Opinion ID: 409447
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Canine Sniff as a Search.

Text: 14 Frequent use of drug-detecting dogs by law enforcement officials has led to a great number of cases challenging the admissibility of the fruits of a canine sniff. 3 From these cases, one proposition is clear and universally accepted: if the police have some basis for suspecting an individual of possessing contraband, they may, consonant with the fourth amendment, use a drug-detecting dog to sniff checked luggage, 4 shipped packages, 5 storage lockers, 6 trailers, 7 or cars. 8 While the rationales of these cases are not the same, the majority view is that the sniffing of objects by a dog is not a search. See, e.g., United States v. Waltzer, 682 F.2d 370 (2d Cir. 1982); United States v. Bronstein, 521 F.2d 459 (2d Cir. 1975), cert. denied, 424 U.S. 918, 96 S.Ct. 1121, 47 L.Ed.2d 324 (1976); United States v. Fulero, 498 F.2d 748 (D.C.Cir.1974). But see, e.g., People v. Williams, 51 Cal.App.3d 346, 124 Cal.Rptr. 253 (1975); cf. People v. Campbell, 67 Ill.2d 308, 10 Ill.Dec. 340, 367 N.E.2d 949, cert. denied, 435 U.S. 942, 98 S.Ct. 1521, 55 L.Ed.2d 538 (1978) (characterization as search is not significant; the question is whether the investigation is reasonable). 9 Only the Ninth Circuit has held that the sniffing of objects is a search, though it may at times be reasonable. United States v. Beale, 674 F.2d 1327 (9th Cir. 1982); United States v. Solis, 536 F.2d 880 (9th Cir. 1976). 15 The decision to characterize an action as a search is in essence a conclusion about whether the fourth amendment applies at all. If an activity is not a search or seizure (assuming the activity does not violate some other constitutional or statutory provision), then the government enjoys a virtual carte blanche to do as it pleases. The activity is excluded from judicial control and the command of reasonableness. Amsterdam, Perspectives on the Fourth Amendment, 58 Minn.L.Rev. 349, 393 (1974). We must analyze the question of whether dog sniffing is a search in terms of whether the sniffing offends reasonable expectations of privacy, Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 88 S.Ct. 507, 19 L.Ed.2d 576 (1967), and must look at the degree of intrusiveness of the challenged action to determine whether it is the type of activity that can be tolerated in a free society. Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968); see also 1 W. LaFave, Search and Seizure § 2.2(a), at 234 (1978). 16 We have already held that the sniffing by dogs of luggage checked in an airport, United States v. Goldstein, 635 F.2d 356 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, 452 U.S. 962, 101 S.Ct. 3111, 69 L.Ed.2d 972 (1981), and luggage checked in a bus terminal, United States v. Viera, 644 F.2d 509 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, 454 U.S. 867, 102 S.Ct. 332, 70 L.Ed.2d 169 (1981), is not a search, reasoning that the passenger's reasonable expectation of privacy does not extend to the airspace surrounding that luggage. 635 F.2d at 361. We noted that the appellants had released their bags to the custody of the airlines, thereby relinquishing-at least temporarily-all control over them. Other circuits have emphasized the minimal humiliation entailed in dogs sniffing unattended luggage. E.g., Bronstein, supra. 10 17 The courts have in effect adopted a doctrine of public smell analogous to the exclusion from fourth amendment coverage of things exposed to the public view. Katz, supra. See also United States v. Ventresca, 380 U.S. 102, 85 S.Ct. 741, 13 L.Ed.2d 684 (1965) (implicit); United States v. Rivera, 595 F.2d 1095, 1098-99 (5th Cir. 1979) (implicit); see generally 1 W. LaFave, Search and Seizure § 2.2(a) (1978). The courts have reasoned that if a police officer, positioned in a place where he has a right to be, is conscious of an odor, say, of marijuana, no search has occurred; the aroma emanating from the property or person is considered exposed to the public view and, therefore, unprotected. From this proposition the courts have concluded that the sniffing of a dog is no different, 11 or that the dog's olfactory sense merely enhances that of the police officer in the same way that a flashlight enhances the officer's sight. 