High Court Chooses Cases for New Term

WASHINGTON--The Supreme Court, embarking on a term laced with controversial issues, said yesterday it will decide whether police nationwide may use sobriety checkpoints in trying to curb drunken drivers.

The case accepted by the court, which poses the question of whether police officers may use checkpoints to spot drunken drivers, presents the latest test of strength for the Court's newly solidified conservative majority.

Michigan courts struck down that state's sobriety checkpoint program as an unconstitutional invasion of privacy, but courts in other states have upheld virtually identical police tactics.

In its usual start-of-term flurry, the Court issued orders in more than 1000 cases--denying review to most and agreeing to study 22. They will be among 150 or so disputes to be decided by the end of the term in July.

But beyond the day-to-day business of the nation's highest court, the nine justices are looking ahead to a term in which they have agreed to decide thorny right-of-privacy arguments in three abortion disputes and their first "right-to-die" controversy.

Last year's court term was perhaps the most publicized in decades, as the conservative court turned to abortion and civil rights issues which have not been substantially changed since an activist, liberal court of the 1960s and 1970s first ruled on their constitutionality.

The Court yesterday also heard arguments in a Yonkers, N.Y. desegregation case centering on four city council members who voted against a judge's order to pass a legislative package designed to lure subsidized housing to the city's white neighborhoods.

In addition to that civil rights case, the justices on their first day also:

. Agreed to decide in an Illinois case whether public employers may be forced to put aside partisanship when hiring, promoting and transferring employees.

. Turned down the appeals of eight organized crime figures from New York City convicted in the 1979 assassination of crime chieftain Carmine Galante and two of his associates.

. Left intact Maryland's revocation of a $300,000-a-year tax break for a men-only golf club that has counted presidents and members of Congress among its members.

. Refused to spare an evangelical Christian group in Lenox, Mass., from having to return $5.5 million donated by a wealthy ex-member.

. Rejected Alaska's attempt to stop offshore oil and gas exploration in Bristol Bay. The state had argued that an oil spill there could do more environmental harm than the massive Exxon Valdez spill last March.

. Allowed states to criminally prosecute employers accused of neglecting the health and safety of their employees. The justices, without comment, let stand a ruling in an Illinois case that federal workplace regulations do not bar such state prosecutions.

The use of police sobriety checkpoints in Michigan was attacked shortly after state police began using them in 1986. The program was modeled after one used in Maryland.

At a checkpoint site, police directed all traffic headed in one direction to a roadside area where officers checked motorists for signs of intoxication.

If there was no immediate evidence of intoxication, the motorist was given atraffic safety brochure and allowed to drive away.The average delay was about 30 seconds.

If signs of intoxication were detected, adriver was directed to another area for furtherquestioning and perhaps a breath test.

At one such checkpoint, Michigan state policetroopers checked 126 vehicles in less than an hourand detained two drivers for sobriety field tests.One driver was arrested on drunken-drivingcharges.

The state police department was sued soon afterthe checkpoint program began. The lawsuit allegedthat the checkpoints violated the FourthAmendment's ban on unreasonable police searchesand seizures.

State courts banned the checkpoints, citing"the potential for an unreasonable, subjectiveintrusion on individual liberty interests."

In defending the checkpoint program, MichiganAttorney General Frank Kelley told the justicesthat fighting drunken driving is a "grave andlegitimate public interest."

He said Michigan's checkpoint program is valideven if it is not the most effective policeprocedure or may carry the "potential ofgenerating fear and surprise in some motorists."

Lawyers for those who successfully challengedthe checkpoint program urged the justices toreject the appeal.

They said the "warrantless, suspicionlessseizure" of a vehicle at a sobriety checkpointcould lead to drivers and passengers beingrequired to get out and being subjected to patdownsearches. They said police officers may use suchoccasions to inspect a vehicle's contents.

In other matters, the Court:

. Agreed to use a Florida case to decidewhether states may prohibit grand jury witnessesfrom making public their own testimony once theinvestigation has ended.

. Said it will decide whether the governmentmay prohibit soliciting on all Postal Serviceproperty, including the sidewalks adjacent to postoffice buildings.

. Left intact a $278,000 libel award against aPawtucket, R.I., newspaper by refusing to review aruling that news stories may be libelous even ifthey contain no false statement