Opinion ID: 2484673
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Federal Dog Sniff Cases Are Inapplicable to the Home

Text: For reasons explained below, we conclude that the analysis used in the above federal dog sniff cases is inapplicable to a sniff test conducted at a private home. First, we recognize that the United States Supreme Court has ruled that because a sniff test conducted by a drug detection dog is sui generis, or unique, in the sense that it is minimally intrusive and is designed to detect only illicit drugs and nothing more, Place, 462 U.S. at 707, 103 S.Ct. 2637, a dog sniff test does not implicate Fourth Amendment rights when employed in the following settings: (i) when conducted on luggage that has been seized at an airport based on reasonable suspicion of unlawful activity, where the luggage has been separated from its owner and the sniff test is conducted in a public place, see Place, 462 U.S. 696, 103 S.Ct. 2637; (ii) when conducted on the exterior of a vehicle that has been stopped in a dragnet-style stop at a drug interdiction checkpoint, see Edmond, 531 U.S. 32, 121 S.Ct. 447; and (iii) when conducted on the exterior of a vehicle that has been subjected to a lawful traffic stop. See Caballes, 543 U.S. 405, 125 S.Ct. 834. Further, the United States Supreme Court has applied a similar analysis to a chemical field test for drugs when conducted on the contents of a package that has been damaged in transit and is being held by a private shipping company. See Jacobsen, 466 U.S. 109, 104 S.Ct. 1652. We note, however, that in each of the above cases, the United States Supreme Court was careful to tie its ruling to the particular facts of the case. See Place, 462 U.S. at 707, 103 S.Ct. 2637 ([W]e conclude that the particular course of investigation that the agents intended to pursue here exposure of respondent's luggage, which was located in a public place, to a trained caninedid not constitute a `search' within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment.); Edmond, 531 U.S. at 40, 121 S.Ct. 447 (The fact that officers walk a narcotics-detection dog around the exterior of each car at the Indianapolis checkpoints does not transform the seizure into a search.); Caballes, 543 U.S. at 409, 125 S.Ct. 834 (In this case, the dog sniff was performed on the exterior of respondent's car while he was lawfully seized for a traffic violation. Any intrusion on respondent's privacy expectations does not rise to the level of a constitutionally cognizable infringement.); Jacobsen, 466 U.S. at 123, 104 S.Ct. 1652 (It is probably safe to assume that virtually all of the tests conducted under circumstances comparable to those disclosed by this record would result in a positive finding; in such cases, no legitimate interest has been compromised.). Nothing in the above cases indicates that the same analysis would apply to a dog sniff test conducted at a private residence. Significantly, all the sniff and field tests in the above cases were conducted in a minimally intrusive manner upon objects luggage at an airport in Place, vehicles on the roadside in Edmond and Caballes, and a package in transit in Jacobsen that warrant no special protection under the Fourth Amendment. All the tests were conducted in an impersonal manner that subjected the defendants to no untoward level of public opprobrium, humiliation or embarrassment. There was no public link between the defendants and the luggage as it was being tested in Place or the package as it was being tested in Jacobsen, and the defendants retained a degree of anonymity during the roadside testing of their vehicles in Edmond and Caballes. Further, and more important, under the particular circumstances of each of the above cases, the tests were not susceptible to being employed in a discriminatory or arbitrary mannerthe luggage in Place had been seized based on reasonable suspicion; the vehicle in Edmond had been seized in a dragnet-style stop; the vehicle in Caballes had been seized pursuant to a lawful traffic stop; and the contents of the package in Jacobsen had been seized after the package had been damaged in transit by a private carrier. All these objects were seized and tested in an objective and nondiscriminatory manner, and there was no evidence of overbearing or harassing government conduct. There was no need for Fourth Amendment protection. As explained below, however, such is not the case with respect to a dog sniff test conducted at a private residence.