[NJ_gent]

"someone smells wrotting flesh from your trunk"

A strong and identifiable odor coming from the vehicle is a far cry from being in equipment, biological or otherwise, to scan the vehicle. What's next? A portable self-inflating x-ray machine you have to drive your car through whenever you're pulled over at a traffic stop to make sure there are no guns in the car? Perhaps some heavy duty infrared scanning gear to search the car without laying a hand on it?

Either the officers are restricted to 'plain view' for their safety or they're allowed to scan the car using things which detect things humans cannot detect in order to find reasons to lock you up. There ain't no third direction.

[HamiltonJay]

Sorry fella, you have no expectation of privacy to the AIR around your car. Whether it be a dog, or odor sensing device... Odors eminating from a vehicle, no MATTER HOW STRONG OR WEAK are not owned by the owner of the vehicle nor can any expectation of privacy related to them be expected.

XRAY required the GENERATION of XRAYS to detect them... or an exterior act... sniffing the air, whether by human, or dog, or electronic device does not.

Court made the right call.