The Blatant Intrusion of Drug-Sniffing Dogs May Be Coming to an End

[eridani]

http://www.alternet.org/drugs/blatant-intrusion-drug-sniffing-dogs-may-be-coming-end

ast year, in one of the Roberts court's rare decisions not siding with law enforcement, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that police could not detain people pulled over for traffic violations in order to await the arrival of a drug-sniffing police dog. Once the traffic violation was dealt with, motorists were free to go.

"Absent reasonable suspicion, police extension of a traffic stop in order to conduct a dog sniff violates the Constitution’s shield against unreasonable seizures," Justice Ruth Ginsberg wrote for the court's 6-3 majority in Rodriguez v. United States.

That case was a necessary antidote for police practices that evolved after the Supreme Court's decision in Illinois v. Caballes a decade earlier. In that case, the high court held the use of drug dogs during a traffic stop did not violate the Fourth Amendment proscription against unwarranted search and seizure because, in the court's rather involved reasoning, people carrying drugs have no expectation of privacy. Unlike the use of infrared cameras to peer inside homes, which the court disallowed in an earlier case, the use of drug dogs would only reveal drugs, not other intimate details of one's life, so that was okay.

What came after Caballes were repeated reports of people being stopped for alleged traffic infractions on the highway, then forced to wait on the side of the road in a sort of legal limbo ("Am I under arrest?" "No." "Am I free to go?" "No.&quot for the arrival of a dog to conduct a search of their vehicles. Then, when the drug dog would alert to the presence of drugs, police had probable cause to search the vehicle, find the drugs, and arrest and charge the driver....

[Human101948]

1. I thought the Fourth Amendment was not in effect after 9/11?

Amazing that the right wingers enforced it this time.

[Chakab]

2. Good. The dog thing is bullshit anyway. Handlers can trigger the dogs into giving responses, which

give the cops grounds for more extensive searches or even detention.

It's a giant scam that some law enforcement agencies run in a "drug corridors" where they pull over as many people as possible under the guise of suspicion over drug smuggling so that they can look for pretty much any revenue-generating offense to cite the occupants of the car with.

[Baitball Blogger]

6. Based on how far our police force has strayed, I'm really surprised

they don't just walk the streets and allow their dogs to "stray" on private property to see what they sniff out. If they get a reaction from the dog, it could turn into probable cause. And their defense for allowing the dog to go up to your door step? Just claim it was prospecting on religious grounds.

[Chakab]

7. They don't even need dogs to do that. They've been using the "I smelled weed" excuse justify street

searches and illegal entries into homes for decades.

[blackspade]

3. That is good news.

Any decision that checks police power is a good thing.

[Taitertots]

4. Dogs have a hit accuracy that is similar to just guessing

It's the dirty little secret of the police state. It's just an excuse to search someone's vehicle that they already want to search but didn't have a legal justification to search it.

[Odin2005]

5. Police dogs are a scam, a device to manufacture false propbable cause.

We are brainwashed early as kids to think that "K9 officers" are awesome and so obey this BS without question.

[hollowdweller]

8. I couldn't agree with you more.

I had one friend that was searched because his car broke down. He claimed that the guy put the dog in his car, the dog signaled and then he was searched, but he could see no sign the dog signaled anything and the dog wasn't near where the weed was.

I had another friend who was searched and let go ever though they were holding the dog didn't signal and the police didn't search.

I know another friend who was busted and still had some on him and the dog was going nuts although the police did not re search him.

I have other examples but I think there was probably federal money to buy these dogs initially and a way more were dumped on the market, poorly trained than people realize. I also think that as mentioned they just use them as an excuse for a warrantless search.

[panader0]

9. Where I live, in Cochise County, Az., I cannot drive north without

going through Border Patrol check stations, some almost 50 miles from the border. There are dogs at
every one, and the handlers bring them up to your vehicle to sniff as you stop to confirm that you are a US citizen.
The dogs are there to smell for drugs, unless the BP has figured out how to teach the dogs to smell what an
illegal entrant smells like. US citizens in places further from the border do not have to go through this.
It has never seemed right to me.