.

      Kenneth J. Falk argued the cause for respondents. With him on the brief were Jacquelyn E. Bowie, Sean C. Lemieux, and Steven R. Shapiro.

       Briefs of amici curiae urging reversal were filed for the State of Kansas et al. by Carla J. Stovall, Attorney General of Kansas, Stephen R. McAllister, State Solicitor, Jared S. Maag, Assistant Attorney General, and John M. Bailey, Chief State’s Attorney of Connecticut, and by the Attorneys General for their respective States as follows: Bill Pryor of Alabama, Janet Napolitano of Arizona, Mark Pryor of Arkansas, Bill Lockyer of California, Robert A Butterworth of Florida, James E. Ryan of Illinois, Karen M. Freeman-Wilson of Indiana, Thomas J. Miller of Iowa, Michael C. Moore of Mississippi, Don Stenberg of Nebraska, W. A. Drew Edmondson of Oklahoma, Jan Graham of Utah, and Mark L. Earley of Virginia; for the National League of Cities et al. by Richard Ruda and James I. Crowley; and for the Washington Legal Foundation et al. by Daniel J. Popeo.

      Briefs of amici curiae urging affirmance were filed for the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers et al. by Wesley MacNeil Oliver and Barbara Bergman; and for the Rutherford Institute by John W. Whitehead and Steven H. Aden.

        Wayne W. Schmidt, James P. Manak, Richard Weintraub, and Bernard J. Farber filed a brief for Americans for Effective Law Enforcement, Inc., et al. as amici curiae.

   Justice O’Connor

delivered the opinion of the Court.

In Michigan Dept. of State Police v. Sitz, 496 U. S. 444 (1990), and United States v. Martinez-Fuerte, 428 U. S. 543 (1976), we held that brief, suspicionless seizures at highway checkpoints for the purposes of combating drunk driving and intercepting illegal immigrants were constitutional. We now consider the constitutionality of a highway checkpoint program whose primary purpose is the discovery and interdiction of illegal narcotics.

I

In August 1998, the city of Indianapolis began to operate vehicle checkpoints bn Indianapolis roads in an effort to interdict unlawful drugs. The city conducted six such roadblocks between August and November that year, stopping 1,161 vehicles and arresting 104 motorists. Fifty-five arrests were for drug-related crimes, while 49 were for offenses unrelated to drugs. Edmond v. Goldsmith, 183 F. 3d 659, 661 (CA7 1999). The overall “hit rate” of the program was thus approximately nine percent.

The parties stipulated to the facts concerning the operation of the checkpoints by the Indianapolis Police Department (IPD) for purposes of the preliminary injunction proceedings instituted below. At each checkpoint location, the police stop a predetermined number of vehicles. Approximately 30 officers are stationed at the checkpoint. Pursuant to written directives issued by the chief of police, at least one officer approaches the vehicle, advises the driver that he or she is being stopped briefly at a drug checkpoint, and asks the driver to produce a license and registration. The officer also looks for signs of impairment and conducts an open-view examination of the vehicle from the outside. A narcotics-detection dog walks around the outside of each stopped vehicle.

The directives instruct the officers that they may conduct a search only by consent or based on the appropriate quantum of particularized suspicion. The officers must conduct each stop in the same manner until particularized suspicion develops, and the officers have no discretion to stop any vehicle out of sequence. The city agreed in the stipulation to operate the checkpoints in such a way as to ensure that the total duration of each stop, absent reasonable suspicion or probable cause, would be five minutes or less.

The affidavit of Indianapolis Police Sergeant Marshall DePew, although it is technically outside the parties’ stipulation, provides further insight concerning the operation of the checkpoints. According to Sergeant DePew, checkpoint locations are selected weeks in advance based on such considerations as area crime statistics and traffic flow. The checkpoints are generally operated during daylight hours and are identified with lighted signs reading, “ ‘NARCOTICS CHECKPOINT_MILE AHEAD, NARCOTICS K-9 IN USE, BE PREPARED TO STOP.’” App. to Pet. for Cert. 57a. Once a group of cars has been stopped, other traffic proceeds without interruption until all the stopped cars have been processed or diverted for further processing. Sergeant DePew also stated that the average stop for a vehicle not subject to further processing lasts two to three minutes or less.

Respondents James Edmond and Joell Palmer were each stopped at a narcotics checkpoint in late September 1998. Respondents then filed a lawsuit on behalf of themselves and the class of all motorists who had been stopped or were subject to being stopped in the future at the Indianapolis drug checkpoints. Respondents claimed that the roadblocks violated the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution and the search and seizure provision of the Indiana Constitution. Respondents requested declaratory and in-junctive relief for the class, as well as damages and attorney’s fees for themselves.

