A group of Michigan residents sued on the grounds that their Fourth Amendment rights prohibiting unreasonable search and seizure were being violated.

As the dissenting opinion by Justice Stevens explains, "a sobriety checkpoint is usually operated at night at an unannounced location.

The test operation conducted by the Michigan State Police and the Saginaw County Sheriff's Department began shortly after midnight and lasted until about 1 a.m. During that period, the 19 officers participating in the operation made two arrests and stopped and questioned 124 other unsuspecting and innocent drivers."

The Supreme Court held that Michigan had a "substantial government interest" in stopping drunk driving, and that this technique was rationally related to achieving that goal (although there was some evidence to the contrary).

The Court also held that the impact on drivers, such as in delaying them from reaching their destination, was negligible, and that the brief questioning to gain "reasonable suspicion" similarly had a negligible impact on the drivers' Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable search (implying that any more detailed or invasive searches would be treated differently).