12 18 We find Goldstein to be controlling on the question of whether the dogs' sniffing of student lockers in public hallways and automobiles parked on public parking lots was a search. The sniffs occurred while the objects were unattended and positioned in public view. Had the principal of the school wandered past the lockers and smelled the pungent aroma of marijuana wafting through the corridors, it would be difficult to contend that a search had occurred. Goldstein stands for the proposition that the use of the dogs' nose to ferret out the scent from inanimate objects in public places is not treated any differently. We hold accordingly that the sniffs of the lockers and cars 13 did not constitute a search and therefore we need make no inquiry into the reasonableness of the sniffing of the lockers and automobiles. 19 The use of the dogs to sniff the students, however, presents an entirely different problem. After all, the fourth amendment protects people, not places. Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 351, 88 S.Ct. 507, 511, 19 L.Ed.2d 576 (1967). Neither Goldstein nor Viera involved sniffs of persons and therefore they are not controlling. The Second and Ninth Circuits specifically noted that people had not been sniffed when they upheld the constitutionality of dogs sniffing objects. Bronstein, supra; Solis, supra. The Seventh Circuit is the only circuit to have held that sniffs of school children do not constitute a search, Renfrow, supra. We note that there was apparently no evidence in Renfrow that the dogs actually touched the students, while the dogs in the GCISD program put their noses right up against the children's bodies. Furthermore, as was noted above, the Renfrow decision has been universally criticized by the commentators. 14 20 The students' persons certainly are not the subject of lowered expectations of privacy. On the contrary, society recognizes the interest in the integrity of one's person, and the fourth amendment applies with its fullest vigor against any intrusion on the human body. In fact, the Supreme Court has suggested that all governmental intrusions upon personal security are governed by the fourth amendment: 21 In our view the sounder course is to recognize that the Fourth Amendment governs all intrusions by agents of the public upon personal security, and to make the scope of the particular intrusion, in light of all the exigencies of the case, a central element in the analysis of reasonableness. Cf. Brinegar v. United States, 338 U.S. 160, 183 (69 S.Ct. 1302, 1314, 93 L.Ed. 1879) (1949) (Mr. Justice Jackson, dissenting). Compare Camara v. Municipal Court, 387 U.S. 523, 537 (87 S.Ct. 1727, 1735, 18 L.Ed.2d 930) (1967). This seems preferable to an approach which attributes too much significance to an overly technical definition of search, and which turns in part upon a judge-made hierarchy of legislative enactments in the criminal sphere. 22 Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 18 n.15, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 1878 n.15, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968). See generally, Gardner, Sniffing for Drugs in the Classroom-Perspectives on Fourth Amendment Scope, 74 Nw.U.L.Rev. 803, 848 (1980). 15 23 The circuit courts have unanimously assumed that the use of magnetometers in airport terminals to detect concealed weapons, an activity far less intrusive than the use of large dogs to sniff the bodies of children, is a search. The Fourth Circuit originally held that the magnetometer walk-through 24 is still a search. Indeed, that is the very purpose of the magnetometer: to search for metal and disclose its presence in areas where there is a normal expectation of privacy. 25 United States v. Epperson, 454 F.2d 769, 770 (4th Cir.), cert. denied, 406 U.S. 947, 92 S.Ct. 2050, 32 L.Ed.2d 334 (1972); see also, United States v. Albarado, 495 F.2d 799 (2d Cir. 1974); United States v. Cyzewski, 484 F.2d 509 (5th Cir. 1973); United States v. Slocum, 464 F.2d 1180 (3rd Cir. 1972); United States v. Bell, 464 F.2d 667 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 409 U.S. 991, 93 S.Ct. 335, 34 L.Ed.2d 258 (1972). 26 The commentators agree that the intensive smelling of people, even if done by dogs, (is) indecent and demeaning. 