Supremes to Consider Warrants for Drug-Sniffing Dogs

Supremes to Consider Warrants for Drug-Sniffing Dogs

Associated Press

The Supreme Court on Friday added another intriguing case to its action-packed docket, agreeing to decide whether police can use drug-sniffing dogs at the front door of a private residence without a warrant.

At issue is a Florida case in which the police received an unverified “crime stoppers” tip that resident Joelis Jardines was growing marijuana in his home.

A month later, police conducted surveillance on the residence and brought Franky, the drug-sniffing dog (pictured), to the front door, where the canine smelled contraband.

A detective then went to obtain a search warrant for the house, based largely on Franky’s alert. With warrant in hand, police later entered the house, found “numerous” marijuana plants and arrested Jardines.

A divided Florida Supreme Court ruled the warrantless use of the dog was an “unreasonable government intrusion into the sanctity of the home” and thus a violation of the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition on unreasonable searches and seizures.

The state of Florida petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the case, saying the state court ruling would strip the police of the ability to use dogs to detect marijuana growing houses, meth labs and even bomb factories. It is the dog’s alert that often establishes the probable cause to then obtain a search warrant, the state said.

As the justices weigh the case, they’ll have to reconcile high-court precedent that points in different directions. In past cases, the court hasn’t found fault with the use of dog-sniffs on automobiles or luggage seized at the airport. But those cases did not involve a private home, where Fourth Amendment protections arguably have their most force.

The court emphasized the sanctity of the home in the 2001 case Kyllo v. United States, ruling that officers engaged in an unlawful search by aiming a thermal imagine device at a private residence to detect whether marijuana was being grown inside with high-intensity lamps.

“At the very core of the Fourth Amendment stands the right of a man to retreat into his own home and there be free from unreasonable governmental intrusion,” Justice Antonin Scalia wrote in the court’s opinion. The current case, Florida v. Jardines, is expected to be argued in April, with a decision by the end of June.

Supremes to Consider Warrants for Drug-Sniffing Dogs
Brent Kendall
Fri, 06 Jan 2012 21:02:07 GMT