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.

[eno_]

You have all the arrogance of ignorance. Try these two on for size:

Does the IInd give you RKBA? Or would you have it without the IInd?

Do you have the right of freedom of travel? Sez who? And why, if it isn't mentioned in the US Constitution or any state constitution, do you have that right?

[neoconjob]

looks like you're just not getting the point, my confused would-be patriot friend. The Constitution does not grant ANY RIGHTS to ANYONE and in fact CANNOT DO SO under the moral and philosophical rules to which our Founders subscribed: namely, that all rights are God-given (or "natural") and that the purpose of government is to defend these ALREADY EXISTING rights, not create or distribute them. This is a very basic premise of our republican system of governance, but one which is unfortunately forgotten or deliberately disregarded by too many in a position to know better. The point the previous poster makes is that the Constitution does not NEED to specifically give the official OK to ANY activity of the citizens... its purpose (certainly in the "Bill of Rights" portion or the first 10 ammendments) is to LIMIT the sphere of potential tyrrany by government by limiting the power and reach of government. Any power not SPECIFICALLY granted to government is assumed to belong to the people or to no one at all. One does not need to look for positive references to an activity in the writings of the founders or in the document itself to understand that point.