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Subscribe to RSSThe idea that your home is your castle lies at the heart of the Fourth Amendment's protection against unreasonable searches. So what if the police bring a dog to sniff for evidence at the castle door?
Two cases from Florida, to be argued Wednesday, ask the U.S. Supreme Court to decide when the police need a search warrant to use drug-sniffing dogs at a house, and how much legal authority a dog's alert gives police to search a car.
The front-door case comes from Dade County, where police received a Crime Stoppers tip that occupants of a house were growing marijuana. After watching the house for about 15 minutes, police and federal agents sent for Franky, a drug-sniffing dog.
A police handler walked the dog up to the front door, where Franky alerted the officer by sitting down after sniffing at the base of the door. After using that result to get a search warrant, police entered the house and found marijuana plants growing.
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But a judge threw the evidence out, ruling that "the use of a drug detector dog at the defendant's house door constituted an unreasonable and illegal search." In other words, the court said, the police should have gotten their search warrant before they sent for Franky.
The Supreme Court has upheld the authority of police, acting without a warrant, to use dogs at airports for sniffing the outside of luggage suspected of carrying contraband or to sniff the outside of cars at roadside checkpoints.
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But the court has also said that police, without a warrant, could not stand on the street and aim a thermal imaging device at a house to see if marijuana was being grown inside with heat lamps. Such an intrusion, it held, would reveal the private activities of a homeowner, including such intimate details as "at what hour each night the lady of the house takes her daily sauna and bath."
The state of Florida argues that there's no violation of privacy in a dog's sniff at the door because drug dogs alert police only to the presence of illegal substances, something in which a homeowner has no privacy interest.
But the state's supreme court rejected that argument, finding that the Fourth Amendment's protections are at their highest at a house. It found the dog sniff to be "a substantial government intrusion into the sanctity of the home."
The National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers urges the Supreme Court to affirm that ruling. "Allowing suspicionless dog sniffs of houses would permit indiscriminate sweeps of residential neighborhoods, a practice that some law enforcement officials have already begun to employ," the group says in a legal brief filed in the case.
In the second case, a Seminole County deputy sheriff pulled over a pickup truck because it had an expired license. When he noticed that the driver was shaking and breathing rapidly, exhibiting behavior consistent with drug abuse, he asked for permission to search the truck.
The driver said no, so the deputy brought out Aldo, a drug-sniffing dog, from his patrol car to sniff around the truck. Aldo alerted on the driver's door handle. Considering that to be sufficient cause to search the car, the deputy found chemicals commonly used to make methamphetamines. The driver then admitted he bought them for that purpose.
The Florida Supreme Court threw out that evidence, too, concluding that there's no sure way to know exactly what caused the dog to alert. "There is no uniform standard in this state or nationwide for an acceptable level of training, testing, or certification for drug-detection dogs," it said.
The Obama administration is urging the court to rule for the deputy and Aldo. After all, the Justice Department argues, what a policeman sees, hears, and smells can often establish the legal justification for a search without a warrant.
Dogs, the government says, do it better. "An alert by a dog trained to identify certain odors provides an even stronger basis for probable cause to search a location for the odor's source," the Justice Department says in its brief supporting the state.
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You phuqing republicans, STFU and do another 911.
"Democrats are as bad as republicans on the issue of marijuana. Look at the increases in federal raids on medical marijuana dispensaries under Obama.
All it does is improve the breed: as more collectives seek legal counsel, as more municipalities welcome the tax dollars, the tide becomes a torrent.
As long as alcohol remains legal, cannabis will continue its path towards the same legislation.
The genie is NOT going back into the bottle (and he has money).
You private property does not begin at your front door, it begins at your property line.
If a cop brings a dog to your front door he has violated your right to privacy and he, himself, should be arrested on that cause.
If the Supreme Court brushes past this logic then we know our 'rights' mean nothing in this country anymore.
And what do we do about it? Unfortunately nothing because we have all turned into a bunch of cowards afraid to fight for our freedoms anymore.
So are you going to be arresting all the kids that cross your property line to knock on your door tonight to ask for candy?
