Williston High School students had a rare opportunity to see how the court system operates at its highest level Monday afternoon when the North Dakota Supreme Court came to town Monday.

Four of the state's five justices were in the WHS Auditorium Monday afternoon to hear oral arguments in a sobriety checkpoint case.

Students heard arguments for about 75 minutes in the case of Martin vs. the North Dakota Department of Transportation.

The case originated with a July 3, 2008, sobriety checkpoint stop in Dickinson. A Brandan Martin arrived at the checkpoint at about 9:40 that night. A North Dakota Highway Patrol trooper asked Martin if he had been consuming alcohol.

The smell of alcohol was detected by the trooper and an unopened can of beer was seen lying on the vehicle's center console. After going to an adjacent parking lot for further questioning, Martin was requested to exit the vehicle and go to the trooper's car. A request was made for his license and consent to sobriety tests was accepted.

Martin consented to an S-D2 test and the result was a .114 percent alcohol reading. After being arrested, an intoxilyzer test later came back with a .10 percent alcohol content.

Dickinson's Mary Nordsven, Martin's attorney, said the checkpoint was unreasonable and ended with an unconstitutional search and seizure.

Nordsven also said Martin's intoxilyzer test should be inadmissible because he was chewing tobacco at the time of the stop.

Justice Dale Sandstrom questioned Nordsven on the fact Martin had been chewing tobacco at the time of the stop.

"What effect would that have on the test?" said Sandstrom.

Nordsven said if the person being tested doesn't rinse his/her mouth and wait a minimum of 20 minutes, the particles can distort the test results.

Martin wasn't made to rinse out the particles he later found in his teeth. Therefore, the test should've been deemed inadmissible, said Nordsven.

"Well then, what about flossing?" asked Justice Daniel Crothers, to some laughter in the crowd.

"I'm serious, where do we draw the line?" said Crothers.

Nordsven also argued the constitutionality of the checkpoint itself is in question. She said the stated purpose of the checkpoint was to deter people from drinking and driving during the annual Dickinson Roughrider Days.

"...It totally lacked an educational component. If the purpose of the checkpoint was to deter citizens from choosing to drink and drive in conjunction with Roughrider Days, there should have been some attempt to educate the drivers stopped," said Nordsven.

She added the checkpoint has to be structured in a way that a motorist could avoid it if they chose to, which it wasn't.

Representing the DOT was Assistant Attorney General Andrew Moraghan. He argued that Martin was lawfully detained and the trooper followed proper procedure, which led to his administering the intoxilyzer test.

Moraghan said the court has found in the past that temporary checkpoints for such purposes are, in general, constitutional. He continued that the initial stopping of someone at a checkpoint doesn't require suspicion of any violation.

Moraghan said the smell of alcohol is was what allowed for the continued action. He said this was entirely appropriate.

"Trooper Messer was not required to ignore the odor of an alcoholic beverage and the unopened can of beer and simply wave Martin through the checkpoint," said Moraghan.

After further argument, the proceedings closed. The justices then held a question-and-answer session with students for about 20 minutes before ending the event.

Jeff Graupe, a WHS law teacher, said they had been trying to get the Supreme Court to come to Williston for a few years. This was the third attempt at getting it to come, as the previous two times the weather was an issue.

He said this was a great opportunity for students to see how laws are upheld at the highest level in the state.

"It was a truly terrific experience for the kids to see this. I try to get the kids to see every level of court. This was a wonderful thing for them to see," said Graupe.