page_title: Florida v. Jardines
section_title: Majority opinion
hierarchical_section_title: Florida v. Jardines / U.S. Supreme Court / Decision / Majority opinion
caption_attribution_description: English: Antonin Scalia, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States
context_page_description: Florida v. Jardines, 569 U.S. 1, was a United States Supreme Court case which resulted in the decision that police use of a trained detection dog to sniff for narcotics on the front porch of a private home is a "search" within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution, and therefore, without consent, requires both probable cause and a search warrant.
  In 2006, police in Miami, Florida received an anonymous tip that a home was being used as a marijuana grow house. They led a drug-sniffing police dog to the front door of the home, and the dog alerted at the front door to the scent of contraband. A search warrant was issued, which led to the arrest of the homeowner.
  Twenty-seven U.S. states and the Federal government, among others, had supported Florida's argument that this use of a police dog was an acceptable form of minimally invasive warrantless search. In a 5-4 decision, the Court disagreed, despite three previous cases in which the Court had held that a dog sniff was not a search when deployed against luggage at an airport, against vehicles in a drug interdiction checkpoint, and against vehicles during routine traffic stops.
context_section_description: Justice Scalia's majority opinion, joined by Justices Kagan, Thomas, Ginsburg and Sotomayor, did not focus on the right to privacy, which is implicated by most modern-day Fourth Amendment cases. Rather, the decision hinged on the basis of a citizen's property rights. It followed the 2012 precedent from United States v. Jones, that when police physically intrude on persons, houses, papers, or effects for the purpose of obtaining information, "a 'search' within the original meaning of the Fourth Amendment" has "undoubtedly occurred." This conclusion is consistent with the Court's early Fourth Amendment jurisprudence, which until the latter half of the 20th century was tied to trespass under common law. At the Fourth Amendment's "very core", the Court said, stands "the right of a man to retreat into his own home and there be free from unreasonable governmental intrusion."
  Scalia cited precedents as far back as 1765, from Entick v. Carrington, a case before England's Court of King's Bench, quoting, "[O]ur law holds the property of every man so sacred, that no man can set his foot upon his neighbour's close without his leave."  He went on to say:
  We therefore regard the area "immediately surrounding and associated with the home"—what our cases call the curtilage—as "part of the home itself for Fourth Amendment purposes." ... That principle has ancient and durable roots. Just as the distinction between the home and the open fields is "as old as the common law," ... so too is the identity of home and what Blackstone called the "curtilage or homestall," for the "house protects and privileges all its branches and appurtenants." ... This area around the home is "intimately linked to the home, both physically and psychologically," and is where "privacy expectations are most heightened." 
  The Court acknowledged that a doorbell or knocker is typically treated as an invitation, or license, to the public to approach the front door of the home to deliver mail, sell goods, solicit for charities, etc.  This license extends to the police, who have the right to try engaging a home's occupant in a "knock and talk" for the purpose of gathering evidence without a warrant.  However:
  This implicit license typically permits the visitor to approach the home by the front path, knock promptly, wait briefly to be received, and then (absent invitation to linger longer) leave. Complying with the terms of that traditional invitation does not require fine-grained legal knowledge; it is generally managed without incident by the Nation's Girl Scouts and trick-or-treaters.
  Scalia used the analogies of a "visitor exploring the front path with a metal detector", or allowing police to "peer into the house through binoculars with impunity" to illustrate such activities that are not implicitly licensed by the homeowner, which would constitute a trespass under common law. The Court concluded that bringing a police dog into the home's curtilage to perform a forensic exploration for incriminating evidence was therefore an unreasonable search, absent a warrant.
  Having determined the unreasonableness of the search on the basis of property rights, the Court stated that it was unnecessary to address whether or not Jardines' right to privacy was also implicated.
caption: Justice Antonin Scalia delivered the majority opinion, joined by Justices Kagan, Thomas, Ginsburg and Sotomayor.
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