23536
Bluelight Crew
TALLAHASSEE -- Was a dog sniffing at the front door of a suspected drug house a case of "good boy, Franky, good boy," or was he violating the Fourth Amendment rights of the people who lived there? That question may be headed to the U.S. Supreme Court in a Florida case.
The state is asking the nation’s high court to consider overturning a decision by the Florida Supreme Court, asking whether a sniff at the front door of the house by a trained narcotics detection dog is itself a search that requires probable cause.
The case involves a search of a Miami house where police had been tipped that someone was growing marijuana. After surveillance of the house turned up nothing, a detective went up onto the porch with Franky the drug sniffing dog. Franky gave the alert signal that he’d been trained to give when smelling drugs, and at that point the police left the porch. Another detective — aware that the dog had smelled drugs — then went to the door to knock on it and, while there was no answer, he said he also smelled marijuana.
The detective then left and went to get a warrant to search the house. The information he gave to the judge noted Franky’s alert at the house. The magistrate issued the warrant, police returned and found a lot of marijuana and arrested the resident, Joelis Jardines, as he tried to flee.
Jardines argued that Franky’s first sniff on the porch itself was a "search," a determination that was made in a 2004 case by a federal appeals court, which had said that when the place involved in a search was someone’s private home "a firm line remains at its entrance blocking the noses of dogs from sniffing government’s way into the intimate details of an individual’s life."
A trial court agreed and threw out evidence obtained at the house in a felony case against Jardines. But the Third District Court of Appeal in Miami disagreed, finding that a mere sniff by a dog of someone’s front door doesn’t equal a search of the premises and no warrant is needed for the dog to go up on the porch and sniff around.
Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/11/21/2513496/are-there-limits-to-drug-sniffing.html#ixzz1eS5TxE7I
The state is asking the nation’s high court to consider overturning a decision by the Florida Supreme Court, asking whether a sniff at the front door of the house by a trained narcotics detection dog is itself a search that requires probable cause.
The case involves a search of a Miami house where police had been tipped that someone was growing marijuana. After surveillance of the house turned up nothing, a detective went up onto the porch with Franky the drug sniffing dog. Franky gave the alert signal that he’d been trained to give when smelling drugs, and at that point the police left the porch. Another detective — aware that the dog had smelled drugs — then went to the door to knock on it and, while there was no answer, he said he also smelled marijuana.
The detective then left and went to get a warrant to search the house. The information he gave to the judge noted Franky’s alert at the house. The magistrate issued the warrant, police returned and found a lot of marijuana and arrested the resident, Joelis Jardines, as he tried to flee.
Jardines argued that Franky’s first sniff on the porch itself was a "search," a determination that was made in a 2004 case by a federal appeals court, which had said that when the place involved in a search was someone’s private home "a firm line remains at its entrance blocking the noses of dogs from sniffing government’s way into the intimate details of an individual’s life."
A trial court agreed and threw out evidence obtained at the house in a felony case against Jardines. But the Third District Court of Appeal in Miami disagreed, finding that a mere sniff by a dog of someone’s front door doesn’t equal a search of the premises and no warrant is needed for the dog to go up on the porch and sniff around.
Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/11/21/2513496/are-there-limits-to-drug-sniffing.html#ixzz1eS5TxE7I
