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

Heading: Sniff Test at a Private Home

Text: As noted above, the United States Supreme Court has held that wherever an individual may harbor a reasonable `expectation of privacy,' he is entitled to be free from unreasonable government intrusion. Terry, 392 U.S. at 9, 88 S.Ct. 1868 (quoting Katz, 389 U.S. at 351, 88 S.Ct. 507 (Harlan, J., concurring)). Nowhere is this right more resolute than in the private home: `At the very core' of the Fourth Amendment `stands the right of a man to retreat into his own home and there be free from unreasonable governmental intrusion.' Kyllo, 533 U.S. at 31, 121 S.Ct. 2038 (quoting Silverman v. United States, 365 U.S. 505, 511, 81 S.Ct. 679, 5 L.Ed.2d 734 (1961)). The sanctity of the citizen's home is a basic tenet of Anglo-American jurisprudence: In 1604, an English court made the now-famous observation that the house of every one is to him as his castle and fortress, as well for his defence against injury and violence, as for his repose. Semayne's Case, 5 Co. Rep. 91a, 91b, 77 Eng. Rep. 194, 195 (K.B.). In his Commentaries on the Laws of England, William Blackstone noted that the law of England has so particular and tender a regard to the immunity of a man's house, that it stiles it his castle, and will never suffer it to be violated with impunity: agreeing herein with the sentiments of ancient Rome.... For this reason no doors can in general be broken open to execute any civil process; though, in criminal causes, the public safety supersedes the private. 4 Commentaries 223 (1765-1769). The Fourth Amendment embodies this centuries-old principle of respect for the privacy of the home.... Wilson v. Layne, 526 U.S. 603, 609-10, 119 S.Ct. 1692, 143 L.Ed.2d 818 (1999); see also United States v. United States Dist. Court for Eastern Dist. of Mich., 407 U.S. 297, 313, 92 S.Ct. 2125, 32 L.Ed.2d 752 (1972) ([P]hysical entry of the home is the chief evil against which the wording of the Fourth Amendment is directed....). Although police generally may initiate a knock and talk encounter at the front door of a private residence without any prior showing of wrongdoing, see State v. Morsman, 394 So.2d 408, 409 (Fla.1981) (Under Florida law it is clear that one does not harbor an expectation of privacy on a front porch where salesmen or visitors may appear at any time.), a dog sniff test is a qualitatively different matter. Contrary to popular belief, a sniff test conducted at a private residence is not necessarily a casual affair in which a canine officer and dog approach the front door and the dog then performs a subtle sniff test and signals an alert if drugs are detected. Quite the contrary. In the present case, for instance, on the morning of December 5, 2006, members of the Miami-Dade Police Department, Narcotics Bureau, and agents of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), United States Department of Justice, conducted a surveillance of Jardines' home. As Detectives Pedraja and Bartlet and the drug detection dog, Franky, approached the residence, Sergeant Ramirez and Detective Donnelly of the Miami-Dade Police Department established perimeter positions around the residence and federal DEA agents assumed stand-by positions as backup units. The sniff test conducted by the dog handler and his dog was a vigorous and intensive procedure. Detective Bartlet testified as follows on direct examination at the suppression hearing: Q. After you stepped onto the property, what did you do? A. I, basically, approached with my canine partner. The way my canine partner works, he is very strongly driven, so he is actually out in front of me. He is one of the dogs that will actually pull me around very dramatically. So he pulled directly up the porch as he is trained to do, and immediately upon crossing the threshold of the archway which you see here, upon entering the alcove of the porch, he began tracking an airborne odor. Q. Let me stop you there, Officer. A. Sure. Q. At this time in time, how far into this home did you get or into the entranceway of the home did you get? I want you to point to the Court. A. You see there's a walker there? That's about the area that it was I was in. Q. There is also an archway there. Did you ever cross in through that archway? A. Not that I recall, no. Q. So, where exactly was your dog when he alerted to an alert of contraband? A. The alert for the dog, basically, is the minute I observed out of normal behavior for him. In this particular case, the abnormal behavior would have been the head high, tracking the airborne odor. He began tracking that airborne odor by bracketing and tracking back and forth. Q. What exactly is bracketing? A. Bracketing is a technique that the dog uses once he comes to an odor which is basically you can think of it as a cloud of odor. Once he gets into that cloud of odor, he is trained to go to the strongest point. We call that source. So, he is bracketing back and forth, back and forth, within the cone of odor to determine the strongest source. In this particular residence source for him was the base of the door. Q. And is Detective Pedraja observing this as well? You can't speak for him? A. Yeah, Ito be honest with you, all I'm doing is concentrating on the dog, watching the dog's head movements, his body postures, whence he is indicating towards me. Q. Detective, your dog is on a leash at that point? A. Oh, absolutely. Q. How long is that leash? A. It's approximately six feet. And then you have the length of my arm, so you can assume from there. Q. Okay. Once the dog beganwhat is it the dog did that told you he had an alert? A. Okay. He immediately told me he had an alert when he began tracking that odor. Now I know he is in odor and he needs to find source. So, what I do is I get back as far as I can. I let him have the full six feet of the leash plus whatever safe distance I can give him without running off in order for him to determine where source is. For example, if I don't do that, source could be the motorcycle, it could be somewhere else other than the front door. So, in order for me to fully observe his alert and where the source is, I need to be creating as much distance as I can. Often handlers will drop the leash and walk away completely. I don't do that with him because he is a little bit wild, so I maintain control of the leash and observe him from a distance so that I can indicate where source is going to be. Q. Okay. So, once he detects a source and he is bracketing and he is doing this behavior, what is the next thing that you observe this dog do? A. The final culmination of his abnormal behavior is a sitting position, and he did that immediately following the sniff at the base of the door, which indicates source to me. Q. And once Franky, your