  We examine several higher spin modes of the Poincar\'e gauge theory (PGT) of
gravity using the Hamiltonian analysis. The appearance of certain undesirable
effects due to non-linear constraints in the Hamiltonian analysis are used as a
test. We find that the phenomena of field activation and constraint bifurcation
both exist in the pure spin 1 and the pure spin 2 modes. The coupled spin-$0^-$
and spin-$2^-$ modes also fail our test due to the appearance of constraint
bifurcation. The ``promising'' case in the linearized theory of PGT given by
Kuhfuss and Nitsch (KRNJ86) likewise does not pass. From this analysis of these
specific PGT modes we conclude that an examination of such nonlinear constraint
effects shows great promise as a strong test for this and other alternate
theories of gravity.