Respondents then moved for a preliminary injunction. Although respondents alleged that the officers who stopped them did not follow the written directives, they agreed to the stipulation concerning the operation of the checkpoints for purposes of the preliminary injunction proceedings. The parties also stipulated to certification of the plaintiff class. The United States District Court for the Southern District ■ of Indiana agreed to class certification and denied the motion for a preliminary injunction, holding that the checkpoint program did not violate the Fourth Amendment. Edmond v. Goldsmith, 38 F. Supp. 2d 1016 (1998). A divided panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit reversed, holding that the checkpoints contravened the Fourth Amendment. 183 F. 3d 659 (1999). The panel denied rehearing. We granted certiorari, 528 U. S. 1153 (2000), and now affirm.

II

The Fourth Amendment requires that searches and seizures be reasonable. A search or seizure is ordinarily unreasonable in the absence of individualized suspicion of wrongdoing. Chandler v. Miller, 520 U. S. 305, 308 (1997). While such suspicion is not an “irreducible” component of reasonableness, Martinez-Fuerte, 428 U. S., at 561, we have recognized only limited circumstances in which the usual rule does not apply. For example, we have upheld certain regimes of suspicionless searches where the program was designed to serve “special needs, beyond the normal need for law enforcement.” See, e. g., Vernonia School Dist. 47J v. Acton, 515 U. S. 646 (1995) (random drug testing of studentathletes); Treasury Employees v. Von Raab, 489 U. S. 656 (1989) (drug tests for United States Customs Service employees seeking transfer or promotion to certain positions); Skinner v. Railway Labor Executives’ Assn., 489 U. S. 602 (1989) (drug and alcohol tests for railway employees involved in train accidents or found to be in violation of particular safety regulations). We have also allowed searches for certain administrative purposes without particularized suspicion of misconduct, provided that those searches are appropriately limited. See, e. g., New York v. Burger, 482 U. S. 691, 702-704 (1987) (warrantless administrative inspection of premises of “closely regulated” business); Michigan v. Tyler, 436 U. S. 499, 507-509, 511-512 (1978) (administrative inspection of fire-damaged premises to determine cause of blaze); Camara v. Municipal Court of City and County of San Francisco, 387 U. S. 523, 534-539 (1967) (administrative inspection to ensure compliance with city housing code).

We have alsoseizures of motorists at a fixed Border Patrol checkpoint designed to intercept illegal aliens, Martinez-Fuerte, supra, and at a sobriety checkpoint aimed at removing drunk drivers from the road, Michigan Dept. of State Police v. Sitz, 496 U. S. 444 (1990). In addition, in Delaware v. Prouse, 440 U. S. 648, 663 (1979), we suggested that a similar type of roadblock with the purpose of verifying drivers’ licenses and vehicle registrations would be permissible. In none of these cases, however, did we indicate approval of a checkpoint program whose primary purpose was to detect evidence of ordinary criminal wrongdoing.

In Martinez-Fuerte, we challenges to stops at two permanent immigration checkpoints located on major United States highways less than 100 miles from the Mexican border. We noted at the outset the particular context in which the constitutional question arose, describing in some detail the “formidable law enforcement problems” posed by the northbound tide of illegal entrants into the United States. 428 U. S., at 551-554. These problems had also been the focus of several earlier cases addressing the constitutionality of other Border Patrol traffic-checking operations. See United States v. Ortiz, 422 U. S. 891 (1975); United States v. Brignoni-Ponce, 422 U. S. 873 (1975); Almeida-Sanchez v. United States, 413 U. S. 266 (1973). In Martinez-Fuerte, we found that the balance tipped in favor of the Government’s interests in policing the Nation’s borders. 428 U. S., at 561-564. In so finding, we emphasized the difficulty of effectively containing illegal immigration at the border itself. Id., at 556. We also stressed the impracticality of the particularized study of a given car to discern whether it was transporting illegal aliens, as well as the relatively modest degree of intrusion entailed by the stops. Id., at 556-564.

Our subsequent cases specifically related to the need to police the border were a significant factor in our Martinez-Fuerte decision. For example, in United States v. Montoya de Hernandez, 473 U. S. 531, 538 (1985), we counted Martinez-Fuerte as one of a number of Fourth Amendment cases that “reflect longstanding concern for the protection of the integrity of the border.” Although the stops in Martinez-Fuerte did not occur at the border itself, the checkpoints were located near the border and served a border. control function made necessary by the difficulty of guarding the border’s entire length. See Martinez-Fuerte, supra, at 556.

In Sitz, we evaluated the constitutionality of a Michigan highway sobriety checkpoint program. The Sitz checkpoint involved brief, suspicionless stops of motorists so that police officers could detect signs of intoxication and remove impaired drivers from the road. 496 U. S., at 447-448. Motorists who exhibited signs of intoxication were diverted for a license and registration check and, if warranted, further sobriety tests. Id., at 447. This checkpoint program was clearly aimed at reducing the immediate hazard posed by the presence of drunk drivers on the highways, and there was an obvious connection between the imperative of highway safety and the law enforcement practice at issue. The gravity of the drunk driving problem and the magnitude of the State’s interest in getting drunk drivers off the road weighed heavily in our determination that the program was constitutional. See id., at 451.

