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Parties Involved:
United States of America
Appellee
Lonnie Whitaker
Appellant

Document Text:

In the

United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit ____________________

Nos. 14-3290 and 14-3506

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Plaintiff-Appellee,

v.

LONNIE WHITAKER,

Defendant-Appellant.

____________________

Appeals from the United States District Court for the

Western District of Wisconsin.

Nos. 14-cr-00017, 07-cr-00123 — Barbara B. Crabb, Judge.

____________________

ARGUED APRIL 20, 2015 — DECIDED APRIL 12, 2016

____________________

Before WOOD, Chief Judge, HAMILTON, Circuit Judge, and 

DARRAH, District Judge.∗

DARRAH, District Judge. Acting on information that drugs 

were being sold from a certain apartment in Madison, Wisconsin, law enforcement obtained the permission of the 

apartment property manager and brought a narcotics-

 ∗Hon. John W. Darrah of the Northern District of Illinois, sitting by 

designation.

Case: 14-3290 Document: 32 Filed: 04/12/2016 Pages: 10
2 Nos. 14-3290 and 14-3506

detecting dog to the locked, shared hallway of the apartment 

building. The dog alerted to the presence of drugs at a nearby apartment door and then went to the targeted apartment 

where Whitaker was residing. After the officers obtained a 

search warrant, Whitaker was arrested and charged with 

drug and firearm crimes based on evidence found in the

apartment. At the time of his arrest, Whitaker was serving a 

term of supervised release in Case No. 07-cr-123, a conviction for being a felon in possession of a firearm, in violation 

of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1). After the district court denied his 

pretrial motions challenging the search and the dog’s reliability, Whitaker entered a conditional guilty plea that preserved his right to appeal the district court’s ruling. 

On appeal, Whitaker raises four issues. First, he argues 

the use of the dog was a search under the Fourth Amendment and Florida v. Jardines, 133 S. Ct. 1409 (2013). Second, 

he contends that the district court should have granted him a 

Franks hearing because there was a material omission in the 

affidavit used to obtain the search warrant. Third, Whitaker 

claims that the dog’s training records should have been 

turned over to him, pursuant to Florida v. Harris, 133 S. Ct. 

1050 (2013). Finally, he argues his term of supervised release 

had expired and he should not have been sentenced after 

revocation. For the reasons discussed below, we reverse the 

district court’s holding regarding the search. The remaining 

issues are therefore moot.

I. BACKGROUND

In October 2013, Dane County Sheriff’s Deputy Joel 

Wagner met with a confidential informant about drug dealing at 6902 Stockbridge Drive, Apartment 204, in Madison, 

Wisconsin. The informant told Wagner that “Javari” lived in 

Case: 14-3290 Document: 32 Filed: 04/12/2016 Pages: 10
Nos. 14-3290 and 14-3506 3

Apartment 204, drove a black Cadillac Escalade and carried

a handgun in his waistband. The informant reported seeing 

Javari and another individual selling drugs in the apartment. 

On October 14, 2013, Wagner met with the property 

manager for 6902 Stockbridge Drive and learned that 

Apartment 204 was leased to Ruthie Whitaker. The property 

manager took Wagner to the underground parking garage, 

where Wagner observed a black Cadillac Escalade in the 

parking stall for Apartment 204. The license plate showed 

that the Escalade was registered to Ruthie Whitaker.

Over a month later, on November 25, 2013, the same informant sent Wagner a text message. The text message indicated that one of the individuals dealing drugs contacted the 

informant and told the informant that the individual was 

back in town and was at the apartment with a lot of “h.” The 

informant knew “h” to mean heroin. On December 4, 2013, 

the property manager signed a consent form, authorizing a 

K9 search of 6902 Stockbridge Drive. On December 17, 2013, 

Wagner received an anonymous complaint concerning drug 

activity at 6902 Stockbridge Drive. The anonymous informant did not specifically mention Apartment 204 but indicated 

that the person who was selling out of 6902 Stockbridge 

Drive drove a black Cadillac Escalade.

