High Court Rules Dog Sniff During Traffic Stop OK Without Suspicion Of Drugs

Associated Press ^ | 1/24/2005

[Lazamataz]

The Supreme Court gave police broader search powers Monday during traffic stops, ruling that drug-sniffing dogs can be used to check out motorists even if officers have no reason to suspect they may be carrying narcotics.

In a 6-2 decision, the court sided with Illinois police who stopped Roy Caballes in 1998 along Interstate 80 for driving 6 miles over the speed limit. Although Caballes lawfully produced his driver's license, troopers brought over a drug dog after Caballes seemed nervous.

Caballes argued the Fourth Amendment protects motorists from searches such as dog sniffing, but Justice John Paul Stevens disagreed, reasoning that the privacy intrusion was minimal.

"The dog sniff was performed on the exterior of respondent's car while he was lawfully seized for a traffic violation. Any intrusion on respondent's privacy expectations does not rise to the level of a constitutionally cognizable infringement," Stevens wrote.

In a dissent, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg bemoaned what she called the broadening of police search powers, saying the use of drug dogs will make routine traffic stops more "adversarial." She was joined in her dissent in part by Justice David H. Souter.

[NJ_gent]

"For all intents and purposes, CCW is not available to citizens of New Jersey except in the most extenuating of circumstances."

Indeed - unless you can show that your line of work would put you in life-threatening danger without a gun on a regular basis, good luck getting one. A security guard at a bank would probably be able to get such a permit. Of course, for the anti-gun psychos in Trenton, even he's skating on thin ice with his so-called 'need' for a weapon.

[sam_paine]

Ironically, I think I just posited a possible answer to your questions.

[bird4four4]

True the $40.00 I carry is pretty safe. But anyone who dares to carry several hundred dollars risks having it confiscated. The cops will reason that anyone carrying large amounts of money that smells like drugs (and it all does) must have just sold drugs and the money and your car may be seized.

[TKDietz]

"IIRC, 'drug' dogs train exclusiively for drugs, but I could be wrong."

I think you are mostly right. It's not that dogs can't be trained to detect a wide array of substances. The problem is that they can't train one dog to do too much or they tend to not do any of it well. There are some dogs trained for both, but in most cases dogs are trained to do one or the other as that helps ensure the dogs will be accurate. Generally, drug dogs are trained to smell only four or five substances, usually marijuana, meth, cocaine, and heroin. Explosives dogs are trained to smell various types of explosives. The dogs law enforcement use to work the highways are in most cases trained only for drugs. The big asset forfeiture money for law enforcement on the highways is in the drug business so that is where they concentrate their efforts.

[Lazamataz]

Troll no, but as usual your leftist hunches are way off any rational train of thought.

Yeah, *I'M* the leftist. I've been here 5 years, you've been here 5 hours, and you are spouting off in your response about Racial Profiling (a decidedly leftist complaint) and *I'M* the leftist.

You are probably a DU troll, I really have that hunch.

[Blue Jays]

Hi pageonetoo-

You raise an interesting idea with regard to the adrenalin rush associated with certain activities within law enforcement.

Just to be clear, I'm a HUGE supporter of the police. I've participated in countless fundraising events, 10K races, motorcycle charity rides, and others. I count several officers among my closest friends and have a pretty cool collection of patches and other hobbyist trinkets. Virtually all of my spouse's relatives are employed in law enforcement.

My concern is that these valuable public servents must also be kept in check as we ENTRUST their power to them, not the other way around. Trotting dogs alongside cars with any regularity represents a slip down the slope, as it were...

~ Blue Jays ~

[pageonetoo]

An old farmer was hauling a load of manure when he was stopped by a state trooper. "You were speeding," the cop said. "I'm going to have to give you a ticket."
"Yep," the farmer said as he watched the trooper shoo away several flies.
"These flies are terrible," the trooper complained.
"Yep," the farmer said. "Those are circle flies."
"What's a circle fly?"
"Them flies that circle a horse's ass," answered the farmer. "Them are circle flies."
"You wouldn't be calling me a horse's ass, would you?" The trooper angrily asked.
"Nope, I didn't," the farmer replied. "But you just can't fool them flies.

[green iguana]

My story is post 531. Now this search was illegal.

No, that search was legal. It became legal when you ignorantly gave the officer permission to search your car.

Quit your whining.

[NJ_gent]

"I wouldn't have a problem with such equipment being used."

Out of curiosity, have you read Orwell's '1984'? If so, did you see any problems with their society, or did everything seem ok? I'm not trying to be funny, I'm seriously wondering.

"Why do you?"

Because I have a problem with the search itself. It violates my right to privacy. Just because modern technology can make the search less inconvenient and even hide the fact that a search is taking place doesn't mean that the search itself is right, justified, legal, or constitutional. There's a reason we require warrants to search a home or a person and it's not because it'd be inconvenient otherwise.