In Prouse, we invalidated a discretionary, suspicionless stop for a spot check of a motorist’s driver’s license and vehicle registration. The officer’s conduct' in that case was unconstitutional primarily on account of his exercise of “stand-ardless and unconstrained discretion.” 440 U. S., at 661. We nonetheless acknowledged the States’ “vital interest in ensuring that only those qualified to do so are permitted to operate motor vehicles, that these vehicles are fit for safe operation, and hence that licensing, registration, and vehicle inspection requirements are being observed.” Id., at 658. Accordingly, we suggested that “[questioning of all oncoming traffic at roadblock-type stops” would be a lawful means of serving this interest in highway safety. Id., at 668.

We furtherwe considered the purposes of such a hypothetical roadblock to be distinct from a general purpose of investigating crime. The State proffered the additional interests of “the apprehension of stolen motor vehicles and of drivers under the influence of alcohol or narcotics” in its effort to justify the discretionary spot check. Id,, at 659, n. 18. We attributed the entirety of the latter interest to the State’s interest in roadway safety. Ibid. We also noted that the interest in apprehending stolen vehicles may be partly subsumed by the interest in roadway safety. Ibid. We observed, however, that “[t]he remaining governmental interest in controlling automobile thefts is not distinguishable from the general interest in crime control.” Ibid. Not only does the common thread of highway safety thus run through Sitz and Prouse, but Prouse itself reveals a difference in the Fourth Amendment significance of highway safety interests and the general interest in crime control.

III

It is well established that a vehicle stop at a highway checkpoint effectuates a seizure within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment. See, e. g., Sitz, supra, at 450. The fact that officers walk a narcotics-detection dog around the exterior of each car at the Indianapolis checkpoints does not transform the seizure into a search. See United States v. Place, 462 U. S. 696, 707 (1983). Just as in Place, an exterior sniff of an automobile does not require entry into the car and is not designed to disclose any information other than the presence or absence of narcotics. See ibid. Like the dog sniff in Place, a sniff by a dog that simply walks around a car is “much less intrusive than a typical search.” Ibid. Cf. United States v. Turpin, 920 F. 2d 1377, 1385 (CA8 1990). Rather, what principally distinguishes these checkpoints from those we have previously approved is their primary purpose.

As petitioners gram unquestionably has the primary purpose of interdicting illegal narcotics. In their stipulation of facts, the parties repeatedly refer to the checkpoints as “drug checkpoints” and describe them as “being operated by the City of Indianapolis in an effort to interdict unlawful drugs in Indianapolis.” App. to Pet. for Cert. 51a-52a. In addition, the first document attached to the parties’ stipulation is entitled “DRUG CHECKPOINT CONTACT OFFICER DIRECTIVES BY ORDER OF THE CHIEF OF POLICE.” Id., at 53a. These directives instruct officers to “[a]dvise the citizen that they are being stopped briefly at a drug checkpoint.” Ibid. The second document attached to the stipulation is entitled “1998 Drug Road Blocks” and contains a statistical breakdown of information relating to the checkpoints conducted. Id., at 55a. Further, according to Sergeant DePew, the checkpoints are identified with lighted signs reading, “‘NARCOTICS CHECKPOINT _ MILE AHEAD, NARCOTICS K-9 IN USE, BE PREPARED TO STOP.’” Id., at 57a. Finally, both the District Court and the Court of Appeals recognized that the primary purpose of the roadblocks is the interdiction of narcotics. 38 F. Supp. 2d, at 1026 (noting that both parties “stress the primary purpose of the roadblocks as the interdiction of narcotics” and that “[t]he IPD has made it clear that the purpose for its checkpoints is to interdict narcotics traffic”); 183 F. 3d, at 665 (observing that “the City concedes that its proximate goal is to catch drug offenders”).

We have never approved a checkpoint program whose primary purpose was to detect evidence of ordinary criminal wrongdoing. Rather, our checkpoint cases have recognized only limited exceptions to the general rule that a seizure must be accompanied by some measure of individualized suspicion. We suggested in Prouse that we would not credit the “general interest in crime control” as justification for a regime of suspicionless stops. 440 U. S., at 659, n. 18. Consistent with this suggestion, each of the checkpoint programs that we have approved was designed primarily to serve purposes closely related to the problems of policing the border or the necessity of ensuring roadway safety. Because the primary purpose of the Indianapolis narcotics checkpoint program is to uncover evidence of ordinary criminal wrongdoing, the program contravenes the Fourth Amendment.

Petitioners propose ways detection purpose of the instant checkpoint program may instead resemble the primary purposes of the checkpoints in Sitz and Martinez-Fuerte. Petitioners state that the checkpoints in those cases had the same ultimate purpose of arresting those suspected of committing crimes. Brief for Petitioners 22. Securing the border and apprehending drunk drivers are, of course, law enforcement activities, and law enforcement officers employ arrests and criminal prosecutions in pursuit of these goals. See Sitz, 496 U. S., at 447, 450; Martinez-Fuerte, 428 U. S., at 545-550. If we were to rest the case at this high level of generality, there would be little check on the ability of the authorities to construct roadblocks for almost any conceivable law enforcement purpose. Without drawing the line at roadblocks designed primarily to serve the general interest in crime control, the Fourth Amendment would do little to prevent such intrusions from becoming a routine part of American life.