On January 7, 2014, Wagner and Deputy Jay O’Neil, with 

his drug-sniffing K9 partner, “Hunter,” went to 6902 Stockbridge Drive. Hunter first alerted on the Escalade parked in 

the space for Apartment 204. Upon a later search of the Escalade, no drugs were found. 

The officers took Hunter to the second floor of the 

apartment building and into its locked hallway, where there 

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4 Nos. 14-3290 and 14-3506

were at least six to eight apartments. According to his police 

report (produced during discovery), O’Neil took Hunter on 

a quick walk through the hallway in order to get used to any 

people or animal smells. During the first pass, Hunter 

showed extreme interest in Apartment 204 but did not alert. 

Hunter then alerted to the presence of drugs at the door of 

nearby Apartment 208. Wagner told O’Neil that it was not 

the targeted apartment. On a secondary sniff, Hunter alerted on Apartment 204.

After obtaining the search warrant, the officers recovered 

cocaine, heroin, and marijuana in Apartment 204. Whitaker 

was the sole occupant at the time the warrant was executed, 

and, in a post-arrest interview, he admitted he lived there. 

He also told officers about a handgun in his apartment and 

consented to the officers’ re-entry to retrieve it. 

On April 11, 2014, Whitaker filed a motion to suppress 

the evidence seized during the search. He also requested a 

Franks hearing and the production of Hunter’s training records. On May 19, 2014, the magistrate judge issued a Report 

and Recommendation, recommending that Whitaker’s motions be denied. On June 16, 2014, the district court adopted 

the Report and Recommendation. On October 9, 2014, 

Whitaker was sentenced to consecutive terms of 12 months’ 

imprisonment on Count 1, possession with intent to distribute heroin and cocaine, and 60 months’ imprisonment on 

Count 3, use of a firearm in furtherance of a drug trafficking 

crime. On November 14, 2014, the district court revoked 

Whitaker’s supervised release in Case No. 07-cr-123 and sentenced him to a term of 18 months’ imprisonment to run 

consecutively with the sentence given for Count 3 and concurrently with the sentence given for Count 1. 

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Nos. 14-3290 and 14-3506 5

II. ANALYSIS

A. The Fourth Amendment and Jardines

When reviewing appeals from denials of motions to suppress, we review legal questions de novo and factual findings 

for clear error. United States v. Breland, 356 F.3d 787, 791 (7th 

Cir. 2004). Whitaker contends that the district court erred in 

holding that he had no expectation of privacy in the apartment building’s common hallway and denying his motion to 

suppress the evidence gathered from his apartment. 

In Florida v. Jardines, 133 S. Ct. 1409, 1417-18 (2013), the 

Supreme Court held that the government’s use of a trained 

police dog to investigate a home and its immediate surroundings was a search under the Fourth Amendment. The 

Court explained that the defendant had an expectation of 

privacy in his porch, which is part of the home’s curtilage 

and “enjoys protection as part of the home itself.” Id. at 

1414. This is because the curtilage “is ‘intimately linked to 

the home, both physically and psychologically,’ and is where 

‘privacy expectations are most heightened.’” Id. at 1415 

(quoting California v. Ciraolo, 476 U.S. 207, 213). The Court 

was clear that its holding was based on the trespass to the 

defendant’s curtilage, not a violation of the defendant’s privacy interests. Id. at 1417-20. Therefore, when the police 

physically intruded onto the defendant’s property to gather 

evidence without a warrant or consent, they had conducted 

a search without a license to do so, in violation of the Fourth 

Amendment. Id. at 1417. 

Whitaker argues that Jardines should be extended to the 

hallway outside his apartment door because the law enforcement took the dog to his door for the purpose of gatherCase: 14-3290 Document: 32 Filed: 04/12/2016 Pages: 10
6 Nos. 14-3290 and 14-3506

ing incriminating forensic evidence. He cites to United States 

v. Herman, 588 F. App’x 493, 494 (7th Cir. 2014), in which we 

specifically left open the question of whether “Jardines applies to apartment hallways (which are open to many persons other than a given tenant's family and invitees), whether consent of another tenant or the landlord would permit a 

dog to enter, and whether, if the use of the dog is a search, 

what is required for that search to be reasonable (reasonable 

suspicion? probable cause? probable cause plus a warrant?).” Although Whitaker recognizes that Jardines was 

premised on trespass to property, he also argues that this use 

of a drug-detection dog violated his privacy interests under 

Kyllo v. United States, 533 U.S. 27 (2001), and Katz v. United 

States, 389 U.S. 347 (1967).