While you own the yard between your front door and the street, absent an effort to establish privacy (a tall fence with a locked gate, that sort of thing), there is no reasonable expectation of privacy on the path from the sidewalk to the door, and absent a specific anti-trespass order, anyone, cops, trick or treaters, delivery persons, exgirlfriends, whoever, can walk up to your front step and knock on your door without fear of legal repurcussions.
This doesn't mean I think the search by a drug sniffing dog is legally valid. I just think your posturing about the cop on your doorstep is laughable.
Those kids were wearing masks and some even had weapons. You just can't be too safe, I aired 'em all out.
no warrant, go find a butt to sniff doggie!
Unless there is an overriding reason, generally I believe that with no warrant, there should be no search.
In the case of the home, the officer had no legitimate right to go to the front door with or without a drug sniffing dog. There was also no immediate need to search the home. The police should have obtained a search warrant first, based on evidence and observations obtained legally off the property.
In the case of the automobile, the officer made a legitimate traffic stop. The officer, during that stop, observed signs of possible drug use. To me, that is a different situation and I do think it is reasonable to use a drug sniffing dog to help confirm the officer's observations.
I disagree with you.
There is no reason to take a drug dog to the vehicle during a routine traffic stop. That presupposes that the operator of the vehicle is guilty of drug violations just because he has a broken tail light or because he failed to give a turn signal.
Traffic violations are used more often than any other to ring up revenues during lean times in cities and counties.
Vehicles are subject to being in all types of areas where the driver doesn't know what the tires are rolling through. Having a drug dog "hit" on the scent coming off the vehicle and subjecting the driver to the legal process of being detained and searched just because of a broken tail light is going too far.
And what if the guy had a medical condition that impaired him in the way that the officer mistook for being stoned or drunk? There are alot of medical conditions that can make your hands shake, figgity or even appear to be something it's not. If you pull someone over for a traffic violation and there is stuff openly displayed in the vehicle, that is probable cause. Not just The guy looked or was acting suspiciously.
If it was something the human officer observed, that's fine.
But a K-9 officer, trained to do nothing but detect drugs, presupposes guilt of a crime not in evidence when the officer approaches the vehicle, or the door of the residence.
That dog profiled me.
Note to the Obama administration, the Justice Department, the Supreme Court, and local Police Departments: A drug sniffing dog is an ANIMAL, not a POLICE OFFICER
I am in the military and was visiting a friend in Brooklyn while on leave and I was stopped by 2 cops walking down the street. I was told to put my hands up and told I was going to be searched. When I told them no, they started cussing at me and told me I was resisting a lawful order from a police officer and that I would go to jail if i didnt comply. I refused and was taken into custody and put in a holding cell for 8 hours without being charged with anything. When i was fianlly released, I was told by the retards at the station "Dont F*%k with the cops or next time it wont end so nice". I filed a complaint with the DA's office and was told that it was standard prceedure for police in NY to be able to stop and search people at will if they "Looked suspicous". I say this because this is where this country is headed. We are rapidly losing our rights. That being said, drug dogs can and are taught to sit at the handlers command. So, what is stopping one of these guys from making the dog sit next to your car and call that probable cause. I know it scares the hell out of me.
Florida is a country within a country, like the Vatican within Italy. Florida allows the killing of black population without reason, hate is a good enough reason to kill a black in the south. The police use every method available to put blacks in prisons, I am sure the police will not invade the doors of the politicians smoking marijuana, but will increase the number of dog to sniff at the doors of the blacks and Hispanic. Florida is one of the most racist states in the union. And as long as we have republican supreme court they will be able to get any law approved, the republicans party is always awarded for rulings that favor the republicans, such as, corporation are people what next the pets of republicans are also to be considered people and their master will be allowed to vote for them. Why not allow the republican party swat police departments to enter the homes of any one they feel like at any time without question. If the republican party swat team finds a democratic living in the home they will be allow to kill each one and be given a bonus for each kill. Why stop with marijuana, we can expand this law to include any thing the republicans want to look for.
Yep, and there is no black cops in florida either huh? Or even black on black crime? All the deaths of black people can be contributed to hate crimes right? IDIOT.