Petitioners also emphasize severe ture of the drug problem as justification for the checkpoint program. Brief for Petitioners 14-17, 31. There is no doubt that traffic in illegal narcotics creates social harms of the first magnitude. Cf. Von Raab, 489 U. S., at 668. The law enforcement problems that the drug trade creates likewise remain daunting and complex, particularly in light of the myriad forms of spin-off crime that it spawns. Cf. Montoya de Hernandez, 473 U. S., at 538. The same can be said of various other illegal activities, if only to a lesser degree. But the gravity of the threat alone cannot be dispositive of questions concerning what means law enforcement officers may employ to pursue a given purpose. Rather, in determining whether individualized suspicion is required, we must consider the nature of the interests threatened and their con-neetion to the particular law enforcement practices at issue. We are particularly reluctant to recognize exceptions to the general rule of individualized suspicion where governmental authorities primarily pursue their general crime control ends.

Nor can the narcotics-interdiction purpose of the checkpoints be rationalized in terms of a highway safety concern similar to that present in Sitz. The detection and punishment of almost any criminal offense serves broadly the safety of the community, and our streets would no doubt be safer but for the scourge of illegal drugs. Only with respect to a smaller class of offenses, however, is society confronted with the type of immediate, vehicle-bound threat to life and limb that the sobriety checkpoint in Sitz was designed to eliminate.

Petitioners also liken the anticontraband agenda of the Indianapolis checkpoints to the antismuggling purpose of the checkpoints in Martinez-Fuerte. Brief for Petitioners 15-16. Petitioners cite this Court’s conclusion in Martinez-Fuerte that the flow of traffic was too heavy to permit “particularized study of a given car that would enable it to be identified as a possible carrier of illegal aliens,” 428 U. S., at 557, and claim that this logic has even more force here. The problem with this argument is that the same logic prevails any time a vehicle is employed to conceal contraband or other evidence of a crime. This type of connection to the roadway is very different from the close connection to roadway safety that was present in Sitz and Prouse. Further, the Indianapolis checkpoints are far removed from the border context that was crucial in Martinez-Fuerte. While the difficulty of examining each passing car was an important factor in validating the law enforcement technique employed in Martinez-Fuerte, this factor alone cannot justify a regime of suspicionless searches or seizures. Rather, we must look more closely at the nature of the public interests that such a regime is designed principally to serve.

The primary purpose of the Indianapolis narcotics checkpoints is in the end to advance “the general interest in crime control,” Prouse, 440 U. S., at 659, n. 18. We decline to suspend the usual requirement of individualized suspicion where the police seek to employ a checkpoint primarily for the ordinary enterprise of investigating crimes. We cannot sanction stops justified only by the generalized and ever-present possibility that interrogation and inspection may reveal that any given motorist has committed some crime.

Of course, are enforcement checkpoint where the primary purpose would otherwise, but for some emergency, relate to ordinary crime control. For example, as the Court of Appeals noted, the Fourth Amendment would almost certainly permit an appropriately tailored roadblock set up to thwart an imminent terrorist attack or to catch a dangerous criminal who is likely to flee by way of a particular route. See 183 F. 3d, at 662-663. The exigencies created by these scenarios are far removed from the circumstances under which authorities might simply stop cars as a matter of course to see if there just happens to be a felon leaving the jurisdiction. While we do not limit the purposes that may justify a checkpoint program to any rigid set of categories, we decline to approve a program whose primary purpose is ultimately indistinguishable from the general interest in crime control.

Petitioners argue that our prior cases preclude an inquiry into the purposes of the checkpoint program. For example, they cite Whren v. United States, 517 U. S. 806 (1996), and Bond v. United States, 529 U. S. 334 (2000), to support the proposition that “where the government articulates and pursues a legitimate interest for a suspicionless stop, courts should not look behind that interest to determine whether the government’s ‘primary purpose’ is valid.” Brief for Petitioners 34; see also id., at 9. These cases, however, do not control the instant situation.

In Whren, we held that an individual officer’s subjective intentions are irrelevant to the Fourth Amendment validity of a traffic stop that is justified objectively by probable cause to believe that a traffic violation has occurred. 517 U. S., at 810-813. We observed that our prior cases “foreclose any argument that the constitutional reasonableness of traffic stops depends on the actual motivations of the individual officers involved.” Id., at 813. In so holding, we expressly distinguished eases where we had addressed the validity of searches conducted in the absence of probable cause. See id., at 811-812 (distinguishing Florida v. Wells, 495 U. S. 1, 4 (1990) (stating that “an inventory search must not be a ruse for a general rummaging in order to discover incriminating evidence”), Colorado v. Bertine, 479 U. S. 367, 372 (1987) (suggesting that the absence of bad faith and the lack of a purely investigative purpose were relevant to the validity of an inventory search), and Burger, 482 U. S., at 716-717, n. 27 (observing that a valid administrative inspection conducted with neither a warrant nor probable cause did not appear to be a pretext for gathering evidence of violations of the penal laws)).

