Supreme Court Rules Extending Traffic Stop for Dog Sniff Unconstitutional [pdf]

Demoralizing that 3 judges ignore obvious Constitutional rights, yes, but at least hopeful that twice that many disagree with them, and may apply the same reasoning to other equally obvious Constitutional rights.

The right to own & carry weapons, explicitly enumerated in the Constitution and held as a clear right by the Supreme Court, may benefit from this ruling (to the surprise & dismay of some). Laws delaying (often for days or months) purchase of weapons, or of obtaining licenses to own or carry (themselves subject to debate for other reasons), may be challenged in court with the same reasoning as "briefly" holding someone without cause, regarding anything more than a 5-minute background check for adjudicated felonies or mental illness. From this ruling, we might actually get to one that acknowledges "shall not be infringed" means what it says.

I feel similarly about potential AG Loretta Lynch: she has no problem with civil asset forfeiture. To me that's even more unconstitutional to being held temporarily because it deprives a person of property potentially permenantly desire that person never having been convicted (or sometimes even having never been charged) with a crime.

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/238905-rand...

I disagree. That's not the problem. The issue here is not the detention, it's the dog sniff. Why didn't the cop just ask in the beginning if he minded if he did the dog sniff? Why can't a cop just call in the dog squad while he lingers going through the paperwork of a regular traffic stop? That's what is going to happen here. He's not detaining, he's just finishing up the traffic stop.

what's demoralizing here is the war on drugs is getting us nowhere except rampant crime, huge homicide rates, and over crowded prisons full of minorities.

Read the opinion carefully, it explicitly says that the order of events is not justification enough. You are right in saying that this doesn't prohibit dog sniffs in all traffic stops. Period. However, you are wrong that stating that a dog sniff can be justified by simple ordering, see page 8:

>>The critical question, then, is not whether the dog sniff occurs before or after the officer issues a ticket, as JUSTICE ALITO supposes, post, at 2–4, but whether conducting the sniff “prolongs”—i.e., adds time to—“the stop,” supra, at 6.

and page 7:

>>a dog sniff, unlike the routine measures just mentioned, is not an ordinary incident of a traffic stop

SCOTUS is in fact saying that a dog sniff must be supported by what they call "individualized suspicion".

Arguably, Jay-Z's point was that when he had 99 problems, the K-9 was not one! There's a good discussion of this in Mason's wonderful dissection of 99 Problems [1]. It's on PDF page 16, or section M. (I was actually kind of surprised at this ruling, because I thought this was pretty well settled law.)

[1] http://www.slu.edu/Documents/law/Law%20Journal/Archives/LJ56...

The thing is, most cops aren't driving around with dogs. The way I read this ruling, in the absence of probable cause, the only way for a dog sniff to legally occur is if you are pulled over by a car that happens to have 2 officers and a dog in the car. One begins the ticket writing process, while the other simultaneously runs the dog around the car. This would cause no delay in the stop, and thus wouldn't violate this ruling.

So Jay-Z only has 99 problems when he is pulled over by a K-9 patrol car with 2 cops in it. K-9 patrols are almost always clearly marked, so the moral is...drive carefully when you encounter one.

And that's a problem. Because trained drug dogs are trivially (even unconsciously) manipulated into falsifying probable cause using cues, where they are even trained in genuine detection in the first place. A complete lack of negative controls in "training" is apparently not uncommon - in which case they're not even really trying to hold up the pretense that accurate detection is the goal.

https://www.animallaw.info/article/cueing-and-probable-cause...

The actual line is

    Well we'll see how smart you are when the K9 come

Which implies the dog is not currently with the officer and he is going to detain Jay-Z until the dog gets there. So this would actually cut the number of problems Jay-Z has down to 98.

"This ruling may be a bit of a moot point, except in cases where officers don't follow the proscribed sequence of events."

The ruling explicitly disallows even a de minimus stop, for however brief the period, and not as a matter of timeliness, but as a matter of lacking cause.

Now, if a cop wants to sniff your car with a dog, they're going to have to fabricate a reason of their very own, y'know, like "I thought I smelled marijuana" or "the subject's eyes suggested intoxication".

