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.

[Dead Corpse]

With you? Plenty. Not the issue right now though.

Surveillance cameras. Annoymous para-military police forces. Warrentless searches. Over a million laws on the books. Literally. You can be put in jail for possessing a weed for 15 years, but rape a woman and you are out in 5.

Nope. We certainly aren't becoming a police State. Not at all...

[TigersEye]

Yeah, that's the part I don't care for. If they want to run a drug dog by my car when I get pulled over for speeding, then they better have it done by the time my speeding ticket is written. I'd give them 10 minutes to check my license, run my plates, and write my ticket.

Good luck with telling them what you'd like. ; )

[Dead Corpse]

Their ruling specifically holds that the type of search at issue in this case is not subject to the Fourth Amendment and therefore does not require a warrant.

As I've repeatedly pointed out, the SCOTUS does _not_ claim

Make up your mind.

[WildTurkey]

You can be put in jail for possessing a weed for 15 years

Right. Show me the details of how many are in prison for 15 years for possessing "a weed" ...

[WildTurkey]

With you? Plenty. Not the issue right now though.

I understand. You are attacking me and not what I am posting on this thread.

[MisterKnowItAll]

Me: 'Their ruling specifically holds that the type of search at issue in this case is not subject to the Fourth Amendment and therefore does not require a warrant.' (and) 'As I've repeatedly pointed out, the SCOTUS does _not_ claim . . .'

You: 'Make up your mind.'

My mind has been made up on this point since I first read the decision. The SCOTUS doesn't say a dog sniff isn't a search. It says that the dog sniff in this case IS a search, but not one to which the Fourth Amendment applies.

Got it now? Or should I use even smaller words?

[TigersEye]

Not to mention your mouthwash, cologne, aftershave, your wife's cough syrup and a bunch of other things.

Poppy seed breath.

"I knew this guy was a scofflaw when I saw he wasn't wearing a seat belt, Joe."

[RonPaulLives]

we who are in our 40's also have very dramatic observations of freedom lost.

Dittoes for those of us in our 30's. Let the Sean Hannity's of the world (who praise chip implants) flame away. Is Limbaugh talking about this on his show today? If so, good. If not, why not?

[NJ_gent]

"Their ruling specifically holds that the type of search at issue in this case is not subject to the Fourth Amendment and therefore does not require a warrant. You may disagree, but that's very different from claiming that the SCOTUS ignores the point altogether."

All searches by the government are subject to the Fourth Amendment. What they did here was side-step the issue and the precedent to claim that because the dog could smell it and would probably not tell the police what the guy had for lunch, it doesn't matter that the 4th got tossed aside. By side-stepping the real issue at hand - that a warrantless search lacking probable cause was conducted. They go on to ignore simple logic by assuming all police dogs are perfect and won't react to some beef jerky the guy picked up at the store when they say they don't have evidence before them of a false positive. The SCOTUS assumes dogs are gods, apparently, until someone brings it evidence to the contrary. Even assuming the dogs are perfect, the search was still conducted. The 4th doesn't say "unless you're positive you'll only find bad stuff"

"Again, the SCOTUS specifically addressed this point when it held that searches that _could_ reveal genuinely private information (as busting down someone's door obviously could) are subject to the Fourth Amendment and are, under the circumstances you have in mind here, unreasonable."

Yes, and it held that dogs are gods. See above. My point here was that (again, see above) there's no exception in the 4th for searches that only reveal bad things or searches that are definitely accurate. The 4th doesn't care how good your dog is or how powerful your scanning tool is. The 4th wants someone to stand up and take responsibility and swear to having first-hand knowledge that evidence of specific wrongdoing exists and is likely to be found in a specific place. The exception is 'plain view'. If the car stunk of pot and the police smelled it, then I doubt we'd be having this discussion. The fact is that a dog was brought in by a police officer to conduct a non-plain view search of the vehicle without a warrant, without probable cause, and without the owner's consent. The SCOTUS can conjure up imaginary phrases ("unless you're positive...") to make this BS stick all they like, but unless and until they go back in time to re-write the US Constitution, them ain't the words that are on the paper.

"According to the SCOTUS -- which specifically addresses _this_ point as well -- it leaves the Fourth Amendment right where it was."

They've added to it a bit. The new and SCOTUS-approved 4th Amendment reads:

" The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated unless agents of the government are real sure they'll only find bad stuff, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized unless it's only bad things that are being searched for, in which case warrants, oaths and affirmations, and probable cause are not necessary."