Whren therefore reinforces the principle that, while “[sjubjective intentions play no role in ordinary, probable-cause Fourth Amendment analysis,” 517 U. S., at 813, programmatic purposes may be relevant to the validity of Fourth Amendment intrusions undertaken pursuant to a general scheme without individualized suspicion. Accordingly, Whren does not preclude an inquiry into programmatic purpose in such contexts. Cf. Chandler v. Miller, 520 U. S. 305 (1997); Treasury Employees v. Von Raab, 489 U. S. 656 (1989); Burger, supra; Michigan v. Tyler, 436 U. S. 499 (1978); Camara v. Municipal Court of City and County of San Francisco, 387 U. S. 523 (1967). It likewise does not preclude an inquiry into programmatic purpose here.

Last we law enforcement officer violated a reasonable expectation of privacy in conducting a tactile examination of carry-on luggage in the overhead compartment of a bus. In doing so, we simply noted that the principle of Whren rendered the subjective intent of an officer irrelevant to this analysis. 529 U. S., at 338, n. 2. While, as petitioners correctly observe, the analytical rubric of Bond was not “ordinary, probable-cause Fourth Amendment analysis,” Whren, supra, at 813, nothing in Bond suggests that we would extend the principle of Whren to all situations where individualized suspicion was lacking. Rather, subjective intent was irrelevant in Bond because the inquiry that our precedents required focused on the objective effects of the actions of an individual officer. By contrast, our cases dealing with intrusions that occur pursuant to a general scheme absent individualized suspicion have often required an inquiry into purpose at the programmatic level.

Petitioners argue that the Indianapolis checkpoint program is justified by its lawful secondary purposes of keeping impaired motorists off the road and verifying licenses and registrations. Brief for Petitioners 31-34. If this were the case, however, law enforcement authorities would be able to establish checkpoints for virtually any purpose so long as they also included a license or sobriety check. For this reason, we examine the available evidence to determine the primary purpose of the checkpoint program. While we recognize the challenges inherent in a purpose inquiry, courts routinely engage in this enterprise in many areas of constitutional jurisprudence as a means of sifting abusive governmental conduct from that which is lawful. Cf. 183 F. 3d, at 665. As a result, a program driven by an impermissible purpose may be proscribed while a program impelled by licit purposes is permitted, even though the challenged conduct may be outwardly similar. While reasonableness under the Fourth Amendment is predominantly an objective inquiry, our special needs and administrative search cases demonstrate that purpose is often relevant when suspicionless intrusions pursuant to a general scheme are at issue.

It goes saying that our holding today does nothing to alter the constitutional status of the sobriety and border checkpoints that we approved in Sitz and Martinez-Fuerte, or of the type of traffic checkpoint that we suggested would be lawful in Prouse. The constitutionality of such checkpoint programs still depends on a balancing of the competing interests at stake and the effectiveness of the program. See Sitz, 496 U. S., at 450-455; Martinez-Fuerte, 428 U. S., at 556-564. When law enforcement authorities pursue primarily general crime control purposes at checkpoints such as here, however, stops can only be justified by some quantum of individualized suspicion.

Our holding also does not affect the validity of border searches or searches at places like airports and government buildings, where the need for such measures to ensure public safety can be particularly acute. Nor does our opinion speak to other intrusions aimed primarily at purposes beyond the general interest in crime control. Our holding also does not impair the ability of police officers to act appropriately upon information that they properly learn during a checkpoint stop justified by a lawful primary purpose, even where such action may result in the arrest of a motorist for an offense unrelated to that purpose. Finally, we caution that the purpose inquiry in this context is to be conducted only at the programmatic level and is not an invitation to probe the minds of individual officers acting at the scene. Cf. Whren, supra.

Because the primary purpose point program is ultimately indistinguishable from the general interest in crime control, the checkpoints violate the Fourth Amendment. The judgment of the Court of Appeals is, accordingly, affirmed.

It is so ordered.

ChieF Justice Rehnquist,

with whom Justice Thomas joins, and with whom Justice Scalia joins as to Part I, dissenting.

The State’s use of a drug-sniffing dog, according to the Court’s holding, annuls what is otherwise plainly constitutional under our Fourth Amendment jurisprudence: brief, standardized, discretionless, roadblock seizures of automobiles, seizures which effectively serve a weighty state interest with only minimal intrusion on the privacy of their occupants. Because these seizures serve the State’s accepted and significant interests of preventing drunken driving and checking for driver’s licenses and vehicle registrations, and because there is nothing in the record to indicate that the addition of the dog sniff lengthens these otherwise legitimate seizures, I dissent.