The use of a drug-sniffing dog here clearly invaded reasonable privacy expectations, as explained in Justice Kagan’s 

concurring opinion in Jardines. The police in Jardines could 

reasonably and lawfully walk up to the front door of the 

house in that case to knock on the door and ask to speak to 

the residents. The police were not entitled, however, to bring 

a “super-sensitive instrument” to detect objects and activities 

that they could not perceive without its help. 133 S. Ct. at 

1418. The police could not stand on the front porch and look 

inside with binoculars or put a stethoscope to the door to listen. Similarly, they could not bring the super-sensitive dog to 

detect objects or activities inside the home. As Justice Kagan 

explained, viewed through a privacy lens, Jardines was controlled by Kyllo, which held that police officers conducted a 

search by using a thermal-imaging device to detect heat emanating from within the home, even without trespassing on 

the property. 133 S. Ct. at 1419.

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Nos. 14-3290 and 14-3506 7

Kyllo held that where “the Government uses a device that 

is not in general public use, to explore details of the home 

that would previously have been unknowable without physical intrusion, the surveillance is a ‘search’ and is presumptively unreasonable without a warrant.” 533 U.S. at 40. That 

rule reflects a concern with leaving “the homeowner at the 

mercy of ... technology that could discern all human activity 

in the home.” Id. at 35-36. A dog search conducted from an 

apartment hallway comes within this rule’s ambit. A trained 

drug-sniffing dog is a sophisticated sensing device not available to the general public. The dog here detected something 

(the presence of drugs) that otherwise would have been unknowable without entering the apartment.1

Indeed, the fact that this was a search of a home distinguishes this case from dog sniffs in public places in United 

States v. Place, 462 U.S. 696, 698 (1983) (luggage at airport), 

and Illinois v. Caballes, 543 U.S. 405, 406 (2005) (traffic stop). 

Neither case implicated the Fourth Amendment’s core concern of protecting the privacy of the home. It is true that 

Whitaker did not have a reasonable expectation of complete 

 

1 There is little doubt that a highly trained drug-detecting dog is a 

“super-sensitive instrument” under Kyllo. See Jardines, 133 S. Ct. at 1418-

19 (Kagan, J., concurring). Kyllo described a category of “senseenhancing technology” that is “not available to public use.” 533 U.S. at 

34. A trained dog’s nose is a detection device capable of alerting the 

handler to the presence of odors at almost non-existent levels. Mark E. 

Smith, Going to the Dogs: Evaluating the Proper Standard for Narcotic Detector Dog Searches of Private Residences, 46 Hous. L. Rev. 103, 116-31 (2009). 

Like any technology, it is a tool that must be deployed in a particular 

way by a trained handler to be effective. Id. And like other sophisticated

detection tools, the results and accuracy of dog searches are subject to 

detailed research and analysis. Id.

Case: 14-3290 Document: 32 Filed: 04/12/2016 Pages: 10
8 Nos. 14-3290 and 14-3506

privacy in his apartment hallway. See United States v. Concepcion, 942 F.2d 1170, 1172 (7th Cir. 1991). Whitaker’s lack of a 

reasonable expectation of complete privacy in the hallway 

does not also mean that he had no reasonable expectation of 

privacy against persons in the hallway snooping into his 

apartment using sensitive devices not available to the general public.