What if the dog is black? eg: black lab?
Gee, Gary, here's a clue...if you're black (or white, or any other skin tone), do not break the law (even if you don't like said law), and you won't usually get locked up. Pretty simple. If you break the law, you run the risk of getting arrested. You don't get a pass on this, regardless of your color. But I'm not in favor of this dog business. Without probable cause, they should not be used.
BTW, someone said the dog is not a police officer. I believe the law says they are equivelant, kill or inujure one, same penalty.
Well I'm in favor of dogs. If the dog locates drugs, give the dog his earned treat. It's the court and the jury who will decide the innocence of the party involved with the property where the drugs were located. I have a question, What is the difference between legal residence and property? If this scenario occurs in an apartment complex, which happens to be the residence of the accused, but the property of the landlord who has obligations to the other residents of the property, where is the "property line" drawn? At the wall that separates the adjoining neighbors, the lines which separate their assigned parking places, or what? What line is the dog required to walk, or not walk, because that is the determination for the handler to make, not the dog? What if the resident parks in the wrong parking spot? Is that an issue for the police and courts with the resident, or an issue with the resident and landlord? If the bank holds the paper ( mortgage ) on the property, making the bank the actual property owner, where does the landlord stand? Where does the renter of this property stand? If the police can come to a property to give an eviction notice, doesn't this act alone not make that individual " 'other than' property owner", but instead the landlord or the bank the true property owner? Lots of questions to answer before dogs start getting kicked around.
By your argument of "it's the court and jury who will decide..." they wouldn't even need dogs. The cops can come in whenever they want, look around, and it's up to the courts. Wrong. Did you know that Portland, Oregon, one of the most liberal places in the country, says that cops can go to your door, check it to see if it is unlocked, and walk right in if it isn't locked? No warrant, no probable cause. They feel that if a person wants privacy they would lock the door. Does that make sense to anyone but the most die-hard 1984 liberal? The more rights you allow to be taken, the fewer rights we all have.
I think there would be a "gun cleaning accident" happen if that were my house.
PCwhat?... It's always the jury which decides guilt or innocence, not the cops. The judge interprets the law, which is what the Supreme Court is to do in this case. The jury determines guilt or innocence. The lawyers present, or make the attempt to have evidence in the case sequestered, and there is presumption of innocence until proven guilty. The interpretation of the Law, and the administration of Justice you will find in your history studies are two different concepts, Oliver Wendall Holmes making a famous quote on the matter.
The Constitution allows for the appointment of officers, and administrators of the State(s), and that allows the police to be in the first place. It allows for the courts to exist. It allows for the people to elect their representatives which make the laws, the police enforce, the courts interpret, and which individuals are found guilty in violation of. Dogs, are not granted rights, nor are other animals such as horses which may be employed in law enforcement. Therefore it is the law enforcement officer who is the animal handler, and the individual with the criminal complaint against them who are "interpreted" by the court. It's not the dog, or the horse, or the canary in the mine shaft.
Steve-
You are sort of missing the point of the courts. The judge is also responsible for determining the evidence used to determine guilt or innocence is admissable under our standards. It means looking at the means the police used to gather the evidence, and whether it properly respected constitutional limitations. And once the court has proclaimed a method acceptable, it propagates through law enforcement. Dogs are in common use because prior courts have made rulings that a dog alerting constituted probable cause.
One of the arguments against dogs, not raised in this article, is that in some studies some dogs have had false positives as high as 60%. That's a lot of people being subjected to odious police searches where no crime was committed. A separate article about the car search case mentioned above included the fact that nothing found in the car were actually things the dog was trained to sniff for. He ingredients, like cough syrup, for making meth, but no actual meth, and the dog was not trained to alert for cough syrup. But for the dog alerting, incorrectly as the evidence shows, there would have been no probable cause, no finding of cough syrup, and no admission of intent to use the cough syrup to make meth.
The courts have already ruled that cop can't search your car because he has "gut feeling" you're dirty. So why is a dog that's right less than half the time a better probable cause than a cop's gut feeling?