I

As it is nowhere to be found m the Court’s opinion, I begin with blackletter roadblock seizure law. “The principal protection of Fourth Amendment rights at checkpoints lies in appropriate limitations on the scope of the stop.” United States v. Martinez-Fuerte, 428 U. S. 543, 566-567 (1976). Roadblock seizures are consistent with the Fourth Amendment if they are “carried out pursuant to a plan embodying explicit, neutral limitations on the conduct of individual officers.” Brown v. Texas, 443 U. S. 47, 51 (1979). Specifically, the constitutionality of a seizure turns upon “a weighing of the gravity of the public concerns served by the seizure, the degree to which the seizure advances the public interest, and the severity of the interference with individual liberty.” Id., at 50-51.

We first applied these principles in Martinez-Fuerte, supra, which approved highway checkpoints for detecting illegal aliens. In Martinez-Fuerte, we balanced the United States’ formidable interest in checking the flow of illegal immigrants against the limited “objective” and “subjective” intrusion on the motorists. The objective intrusion — the stop itself, the brief questioning of the occupants, and the visual inspection of the car — was considered “limited” because “[n]either the vehicle nor its occupants [were] searched.” Id., at 558. Likewise, the subjective intrusion, or the fear and surprise engendered in law-abiding motorists by the nature of the stop, was found to be minimal because the “regularized manner in which [the] established checkpoints [were] operated [was] visible evidence, reassuring to law-abiding motorists, that the stops [were] duly authorized and believed to serve the public interest.” Id., at 559. Indeed, the standardized operation of the roadblocks was viewed as markedly different from roving patrols, where the unbridled discretion of officers in the field could result in unlimited interference with motorists’ use of the highways. Cf. United States v. Brignoni-Ponce, 422 U. S. 873 (1975). And although the decision in Martinez-Fuerte did not turn on the checkpoints’ effectiveness, the record in one of the consolidated cases demonstrated that illegal aliens were found in 0.12 percent of the stopped vehicles. See 428 U. S., at 554.

In Michigan Dept. of State v. (1990), we upheld the State’s use of a highway sobriety checkpoint after applying the framework set out in Martinez-Fuerte, supra, and Brown v. Texas, supra. There, we recognized the gravity of the State’s interest in curbing drunken driving and found the objective intrusion of the approximately 25-second seizure to be “slight.” 496 U. S., at 451. Turning to the subjective intrusion, we noted that the checkpoint was selected pursuant to guidelines and was operated by uniformed officers. See id., at 453. Finally, we concluded that the program effectively furthered the State’s interest because the checkpoint resulted in the arrest of two drunk drivers, or 1.6 percent of the 126 drivers stopped. See id., at 455-456.

This case follows naturally from Martinez-Fuerte and Sitz. Petitioners acknowledge that the “primary purpose” of these roadblocks is to interdict illegal drugs, but this fact should not be controlling. Even accepting the Court’s conclusion that the checkpoints at issue in Martinez-Fuerte and Sitz were not primarily related to criminal law enforcement, the question whether a law enforcement purpose could support a roadblock seizure is not presented in this case. The District Court found that another “purpose of the checkpoints is to check driver’s licenses and vehicle registrations,” App. to Pet. for Cert. 44a, and the written directives state that the police officers are to “[l]ook for signs of impairment,” id., at 53a. The use of roadblocks to look for signs of impairment was validated by Sitz, and the use of roadblocks to check for driver’s licenses and vehicle registrations was expressly recognized in Delaware v. Prouse, 440 U. S. 648, 663 (1979). That the roadblocks serve these legitimate state interests cannot be seriously disputed, as the 49 people arrested for offenses unrelated to drugs can attest. Edmond v. Goldsmith, 183 F. 3d 659, 661 (CA7 1999). And it would be speculative to conclude — given the District Court’s findings, the written directives, and the actual arrests — that petitioners would not have operated these roadblocks but for the State’s interest in interdicting drugs.

Because of the valid reasons for conducting these roadblock seizures, it is constitutionally irrelevant that petitioners also hoped to interdict drugs. In Whren v. United States, 517 U. S. 806 (1996), we held that an officer’s subjective intent would not invalidate an otherwise objectively justifiable stop of an automobile. The reasonableness of an officer’s discretionary decision to stop an automobile, at issue in Whren, turns on whether there is probable cause to believe that a traffic violation has occurred. The reasonableness of highway checkpoints, at issue here, turns on whether they effectively serve a significant state interest with minimal intrusion on motorists. The stop in Whren was objectively reasonable because the police officers had witnessed traffic violations; so too the roadblocks here are objectively reasonable because they serve the substantial interests of preventing drunken driving and checking for driver’s licenses and vehicle registrations with minimal intrusion on motorists.

Once the constitutional requirements for a particular seizure are satisfied, the subjective expectations of those responsible for it, be it police officers or members of a city council, are irrelevant. Cf. Scott v. United States, 436 U. S. 128, 136 (1978) (“Subjective intent alone . . . does not make otherwise lawful conduct illegal or unconstitutional”). It is the objective effect of the State’s actions on the privacy of the individual that animates the Fourth Amendment. See Bond v. United States, 529 U. S. 334, 338, n. 2 (2000) (applying Wkren to determine if an officer’s conduct amounted to a “search” under the Fourth Amendment because “the issue is not his state of mind, but the objective effect of his actions”). Because the objective intrusion of a valid seizure does not turn upon anyone’s subjective thoughts, neither should our constitutional analysis.