"I think it all goes back to what you think the purpose of the fourth amendment was. Was it to keep big brother from catching the bad guys? Or was it to protect us from big brother's harassment?"

The purpose of the fourth Amendment was to protect the privacy and safeguard the personal property rights of citizens. Citizens do have a right to privacy which is directly addressed in the United State Constitution. The government was to be heavily restricted in its ability to violate the privacy of citizens. Not only were warrants required by the 4th, but those warrants were to never be simply stamped pieces of paper. Rather, they were to never be issued save when supported by oath or affirmation. In other words, it took someone to stand up and take responsibility for the information used to justify the invasion of privacy of a citizen by the state. Not only does the Constitution protect our privacy - it bends over backwards to do so and forces the government to also bend over backwards to violate that privacy.

"it doesn't violate the framers' intent."

You seem to have this vision of the founding fathers getting ticked off because they kept being made late to work by those pesky British inspections of their home and/or person. It has nothing to do with inconvenience now and it had nothing to do with inconvenience then. What they recognized was that every person has the right to be secure in their person, their home, and their possessions. They recognized that without that right, all property would essentially be recognized as government property. I can't go rifling through your car on a whim because it's not my car. Agents of the government can't go rifling through your car either. Why? It ain't Uncle Sam's car. It's your's. If you're not allowed to make the decision as to who does and does not search your vehicle, then it's not your vehicle. At the very heart of personal property rights is the right to control when and how that property is accessed. If you don't have control over your own property, then you don't own that property. To own something is to control it. You're saying the government should be able to conduct a search of my vehicle at will so long as I'm not inconvenienced. I say it's my car, not the government's car, and I should control who does what with it, when, where, and how.

The exceptions to that is when there's a warrant obtained by the government supported by oath or affirmation to search my vehicle to obtain evidence of a specific criminal act. The other exception is the 'plain view' exception which protects the safety of police officers and involves no search beyond what is obvious and apparent and beyond the realm of an expectation of privacy.

"The court addressed the second issue but not the first... (though they noted that there's no evidence that false positives are a problem)."

On this I'll say two things. First - absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. The court was not presented with evidence that there's a problem. With an actual study conducted, we could see very surprising results. Secondly - the whole discussion is moot because by the time you get to the dog, you've passed beyond the 'plain view' search. Again, my problem is not that a dog is sniffing air. I don't care whose air it is and I don't care whether it's a dog or a machine. My problem is with the fact that police officers were conducting a search as defined in my previous comment. There are specific guidelines under which a search of a vehicle is permissible. This search did not follow those guidelines.

[sheltonmac]

So we're more free than the most oppressed nations in the world. Yippee. Glad to see that means more to some people than our departure from the principles of liberty that built this country.

[NJ_gent]

"if an officer smells marijuana from the clothing of a person, would that be probable cause to search a car?"

Anything readily apparent to a human police officer's senses is covered under 'plain view' searches. If you leave some pot on your dashboard, he can absolutely bust you for it. If your whole car stinks of alcohol, he can certainly search your car and test to see if you're drunk. If he hears someone screaming for help from your trunk, he can absolutely search the trunk. Anything that a human officer can detect with any of his senses during the normal course of his duty (such as writing you a ticket for speeding) is fair game.

The reason is two-fold. Number one, it's to protect the life of the officer. If you have a gun on your passenger seat, it's not much effort for you to grab it and shoot the cop while he's writing your ticket. If the cop isn't allowed to take that gun out of the situation, then that danger remains unnecessarily. The other reason is the lack of an expectation of privacy. If you happen to like Playboy magazines, you have the right to not make that well-known. To do so, you might hide them under the seat of your car. No one can see them and an officer cannot detect them. However, if you nail them to the side of your car, then you cannot expect the fact that you've got the Jan '05 Playboy to remain private. In other words, you have no expectation of privacy for any item which is in 'plain view'. The logical extension goes to anything which can be detected by the senses of a human police officer.

[sheltonmac]

We have been through prohibition and survived.

Only because it was repealed.

[steve-b]

If the officer saw a bag of drugs hanging out of the door, he has "probable cause". Would anyone disagree with this? In this case his trained dog smells drugs, he now has "probable cause". Both cases are the same.

Nope. Bringing in a trained dog is a specific inquiry into the person and property of the target -- i.e. a "search" (the Court's sophistries to the contrary notwithstanding).

[sam_paine]

Great. Let me in on your plan to actually combat this one single erosion of liberty. Or any erosion. Going to pay your Federal Tithe to the Police State this year on April 15? Or do you just grumble?

[js1138]

That was my point.

[inquest]

I can't go rifling through your car on a whim because it's not my car.

But I don't think there's any law against you walking your dog by my car.

[Lazamataz]

Okay, fine.

Just don't assume I'm a leftist because I am very protective of the Bill of Rights. Lots of us Conservatives are very protective of the Bill of Rights.