[green iguana]

So a dog sniffing your car for a particular oder it has been trained to identify is NOT a seach.

No, it is a search, but one that is treated as sui generis. In his dissent, Souter (I think correctly) points out that dog sniffs should not be held as such. The precedent is 'United States v. Place, 462 U. S. 696 (1983)', and it is based on the premise that drug sniffing dogs do not err.

[TigersEye]

...the dog sniff in this case IS a search, but not one to which the Fourth Amendment applies.

Selective application of the Constitution? That explains all those laws that infringe on the RKBA.

[NJ_gent]

"Giving consent to a cop to look thru your vehicle IS NOT CONSENT TO BE ILLEGALLY DETAINED for 20+ minutes while"

Did you ask if you were free to leave? If you did, the officer must either arrest you or allow you to go on about your business unless he's got a damn good reason to continue holding you. Even then, he's probably got a few minutes at best to work on you before you can hop in your car and drive away. The trick is, you have to ask.

[Dead Corpse]

I understand. You are attacking me and not what I am posting on this thread.

No. I clearly stated that that is what I DON'T want it to turn in to. But, knowing you... it would end up that way.

[green iguana]

no right to detain me to the point of calling in drug dogs

He wasn't detaining you - he was conducting a search that you consented to. Nowhere in post 531 do you state that you withdrew your consent. You should have, and then gone merrily on your way.

[bigLusr]

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.

This is getting repetitive. I keep saying it's constitutional both because it wasn't inconvenient and because there was no legitimate private information discovered from the dog sniff... and you keep ignoring that second half.

I never implied that the fact that it wasn't intrusive alone made it Constitutional. In fact, I specifically mentioned that I and the court still agreed with the decision in Kyllo. As you know, the device in Kyllo wasn't intrusive but it was still found unconstitutional because it compromised legitimate private information. I also pointed out that the non-intrusiveness of the California's Prop. 69 wouldn't justify their actions because it would reveal private information that the state had no business learning without a warrant. I'm not sure how many times or in how many ways I can say it.

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.

You hit the nail on the head with that underlined bit. Since the only information that can be gleaned from a plain view search is information that is not covered by a legitimate interest in privacy, the 'plain view' search is not prohibited by the 4th amendment.

That "safety of the police officers" portion is a bit irrelevant, don't you think?
(Hope that doesn't sound as callous to you as it does in my head... If a cop who pulls you over sees a joint on the passenger's seat, he can arrest you for posession, right? Even though the joint doesn't threaten the officer's safety. And... that joint can and should be be used as evidence against you... even though the officer's safety wasn't an issue. I assume you agree. Plus... a cop can't search your trunk even though a bomb back there could threaten his safety. So... really... the safety issue is irrelevant.)
'Plain view' is an exception to the 4th amendment only because it's outside the realm of a legitimate interest in privacy.

Likewise, the only information that a dog sniff can relate is whether or not illegal contraband is present. Since the desire to keep secret the posession of said contraband is not a legitimate privacy interest, this is another exception to the 4th amendment.

[Dead Corpse]

Google is your friend. Yes. People have been sentanced to 15 years, and in some cases more, for simple possession.

[TigersEye]

I see. And I'm sure that's what brought on this case? The man has a little blow on his bling?

Apparently the context of my comment is as lost on you as the point.

[Dead Corpse]

So all searches are in fact searches, except when they say the Constitution doesn't apply because they happen to like those kind of searches? And this doesn't strike you as a particularly looney assertion?

No. I had it from the start. I was more interested in why you are defending their crappy parsing of plain English. Are you a fan of penumbra's and emanations as well?

[MisterKnowItAll]

'All searches by the government are subject to the Fourth Amendment.'

Nope -- only those that invade a Constitutionally protected zone of privacy. According to the SCOTUS, this one didn't.

Whether dogs are infallible is another question, and a good one -- but what it has to do with is whether the search violates a reasonable expectation of privacy.

If you want to make an argument here, I'd suggest the following: since drug-sniffing dogs aren't infallible, their sniffing _could_ (_contra_ the majority opinion) reveal genuinely private information, and therefore _might_ be subject to the Fourth Amendment after all, and therefore _might_ be unconstitutional (because unreasonable) under the circumstances of this case.

You'll find that the dissent got there ahead of you, but that won't make you wrong. And I might even agree with you.

[Dead Corpse]

Once again, legal precedent and word parsing trumps the very document that gives it power. If it IS a search, then the Fourth DOES apply. There can be no other calculus.