With these checkpoints serving ests, the remaining prongs of the Brown v. Texas balancing test are easily met. The seizure is objectively reasonable as it lasts, on average, two to three minutes and does not involve a search. App. to Pet. for Cert. 57a. The subjective intrusion is likewise limited as the checkpoints are clearly marked and operated by uniformed officers who are directed to stop every vehicle in the same manner. Ibid. The only difference between this case and Sitz is the presence of the dog. We have already held, however, that a “sniff test” by a trained narcotics dog is not a “search” within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment because it does not require physical intrusion of the object being sniffed and it does not expose anything other than the contraband items. United States v. Place, 462 U. S. 696, 706-707 (1983). And there is nothing in the record to indicate that the dog sniff lengthens the stop. Finally, the checkpoints’ success rate — 49 arrests for offenses unrelated to drugs — only confirms the State’s legitimate interests in preventing drunken driving and ensuring the proper licensing of drivers and registration of their vehicles. 183 F. 3d, at 661.

These stops effectively serve the State’s legitimate interests; they are executed in a regularized and neutral manner; and they only minimally intrude upon the privacy of the motorists. They should therefore be constitutiorial.

II

The Court, unwilling to adopt the straightforward analysis that these precedents dictate, adds a new non-law-enforcement primary purpose test lifted from a distinct area of Fourth Amendment jurisprudence relating to the searches of homes and businesses. As discussed above, the question that the Court answers is not even posed in this case given the accepted reasons for the seizures. But more fundamentally, whatever sense a non-law-enforcement primary purpose test may make in the search setting, it is ill suited to brief roadblock seizures, where we have consistently looked at “the scope of the stop” in assessing a program’s constitutionality. Martinez-Fuerte, 428 U. S., at 567.

We haan to apply the non-law-enforcement primary purpose test that the Court now finds so indispensable. The respondents in Sitz argued that the Brown v. Texas balancing test was not the “proper method of analysis” with regards to roadblock seizures:

“Respondents argue that there must be a showing of some special governmental need ‘beyond the normal need’ for criminal law enforcement before a balancing analysis is appropriate, and that [the State] ha[s] demonstrated no such special need.
“But it is perfectly plain from a Employees v.] Von Raab[, 489 U. S. 656 (1989)], which cited and discussed with approval our earlier decision in United States v. Martinez-Fuerte, 428 U. S. 543 (1976), that it was in no way designed to repudiate our prior cases dealing with police stops of motorists on public highways. Martinez-Fuerte, supra, which utilized a balancing analysis in approving highway checkpoints for detecting illegal aliens, and Brown v. Texas, supra, are the relevant authorities here.” 496 U. S., at 449, 450.

Considerations of stare decisis aside, the “perfectly plain” reason for not incorporating the “special needs” test in our roadblock seizure cases is that seizures of automobiles “deal neither with searches nor with the sanctity of private dwellings, ordinarily afforded the most stringent Fourth Amendment protection.” Martinez-Fuerte, supra, at 561.

The “special hold certain suspicionless searches performed for reasons unrelated to law enforcement, is an exception to the general rule that a search must be based on individualized suspicion of wrongdoing. See, e. g., Skinner v. Railway Labor Executives’ Assn., 489 U. S. 602 (1989) (drug test search); Camara v. Municipal Court of City and County of San Francisco, 887 U. S. 523 (1967) (home administrative search). The doctrine permits intrusions into a person’s body and home, areas afforded the greatest Fourth Amendment protection. But there were no such intrusions here.

“[0]ne’s expectation of privacy in an automobile and of freedom in its operation are significantly different from the traditional expectation of privacy and freedom in one’s residence.” Martinez-Fuerte, supra, at 561. This is because “[a]utomobiles, unlike homes, are subjected to pervasive and continuing governmental regulation and controls.” South Dakota v. Opperman, 428 U. S. 364, 368 (1976); see also New York v. Class, 475 U. S. 106, 113 (1986) (“[Ajutomobiles are justifiably the subject of pervasive regulation by the State”); Cardwell v. Lewis, 417 U. S. 583, 590 (1974) (“One has a lesser expectation of privacy in a motor vehicle because its function is transportation and it seldom serves as one’s residence or as the repository of personal effects”). The lowered expectation of privacy in one’s automobile is coupled with the limited nature of the intrusion: a brief, standardized, nonintru-sive seizure. The brief seizure of an automobile can hardly be compared to the intrusive search of the body or the home. Thus, just as the “special needs” inquiry serves to both define and limit the permissible scope of those searches, the Brown v. Texas balancing test serves to define and limit the permissible scope of automobile seizures.