dog, did that, what did you then do? A. I then pulled him off of the sit and returned to my vehicle. Q. Did you at any point in time communicate what the dog did to anybody? A. Yeah, I indicated to the lead detective that there was a positive alert for the odor of narcotics. Q. And where exactly, in what direction around you, was the detective at that point? A. He would have been behind me, so I passed him up in the driveway. Q. Once you pulled the dog away from the door, where did you then go? A. To my vehicle. With respect to the location of Detective Pedraja in relation to Detective Bartlet and Franky during the sniff test, Bartlet testified as follows on redirect examination at the suppression hearing: Q. Would Detective Pedraja be in front of you as you are conducting canineI don't even know what you would call it. .... [A.] Would he be in front ofwhile Franky is sniffing the door? Definitely not. Q. Why not? A. Because he would be obstructing his ability to perform. He would be blocking him. He would beif he was standing in front of the door, Franky may not be able to get to source. So he needs to be out of the way. Q. Was Detective Pedraja standing next to you? A. No. Q. Why not? A. Because he probably would get knocked over by Franky when Franky is spinning around trying to find source. [THE PROSECUTOR]: No further questions. After the sniff test was completed, Detective Bartlet and Franky left the scene to assist in another case. Detective Pedraja, after waiting at the residence for fifteen or twenty minutes, also left the scene to prepare a search warrant and to submit it to a magistrate. Federal DEA agents, however, remained behind to maintain surveillance of Jardines' home. Pedraja obtained a search warrant later that day and returned to the scene. About an hour later, members of the Miami-Dade Police Department, Narcotics Bureau, and DEA agents executed the warrant by gaining entry to Jardines' home through the front door. As agents entered the front door, Jardines exited through a sliding glass door at the rear of the house. He was apprehended by Special Agent Wilson of the DEA and was turned over to the Miami-Dade Police Department. He was charged with trafficking in marijuana and theft of electricity. Based on the foregoing, we conclude that the dog sniff test that was conducted here was an intrusive procedure. The sniff test was a sophisticated undertaking that was the end result of a sustained and coordinated effort by various law enforcement departments. On the scene, the procedure involved multiple police vehicles, multiple law enforcement personnel, including narcotics detectives and other officers, and an experienced dog handler and trained drug detection dog engaged in a vigorous search effort on the front porch of the residence. Tactical law enforcement personnel from various government agencies, both state and federal, were on the scene for surveillance and backup purposes. The entire on-the-scene government activityi.e., the preparation for the sniff test, the test itself, and the aftermath, which culminated in the full-blown search of Jardines' homelasted for hours. The sniff test apparently took place in plain view of the general public. There was no anonymity for the resident. Such a public spectacle unfolding in a residential neighborhood will invariably entail a degree of public opprobrium, humiliation and embarrassment for the resident, whether or not he or she is present at the time of the search, for such dramatic government activity in the eyes of many-neighbors, passers-by, and the public at large-will be viewed as an official accusation of crime. Cf. Place, 462 U.S. at 707, 103 S.Ct. 2637 (explaining that the dog sniff test in that case was not a search within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment because it was limited in scope and was anonymous and did not subject the individual to embarrassment and inconvenience). And if the resident happens to be present at the time of the sniff test, such an intrusion into the sanctity of his or her home will generally be a frightening and harrowing experience that could prompt a reflexive or unpredictable response. Further, all the underlying circumstances that were present in the above federal dog sniff and field test cases that guaranteed objective, uniform application of those testsi.e., the temporary seizure of luggage based on reasonable suspicion of criminal activity in Place; the temporary seizure of a vehicle in a dragnet-style stop at a drug interdiction checkpoint in Edmond; the temporary seizure of a vehicle based on a lawful traffic stop in Caballes; and the temporary seizure of a portion of the contents of a package that had been damaged in transit in Jacobsen are absent from a warrantless sniff test conducted at a private residence. Unlike the objects in those cases, a private residence is not susceptible to being seized beforehand based on objective criteria. Thus, if government agents can conduct a dog sniff test at a private residence without any prior evidentiary showing of wrongdoing, there is simply nothing to prevent the agents from applying the procedure in an arbitrary or discriminatory manner, or based on whim and fancy, at the home of any citizen. Cf. Camara v. Mun. Court of City & Cnty. of S. F., 387 U.S. 523, 528, 87 S.Ct. 1727, 18 L.Ed.2d 930 (1967) (The basic purpose of [the Fourth] Amendment, as recognized in countless decisions of this Court, is to safeguard the privacy and security of individuals against arbitrary invasions by governmental officials.). Such an open-ended policy invites overbearing and harassing conduct. [7] In sum, a sniff test by a drug detection dog conducted at a private residence does not only reveal the presence of contraband, as was the case in the federal sui generis dog sniff cases discussed above, but it also constitutes an intrusive procedure that may expose the resident to public opprobrium, humiliation and embarrassment, and it raises the specter of arbitrary and discriminatory application. Given the special status accorded a citizen's home under the Fourth Amendment, we conclude that a sniff test, such as the test that was conducted in the present case, is a substantial government intrusion into the sanctity of the home and constitutes a search within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment. As such, it warrants the safeguards that inhere in that amendmentspecifically, the search must be preceded by an evidentiary showing of wrongdoing. We note that the rulings of other state [8] and federal [9] courts with respect to a dog sniff test conducted at a private residence are generally mixed, as are the rulings of other state [10] and federal [11] courts with respect a dog sniff test conducted at an apartment or other temporary dwelling.