74 Nw.U.L.Rev. at 850; see also 71 J.Crim.L. & Criminology at 44. Most persons in our society deliberately attempt not to expose the odors emanating from their bodies to public smell. In contrast, where the Supreme Court has upheld limited investigations of body characteristics not justified by individualized suspicion, it has done so on the grounds that the particular characteristic was routinely exhibited to the public. United States v. Dionisio, 410 U.S. 1, 93 S.Ct. 764, 35 L.Ed.2d 67 (1973) (voice exemplars); United States v. Mara, 410 U.S. 19, 93 S.Ct. 774, 35 L.Ed.2d 99 (1973) (handwriting exemplars); Davis v. Mississippi, 394 U.S. 721, 89 S.Ct. 1394, 22 L.Ed.2d 676 (1969) (fingerprints). Intentional close proximity sniffing of the person is offensive whether the sniffer be canine or human. One can imagine the embarrassment which a young adolescent, already self-conscious about his or her body, might experience when a dog, being handled by a representative of the school administration, enters the classroom specifically for the purpose of sniffing the air around his or her person. 27 We need only look at the record in this case to see how a dog's sniffing technique-i.e., sniffing around each child, putting his nose on the child and scratching and manifesting other signs of excitement in the case of an alert-is intrusive. The SAI representative explained that Doberman pinschers and German shepherds were used precisely because of the image maintained by the large dogs. Newman depo. at 16. Plaintiff, Heather Horton, described what happened when the dog entered the classrooms: 28 Well, we were in the middle of a major French exam and the dog came in and walked up and down the aisles and stopped at every desk and sniffed on each side all around the people, the feet, the parts where you keep your books under the desk. 29 H. Horton depo. at 3. Ms. Horton went on to express her fear of the large dogs. Id. at 12. The SAI representative testified that the dogs put their noses up against the persons they are investigating. Newman depo. at 43. 30 On the basis of our examination of the record which indicates the degree of personal intrusiveness involved in this type of activity, we hold that sniffing by dogs of the students' persons in the manner involved in this case is a search within the purview of the fourth amendment. We need not decide today whether the use of dogs to sniff people in some other manner, e.g., at some distance, is a search. 31 Our decision that the sniffing is a search does not, however, compel the conclusion that it is constitutionally impermissible. The fourth amendment does not prohibit all searches; it only restricts the government to reasonable searches. The reasonableness of the procedure turns in this case on the school environment, to be discussed in Part II.B. But the reasonableness is also governed in part by general fourth amendment principles. 32 A dog's sniff of a person, particularly where the dogs actually touch the person as they do in the GCISD program, may be analogous to the warrantless stop and frisk upheld by the Supreme Court on the basis of a suspicion that fell short of probable cause. Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968). Confronted with a choice between subjecting a useful and, indeed virtually indispensable, tool for both the protection of law enforcement officers and the prevention of crime to a requirement of probable cause and a warrant or of giving the police unbridled discretion to stop and frisk citizens, the Court rejected this monolithic, all-or-nothing view of the fourth amendment. Instead, it recognized a new category of search and seizure-the minimally intrusive stop and frisk-that could be conducted upon a finding of reasonable suspicion. Since the circumstances in which a stop and frisk is used preclude obtaining a warrant, the procedure is exempt from the warrant requirement. 33 The Court in effect adopted a balancing approach whereby the intrusiveness of the search is measured against society's need for the information. See generally 1 W. LaFave, Search and Seizure § 2.2(a), at 236 (1978). Similarly, the courts have upheld the warrantless use of magnetometers in light of their minimally intrusive character as weighed against the danger of skyjacking. E.g., Cyzewski, supra. Because the sniffing in this case occurred in a school environment, we need not address the question whether the sniffing of a person in a non-school setting is sufficiently intrusive to require the full panoply of fourth amendment protections-probable cause and a warrant-or whether such sniffing is less intrusive, requiring only reasonable suspicion. We leave that question for another day. 34