Realistically a police officer in the US does not have to worry about such "illegal threats". Manipulating people into letting them fish for evidence is a pretty standard part of the job. Most likely a judge isn't going to throw out a search except when there is an egregious error on LE's part.

E.g. if the suspect clearly stated "I do not consent to any searches. Am I being detained? If I am not being detained then I want to leave" and an officer proceeded to search anyway or detained the person, it would probably get thrown out, assuming there was video/audio evidence. If not, it's the cop's word against the defendant's (I'll let you guess whose the judge will believe).

But if the cop lies and says you have to wait for a K9 unit, and you believe him without asking if you're being detained, anything that dog finds is likely going to be fair game just as if you were bullied into consenting to a search (a friend of mine once refused consent to a vehicle search and was then told by the officer that such a refusal constituted probable cause, so he relented out of fear).

Keep in mind that this is all without probable cause. If they have probable cause, they can detain you and make you wait for a dog. With the Rodriguez case specifically, there was "erratic driving" which is likely enough cause for most judges.

I suspect you'd need to call their bluff and then try to get whatever the K9 find thrown out (assuming they had to delay you to let them arrive)

No, however if this happens to you, you should immediately ask if you are being detained and if you are free to go. You should be permitted to leave before any K9 arrives.

"To my mind the admissibility of evidence found during a search should have been limited to the original purpose; while it would not be entirely unreasonable to confiscate contraband found during a search, but it's not reasonable to prosecute the guy on that basis. "

Sorry, but if a person who owned the place consented, the end result is always admissible. Period. If they didn't consent, it would be different.

I can't see why you think this reasoning would ever apply here.

There are some important differences between the case that you cite and this case.

Specifically, in this case the officer said that he had no reasonable suspicion that another crime occurred, and the dog sniffing was not part of the exception for "officer safety".

In the case you cited, the officers had an objective "reasonable suspicion" that a crime occurred (though obviously the accused in the case suggested it was not objectively reasonable, the court disagreed). Then during an investigation of the house, both for evidence of the crime in question, and to check the area for officer safety, the marijuana was found.

If evidence of a crime if found while investigating a different crime (where the reasonable suspicion is met) or where it falls under the exception for "officer safety", then it's fair game.

This decision doesn't change that standard, or even touch it since reasonable suspicion, and officer safety were not relevant to this case, and were relevant to the cited case.

So on the surface, they may appear similar, but hit different points of the law. On the flip side, had evidence of the meth been visible in this case, or the officer had any other reasonable suspicion of a crime, then this case would have likely been decided differently.

Sure they do. They just need to find probable cause to have the dog sniff around. No problem there.

The driver appeared nervous. The officer smelled marijuana. The driver was a minority (er... scratch that one). But you get the point.

>> this procedure accounts for an incredible amount of drug arrests. Good on ya, SCOTUS

So are you saying you don't think people should be arrested for drugs? How is it good that it is now harder to arrest for possession?

I'm worried that it will.

Yep. Expect two officers from now on, one to have the dog sniff while the other deals with the traffic citation.

The issue at hand isn't drug legality, it's delayed exercise of rights. There are other enumerated & implied rights which are equally trampled on by undue delays: right to assembly & free speech, delayed by requiring slowly-approved public assembly permits; right to keep & bear arms, delayed by long background checks & permit/license approvals (days or months when such information could be processed in seconds); right to speedy trial, often delayed for years; etc.

I agree the entire argument is a farce. Only antibiotics should be regulated.

Allowing a dog sniff to be reasonable suspicion is what is strange. But unfortunately it is. If you are stopped, such that the police dog can sniff your car, then they can sniff your car. But the cops can't stop you just to let the dog sniff, without more suspicion. Since the car is stopped for a traffic stop, it gives a chance for the dog to go work. Put it another way, the cop is standing on the side of a road near a traffic light. If the car is stopped at the light, the dog can sniff away. But the cop can't stop you, or hold you longer than the light.

Seems obvious to me that it would make the situation much more tense, and thus more likely for something unsafe to happen.

Even people who dont have drugs arent going to be comfortable being treated in that manner, and people are already on edge when they get pulled over.