Drug-sniffing dog loses in court
By 5-4, an odd mix of justices ruled a Florida search that started without a warrant was unconstitutional.
WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court, in an usual alignment of justices, ruled Tuesday that police cannot take drug-sniffing police dogs onto a suspect's property to look for evidence without first getting a warrant for a search.
The court split 5-4 on the decision to uphold the Florida Supreme Court's ruling throwing out evidence seized in the search of Joelis Jardines' Miami-area house. That search was based on an alert by Franky the drug dog from outside the closed front door.
Justice Antonin Scalia said in Florida v. Jardines that people have a Fourth Amendment right to be free from the government's gaze inside their home and in the area surrounding it.
"The police cannot, without a warrant based on probable cause, hang around on the lawn or in the side garden, trawling for evidence and perhaps peering into the windows of the home," Justice Antonin Scalia said for the majority.
He was joined in his opinion by Justices Clarence Thomas, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan.
Dissenting were Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Stephen G. Breyer, Anthony M. Kennedy, and Samuel A. Alito Jr.
It's not trespassing when a mail carrier comes on a porch for a brief period, Alito countered. And that includes "police officers who wish to gather evidence against an occupant," he wrote.
Thousands of dogs are used by governmental organizations around the United States, but the difference in this case, the high court said, is that Franky was used at a home.
On the morning of Dec. 5, 2006, Miami-Dade police detectives and U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agents set up surveillance outside a house south of the city after getting an anonymous tip that it might contain a marijuana-growing operation. Detective Douglas Bartelt arrived with Franky and the two went up to the house, where Franky quickly detected the odor of marijuana at the base of the front door and sat down as he was trained to do.
That sniff was used to get a search warrant from a judge. The house was searched and its lone occupant, Jardines, was arrested trying to escape out the back door. Officers pulled 179 live marijuana plants from the house, with an estimated street value of more than $700,000.
Jardines was charged with marijuana trafficking and grand theft for stealing electricity needed to run the highly sophisticated operation. He pleaded not guilty and his attorney challenged the search.
The trial judge agreed and threw out the seized evidence, but that was reversed by an intermediate appeals court. Last April, a divided Florida Supreme Court sided with the original judge.