Justross... I am not in disagreement. The courts determine all sorts of things, especially about the evidence. The dog is the dog, and some dogs are better than others, like baseball players or musicians. It is up to the courts to find if the evidence is valid evidence. The evidence is gathered by the dog handler, even though the dog was instrumental in the evidence gathering. A dog might find a victim covered by snow in an avalanche, but is hardly accountable for flying the victim in the rescue helicopter, or treating the victim's hypothermia. In the case of the drug sniffing dog, it's up to the court to determine who's drugs were found, and if they were located in a legal search. It is the courts responsibility to evaluate the legality of the evidence presented against the accused, whether or not the evidence was acquired with a dog. Obviously there are many who post to these pages who've never owned a dog, and don't differentiate the difference between a working dog and a pet, or the different types of working dogs, and their capabilities and limitations. A bloodhound for instance, and excellent scent tracking dog, is for practical reasons a blind dog. That's the reason for all that skin covering its face, to cover its eyes, when it's nose is too the ground. Rin Tin Tin on the other hand, a guard dog breed is supposed to see. None of these animals are the graduates of Harvard Law School, and there is no need for them to be. Harvard Law School is to train lawyers and judges in the rules and limitations of evidence, and it's gathering.
When the cops stop you, they stop you because you are suspect. It is up to the courts to determine with their rules of evidence and their juries if you are guilty or innocent. It's not about your feelings or the cops feelings.
The Supreme Court will allow the search to stand. Not because it's constitutional, not that the constitution means anything. But because it enhances the power of government over the people. Bank on it, Federal courts exist to facilitate the agenda, not to protect the people. As for the constitution, it either authorized the totalitarian regime or was powerless to stop it. Either way, it has no value.
I beleive it is well within my rights to outright kill any menacing animal on the spot.
this includes dogs of all stripes. THey CAN kill people. This has been proven.
what's more, they're not very even-tempered: they're ANIMALS.
GET IT LAW ENFORCEMENT ?
IF I think it's menacing, it's going to die.\
not the other way around.
Actually no, while I want to defend your stance, police dogs are officers they're not just some dog off the street, you kill a police dog it's no different than shooting a human police officer.
Hahahahahahahahahah...
And you right after it. Believe whatever you want. But in most places, attacks on police animals is same as on police officers, which means it will be responded to as same. Meaning you get a toetag.
no loss there..
It's not an officer if I'm on the jury.
Of course it's the lib administration fighting this. The supposed party of freedom is giving us nothing more than an ever-increasing police state. Drugs tend to allow people to think for themselves and question what they are told. The libs are absolutely dependent on same-thought. Do not deviate from the official word, do not question what you are told. And if that doesn't work, give them your money.
What are libs? In fact what are you? Politicians write laws. They make laws the tea baggers make laws to make themselves and their big companies more money. What part of law writing do you benifit from. Most laws written are for either to put more people in jail , more money for the prisons and their stock holders. Or to deviate from the truth and allow the companies that benifit to do more of what they do best. Make money at our expense.
What can anyone expect from a cop who's only required a GED or HS and six months training in the academy? They have no respect for law abiding citizens and apparently not even your own property. Enough is enough. Judicial system reform is necessary. Fired all these PIGS and lets start fresh.
Not without a warrant or probable cause. If smelling the door is from the street well than that would be okay. But no you cannot go door to door sniffing. Sorry
Police dogs can sniff anywhere they please.........however, if their sniff will land a citizen in court; fighting a case then that is a different story.............they should have probable cause and a search warrant signed by the judge to sniff!! However, why fight the small stuff..........."We the people" need to understand what the House, Senate along with President Barack Hussein Obama and George W. Bush did to our Constitution when they passed and signed the "National Defense Authorization Act" and the "Patriot Act!!" Now these two are a problem........because the national guard and the military can arrest civilians and law enforcement agents, on just a word that they are foreign or domestic terrorist with or without proof and held without trial or attorney!! Just my thoughts!!
Anyone who thinks this is wrong should not be voting for a Democrat next Tuesday. they want to take as many rights away from us as possible. The Article states that the Obama Admin support this illegal activity.
