Source: https://www.tdcaa.com/journal/trespassing-on-the-porch-with-a-drug-sniffing-dog-in-florida-v-jardines/
Timestamp: 2019-04-25 19:56:42+00:00

Document:
What’s that, Lassie? There’re drugs in the house?
In 2006, Detective William Pedraja of the Miami-Dade Police Department received a Crime Stoppers tip that marijuana was being grown in the home of Joelis Jardines. About a month after receiving the tip, the police department and the Drug Enforcement Administration sent a joint surveillance team to Jardines’s home. Detective Pedraja watched the home for 15 minutes and saw no vehicles in the driveway or activity around the home, and he could not see inside because the blinds were drawn. So Detective Pedraja approached the front door accompanied by Detective Douglas Bartlet, a trained canine handler who had just arrived at the scene with Franky, his drug-sniffing dog.
To hear the majority tell it, Franky the drug-sniffing dog was a cross between Cujo and Dynomutt. Justice Scalia noted his “wild” nature as well as his tendency to dart around erratically while searching.2 As Franky approached the front porch he sensed one of the odors he had been trained to detect and began “bracketing” the odor by moving back and forth to track it. Detective Bartlet gave the dog the full 6 feet of leash as well as whatever safe distance he could give him, and Detective Pedraja stood back so he would not get knocked over. After sniffing the base of the front door, Franky sat, which is what he had been trained to do upon discovering the strongest point of the scent. Detective Bartlet pulled the dog away and returned to his vehicle after informing Detective Pedraja that Franky had alerted to the presence of narcotics.
Now, if you thought that Illinois v. Caballes—where the United States Supreme Court upheld a search of a lawfully stopped car based upon a drug dog alert—would control the outcome of this case, you would be wrong. And if you thought that Kyllo v. United States—where the United States Supreme Court held a thermal imaging scan of a residence without a warrant violated a defendant’s expectation of privacy—would require suppression in this case, you would be wrong again. No, Justice Scalia based the majority holding upon United States v. Jones, explaining that the evidence was properly suppressed because police conduct violated Jardines’s property rights.
Moreover, three justices would have rejected the search under the traditional, expectation-of-privacy analysis. Justice Kagan, joined by Justices Ginsburg and Sotomayor, explained that Kyllo v. United States already resolved the case. There, police used a thermal-imaging device to detect heat emanating from a private home even though they committed no trespass. To the concurring justices, Franky was a “super-sensitive instrument” that was “not in general public use” and that could be used to “explore details of the home that would previously have been unknowable without physical intrusion.
This argument overlooks, however, that one reason the thermal imaging instrument in Kyllo was impermissible was because there was no guarantee that the use of the equipment would always be lawful, i.e., it could detect “the lady of the house” taking her daily sauna and bath rather than only detecting the growing of marijuana.7 Unlike the thermal imaging in Kyllo, or even the super-high-powered binoculars that the concurring opinion draws an analogy to, the drug-dog sniff would necessarily alert only to the presence of contraband. Indeed, in Illinois v. Caballes, the court had clearly rejected the same argument (regarding a drug-dog alert) the concurrence advanced in Jardines.8 Here’s hoping the fact that only three judges supported this rationale suggests that drug-dog sniffs are not searches absent a violation of a defendant’s property rights.
Going forward, the big concern from this case for law enforcement seems to be a potential to undermine a police officer’s ability to walk up to and knock on a door without a warrant, just as any private citizen might.12 After all, it probably would not take a lot of effort to elicit testimony from an officer that he approached the front door of the residence because he was conducting an investigation and was hoping to obtain consent to search or observe incriminating evidence or behavior. Would this provide the type of objective proof of the officer’s subjective intent that would exceed the implied license to approach the door and knock?
One case can, however, be definitively discarded after Jardines. In Rodriguez v. State, the First Court of Appeals upheld the use of a drug-dog sniff outside a defendant’s front door as support for a search warrant.23 This case predated Jones so it was analyzed under the “reasonable expectation of privacy” analysis without regard to whether the police had exceeded the scope of the implied license to enter onto the property. While the dog-sniff search of Rodriguez’s front door may not have violated his expectation of privacy, Jardines makes clear going onto the property, even by the front path, with a drug-sniffing dog violated Rodriguez’s property rights and therefore the Fourth Amendment. Consequently, Rodriguez is no longer good law.
The Supreme Court is correct when it says that resort to a property-rights analysis made this case easy to decide. But it would have been just as easy to decide the case under an expectation-of-privacy analysis. The only difference would have been the result and fewer questions going forward. While police can knock on a person’s front door to ask her questions, it remains to be seen just what additional conduct exceeds the scope of that implied license. One thing is certain, though. When it comes to knocking on doors, police officers should leave the dogs at home.
1 Florida v. Jardines, 2013 WL 1196577 (Mar. 26, 2013)(5:3:4).
2 Indeed, Justice Scalia, author of the majority opinion, doesn’t even refer to the dog by name. But he’s probably a cat person.
4 Justice Scalia refrained, however, from shouting, “Hey you kids! Get the hell off my lawn!” See e.g. Gran Torino, Warner Bros. (2008).
5 Because understanding property rights is easy. See e.g. The Rule Against Perpetuities.
6 Presumably if the officers had an objective legal basis to be on the property independent of a “knock and talk,” such as an emergency or a warrant, then the dog sniff would be justified.