Because limitations upon roadblock seizures, the Court’s newfound non-law-enforcement primary purpose test is both unnecessary to secure Fourth Amendment rights and bound to produce wide-ranging litigation over the “purpose” of any given seizure. Police designing highway roadblocks can never be sure of their validity, since a jury might later determine that a forbidden purpose exists. Roadblock stops identical to the one that we upheld in Sitz 10 years ago, or to the one that we upheld 24 years ago in Martinez-Fuerte, may now be challenged on the grounds that they have some concealed forbidden purpose.

Efforts on highways used by millions of motorists are obviously necessary to our society. The Court’s opinion today casts a shadow over what had been assumed, on the basis of stare decisis, to be a perfectly lawful activity. Conversely, if the Indianapolis police had assigned a different purpose to their activity here, but in no way changed what was done on the ground to individual motorists, it might well be valid. See ante, at 47, n. 2. The Court’s non-law-enforcement primary purpose test simply does not serve as a proxy for anything that the Fourth Amendment is, or should be, concerned about in the automobile seizure context.

Petitioners’ program complies with our decisions regarding roadblock seizures of automobiles, and the addition of a dog sniff does not add to the length or the intrusion of the stop. Because such stops are consistent with the Fourth Amendment, I would reverse the decision of the Court of Appeals.

Justice Thomas,

dissenting.

Taken together, our decisions in Michigan Dept. of State Police v. Sitz, 496 U. S. 444 (1990), and United States v. Martinez-Fuerte, 428 U. S. 643 (1976), stand for the proposition that suspicionless roadblock seizures are constitutionally permissible if conducted according to a plan that limits the discretion of the officers conducting the stops. I am not convinced that Sitz and Martinez-Fuerte were correctly decided. Indeed, I rather doubt that the Framers of the Fourth Amendment would have considered “reasonable” a program of indiscriminate stops of individuals not suspected of wrongdoing.

Respondents of Sitz and Martinez-Fuerte, and I am reluctant to consider such a step without the benefit of briefing and argument. For the reasons given by The Chief Justice, I believe that those cases compel upholding the program at issue here. I, therefore, join his opinion.

       The Chief Justice’s dissent erroneously characterizes our. opinion as resting on the application of a “non-law-enforcement primary purpose test.” Post, at 53. Our opinion nowhere describes the purposes of the Sitz and Martinez-Fuerte checkpoints as being “not primarily related to criminal law enforcement.” Post, at 50. Rather, our judgment turns on the fact that the primary purpose of the Indianapolis checkpoints is to advance the general interest in crime control.
      The Chief Justice’s dissent as holding that the “use of a drug-sniffing dog... annuls what is otherwise plainly constitutional under our Fourth Amendment jurisprudence.” Post, at 48. Again, the constitutional defect of the program is that its primary purpose is to advance the general interest in crime control.

       Because petitioners concede that the primary purpose of the Indianapolis checkpoints is narcotics detection, we need not decide whether the State may establish a checkpoint program with the primary purpose of checking licenses or driver sobriety and a secondary purpose of interdicting narcotics. Specifically, we express no view on the question whether police may expand the scope of a license or sobriety checkpoint seizure in order to detect the presence of drugs in a stopped car. Cf. New Jersey v. T. L. O., 469 U. S. 325, 341 (1985) (search must be “ ‘reasonably related in scope to the circumstances which justified the interference in the first place’ ” (quoting Terry v. Ohio, 392 U. S. 1, 20 (1968))); Michigan v. Clifford, 464 U. S. 287, 294-295 (1984) (plurality opinion).

       The record from one of the consolidated eases indicated that the stops lasted between three and five minutes. See United States v. MartinezFuerte, 428 U. S. 543, 546-547 (1976).

       This gloss, see ante, at 38-40, 41-43, is not at all obvious. The respondents in Martinez-Fwrte were criminally prosecuted for illegally transporting aliens, and the Court expressly noted that “[(Interdicting the flow of illegal entrants from Mexico poses formidable law enforcement problems.” 428 U. S., at 552. And the Sitz Court recognized that if an “officer’s observations suggest that the driver was intoxicated, an arrest would be made.” 496 U. S., at 447. But however persuasive the distinction, the Court’s opinion does not impugn the continuing validity of Martinez-Fuerte and Sitz. See ante, at 47.

       Several Courts of Appeals have upheld roadblocks that check for driver’s licenses and vehicle registrations. See, e.g., United States v. Galindo-Gonzales, 142 F. 3d 1217 (CA10 1998); United States v. McFayden, 865 F. 2d 1306 (CADC 1989).

       Of course we have looked to the purpose of the program in analyzing the constitutionality of certain suspicionless searches. . As discussed in Part II, infra, that doctrine has never been applied to seizures of automobiles.

       Put in statistical terms, 4.2 percent of the 1,161 motorists stopped were arrested for offenses unrelated to drugs.

       This fact distinguishes the roadblock seizure of an automobile from an inventory search of an automobile. Cf. Colorado v. Bertine, 479 U. S. 367 (1987) (automobile inventory search).