The cops could have spent a little more time on the stakeout and came up with something. Or for the driver a DUI test and he would have been arrested and car impounded. Just dont take shortcuts.
I'm in the clear, and so is my conscience. I voted early, and I voted for Gary Johnson.
Which makes two, probably.
j70141- I can tell you that pot is not chemically addictive. People can still technically get addicted to pot, but only in the same way they can be addicted to gambling. I've personally quit smoking pot many times to pass drug tests for employers. I've never failed one. I also smoke cigarettes, and while I have quit pot for months at a time for a job and had no problem, I've struggled to quit cigarettes. And another thing, if you've seen first hand people smoke pot and drop out of school, I believe you. But people drop out of school all the time, and drugs aren't always involved. Furthermore, studies have shown that there is no evidence that long term pot use has any permanent effects on the brain. Or cancer for that matter. While it's true that there are carcinogens found in pot, there is no evidence of anyone who has developed cancer from it. Think about it this way, when was the last time that you heard of a guy having one too many "joints" and beating his wife and kids? Never. Can you recall a single death from a pot overdose? Nope. The point of it all being that, so long as you as an American are allowed to consume an addictive drug like tobacco, and wash it down with a drink that if abused will destroy your liver, or kill you from alcohol poisoning, I should be given the same right to use marijuana without persecution.
I can tell you I just don't agree with you. I've seen too many young people go through the same antsy phase of "got to have it" that addicted tobacco smokers do.
If people can have adverse reactions to the effect of pot other than the spaced out mellow feeling normally associated with it, then no one can positively state what the effects of it are on everyone.
The term "psychologically-addictive" was invented precisely because of the failure to find that pot is physically-addictive. Completely harmless? Perhaps not, but the fact that we are arguing over such a point despite a long-term, strenuous, politically-motivated effort to prove its harmfulness, suggests that we should probably just let it be.
Did the dog get a search warrant? And, if so, how did the dog know he needed a search warrant!
ie, NO MORE CASTLE!!!!!
I've always found drug-sniffing dogs to be a perversion of what dogs are all about. To use "man's best friend" against.... man.... somehow just seems wrong. No, I might not make the same argument about sniffing for bomb materials. But drugs? It just ain't right An innocent dog used to nail someone on a mj rap? No.
I wonder what the dogs think about all this drama.
If gas were illegal and they used a gas detector to find it and they could by proximity claim they have enough proof to search for illegal gas. But they need to be at particular distance to get a true reading. Hence a search warrant. Probable cause might be initiated by other circumstances hence never break two laws at once.
Nobody would care if the guy was making bathtub gin.
But they would if this was 1928.
Nobody would care if the guy had puppets in his house.
But they would if this was 1690.
These laws were changed, to prove that humanity can evolve.
I don't see what the big deal is. If you don't want to get arrested, don't commit crimes. Police shouldn't be able to enter your house unless they have a warrant or they have cause to think a crime may be in the process of being committed inside. However, if whatever crime you're committing is so obvious that it can be detected outside of your house, by dogs or whatever, then I don't see a problem with the police enforcing the law.
If you need privacy from the state then you should have it. Privacy is more than what laws can be broken. Unwarranted searches are illegal. Even if you don't see a problem with it. But your point is that know one should break the law. It is against the law in some places to speak freely without regret. It is not all laws that should be followed or be enforced by means overreaching.
Don't forget that dogs have rights too, If they want to sniff a little weed, they should be able to. They know nothing about warrants or what's legal and what's not legal. I just wish I had the smell sensitivity that a dog has , I would probably enjoy my Pot much more. I know some dogs that are a lot smarter than some judges I have heard about.
Show me a Police Dog that can talk to me or an officer and say what it is that made him hit on my door. I may have an answer that would not waste any more of my time or theirs. That is only one silly thing to make you think about the problems associated with a practice of doing this.
None of us would feel free from illegal searches in our society granted to us under our Constitution and open the door to abuses.
I watched the News Hour presentation about this case. It was interesting to know that there are no certification precesses that shows that the dog has been properly trained. They sited a case where a police department was using a drug sniffing dog that only had a 12% accuracy rate when tested. A flip of a coin is four times more accurate than that.