Whitaker’s lack of a right to exclude did not mean he had 

no right to expect certain norms of behavior in his apartment 

hallway. Yes, other residents and their guests (and even their 

dogs) can pass through the hallway. They are not entitled, 

though, to set up chairs and have a party in the hallway 

right outside the door. Similarly, the fact that a police officer 

might lawfully walk by and hear loud voices from inside an 

apartment does not mean he could put a stethoscope to the 

door to listen to all that is happening inside. Applied to this 

case, this means that because other residents might bring 

their dogs through the hallway does not mean the police can 

park a sophisticated drug-sniffing dog outside an apartment 

door, at least without a warrant. See Jardines, 133 S. Ct. at 

1416.

The practical effects of Jardines also weigh in favor of applying its holding to dog sniffs at doors in closed apartment 

hallways. Distinguishing Jardines based on the differences 

between the front porch of a stand-alone house and the 

closed hallways of an apartment building draws arbitrary 

lines.

First, there is the middle ground between traditional 

apartment buildings and single-family houses. How would 

courts treat a split-level duplex? Perhaps even one that had 

been converted from a house into apartments? Does the 

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Nos. 14-3290 and 14-3506 9

number of units in the building matter, or do all multi-unit 

buildings lack the protection Jardines gives to single-family 

buildings? And what about garden apartments whose doors, 

like houses, open directly to the outdoors?

Second, a strict apartment versus single-family house distinction is troubling because it would apportion Fourth 

Amendment protections on grounds that correlate with income, race, and ethnicity. For example, according to the Census’s American Housing Survey for 2013, 67.8% of households composed solely of whites live in one-unit detached 

houses. For households solely composed of blacks, that 

number dropped to 47.2%. And for Hispanic households, 

that number was 52.1%. The percentage of households that 

live in single-unit, detached houses consistently rises with 

income. At the low end, 40.9% of households that earned less 

than $10,000 lived in single-unit, detached houses, and, at 

the high end, 84% of households that earned more than 

$120,000 did so. See United States Census Bureau, American 

Housing Survey, Table Creator, 

http://sasweb.ssd.census.gov/ahs/ahstablecreator.html (allowing the breakdown of housing type by race and income).

The police engaged in a warrantless search within the 

meaning of the Fourth Amendment when they had a drugsniffing dog come to the door of the apartment and search 

for the scent of illegal drugs.

B. The Good-Faith Exception and Davis

Davis v. United States, 131 S. Ct. 2419 (2011), held that evidence obtained in violation of the Fourth Amendment

should not be suppressed, “when the police conduct a search 

in objectively reasonable reliance on binding appellate precCase: 14-3290 Document: 32 Filed: 04/12/2016 Pages: 10
10 Nos. 14-3290 and 14-3506

edent.” 131 S. Ct. at 2434. This holding was based on the 

reasoning that officers should be permitted to rely on police 

practices specifically authorized by binding appellate precedent. Id. at 2439.

At the time of this search, there was no recognized expectation of privacy in the common areas of a multi-unit apartment building. See United States v. Espinoza, 256 F.3d 718, 

723 (holding “tenants lack a legitimate expectation of privacy in the common areas of multi-family buildings”); United 

States v. Concepcion, 942 F.2d 1170, 1172 (7th Cir. 1991) (holding “tenant has no reasonable expectation of privacy in the 

common areas of an apartment building”); Henry v. City of 

Chicago, 702 F.3d 916 (7th Cir. 2012) (“Absent certain particular facts not alleged here, there is no reasonable expectation 

of privacy in common areas of multiple dwelling buildings.”). However, no appellate decision specifically authorizes the use of a super-sensitive instrument, a drug-detecting

dog, by the police outside an apartment door to investigate 

the inside of the apartment without a warrant. Therefore, 

the officer could not reasonably rely on binding appellate 

precedent, and the good-faith exception does not apply.

Moreover, Kyllo was decided before the search of Whitaker’s apartment. The logic of Kyllo should have reasonably

indicated by the time of this search that a warrantless dog 

sniff at an apartment door would ordinarily amount to an 

unreasonable search in violation of the Fourth Amendment.

III. CONCLUSION

Accordingly, we REVERSE the denial of Whitaker’s motion to suppress and REMAND for proceedings consistent 

with this opinion. 

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