7 Kyllo v. United States, 121 S.Ct. 2038, 2043 (2001).
8 See Illinois v. Caballes, 125 S.Ct. 834, 838 (2005).
9 See Florida v. Harris, 133 S.Ct. 1050, 1053-54 (2013).
10 Or as I like to think of it, it’s the difference between a zombie and a zombie redneck torture family, or the difference between an elephant and an elephant seal. Cabin in the Woods, Lionsgate Films (2012).
11 The opinion is silent as to whether Detective Pedraja engaged in bracketing behavior.
12 Kentucky v. King, 131 S.Ct. 1849, 1862 (2011)(“When law enforcement officers who are not armed with a warrant knock on a door, they do no more than any private citizen might do. And whether the person who knocks on the door and requests the opportunity to speak is a police officer or a private citizen, the occupant has no obligation to open the door to speak”). See also Cornealius v. State, 900 S.W.2d 731, 733-34 (Tex. Crim. App. 1995)(“Nothing in our Constitutions prevent a police officer from addressing questions to citizens on the street; it follows that nothing would prevent him from knocking politely on any closed door”).
13 Jardines, 2013 WL 1196577 at *4 (2013).
14 See e.g. State v. Weaver, 349 S.W.3d 521, 532 (Tex. Crim. App. 2011)(noting that drug-dog sniff around van parked on private property exceeded the scope of the express consent to enter the business).
15 Cf. Phillips v. State, 161 S.W.3d 511, 515 (Tex. Crim. App. 2005)(holding that minor recruited by TABC was not a trespasser at bar despite the presence of a sign excluding minors); Nored v. State, 875 S.W.2d 392, 397 (Tex. App.—Dallas 1994, pet. ref’d.)(“If the person in possession of the property has not made express orders prohibiting any form of trespass, and if the police follow the usual path to the front door, then the police have not violated the person’s Fourth Amendment rights”).
16 See e.g. Wilson v. State, 98 S.W.3d 265, 272 (Tex. App.—Houston [1st Dist.] 2002, pet. ref’d.)(holding that the defendant had no reasonable expectation of privacy outside his hotel room door).
17 See e.g. Evans v. State, 995 S.W.2d 284, 286 (Tex. App.—Houston [14th Dist.] 1999, pet. ref’d.)(holding that fenced-in common area of an apartment complex was not part of the curtilage of the defendant’s apartment); see also Cuero v. State, 845 S.W.2d 387, 391 (Tex. App.—Houston [1st Dist.] 1992, pet. ref’d.)(parking area of enclosed condominium complex was not the curtilage of the apartment).
18 See United States v. Dunn, 107 S.Ct. 1134, 1139 (1987)(addressing whether an area amounts to curtilage by considering the proximity of the area to the home, whether the area is included within an enclosure surrounding the home, the nature of the uses to which the area is put, and the steps taken to protect the area from observations by people passing by).
19 See e.g. Minnesota v. Carter, 119 S.Ct. 469, 474 (1998)(recognizing that overnight guests have expectation of privacy in apartment, but those merely “legitimately on the premises” had no legitimate expectation of privacy in the apartment).
20 See e.g. Wilson, 98 S.W.3d at 272 (no expectation of privacy outside of hotel room door); Cuero, 845 S.W.2d at 392 (no expectation of privacy in enclosed parking area of a condominium complex).
21 See e.g. Wilson v. State, 311 S.W.3d 452, 469 (Tex. Crim. App. 2010)(Hervey, J. concurring)(noting that seven judges decided in Chavez v. State that the state exclusionary rule is triggered when a defendant’s personal or property rights are violated).
22 Of course, sailing on reinvented wheels may not be very smooth after all. Mixed metaphors often make for a very bumpy read.
23 Rodriguez v. State, 106 S.W.3d 224, 228 (Tex. App.—Houston [1st Dist.] 2003, pet. ref’d.), cert. denied, 540 U.S. 1189 (2004).
24 Freedom! Oh darn, wrong Peltier. Thanks a lot, Rage Against the Machine. See www.youtube .com/watch?v=H_vQt_v8Jmw.
25 United States v. Peltier, 95 S.Ct. 2313, 2317-18 (1975).
26 Davis v. United States, 131 S.Ct. 2419, 2426 (2011). This is a different Davis than the other Davises featured in Supreme Court precedent that you might be thinking of. He’s like Ohio and Arizona in that respect. He gets around.
27 Note that in Griffith v. Kentucky, 107 S.Ct. 708, 716 (1987), the Supreme Court held that a new rule for the conduct of criminal prosecutions is to be applied retroactively to all cases pending on direct review or not yet final. While the court did not overrule Griffith in Davis, it noted that even if a defendant can claim the new, substantive Fourth Amendment rule as a basis for relief, the remedy of suppression would not necessarily follow from that violation. Arguably, this suggests Davis has overruled Griffith sub silentio or at least removed any ability to enforce the claim of relief.
28 Stone v. Powell, 96 S.Ct. 3037, 3048 (1976).
29 See Chaidez v. State, 133 S.Ct. 1103, 1107 (2013)(noting that a new rule of criminal procedure is not retroactive where the court announces a new rule rather than an application of a principle that governed a prior decision to a different set of facts).

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