Opinion ID: 2209629
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Consideration of Probable Cause to Search Respondent

Text: In the case sub judice and relying on our holdings in Pringle, Collins, Livingston, the Supreme Court's holding in Di Re, the Illinois case of Fondia, we hold that there was not probable cause to search respondent. This case is similar to the situation in Fondia, where the defendant was in a car that had had a positive drug alert by a drug detection dog and the officer then removed the defendant from the car, searched him, found drug paraphernalia and arrested him. We emphasize, just as the Illinois court in Fondia emphasized, that while the alert by a drug dog trained to detect contraband, undisputedly, gave the police probable cause to believe there was contraband somewhere in the car or on the person of someone in the car, the canine sniff of the vehicle alone did not amount to probable cause to then search each of the passengers. Without additional facts that would tend to establish respondent's knowledge and dominion or control over the contraband before his search, the K-9 sniff of the car was insufficient to establish probable cause for a search of a non-owner, non-driver for possession. Merely sitting in the backseat of a car did not amount, in this case, to probable cause specific to respondent to search and subsequently arrest him. If the K-9 had sniffed respondent, and specifically alerted to respondent, before the officer searched him, probable cause for the search might have existed. If the officers simply had Bosco sniff each of the passengers of the car prior to searching them, then probable cause might have existed to search any of the passengers who positively re-alerted the canine to contraband. This did not happen here. [6] Moreover, as the Court of Special Appeals in this case opined, some link between the passenger and the crime must exist or probable cause generally will not be found. That was the case here. Respondent was searched merely based upon the fact that probable cause existed to search the vehicle based upon a general canine scan of the car, nothing more. Without any other indicia of possession of contraband, specifically relating to respondent, there was no probable cause for the officer, at that point in time on the night in question, to have sufficient probable cause to search respondent. There simply was no link or further factual basis to connect respondent to drugs or to having committed any crime solely upon Bosco's positive scan of the vehicle owned and driven by another person. In contrast with the cases previously discussed, petitioner asserts that the dicta intimated by this Court and the Court of Special Appeals in the cases of Wilkes v. State, 364 Md. 554, 587 n. 24, 774 A.2d 420, 439 n. 24 and State v. Funkhouser, 140 Md.App. 696, 782 A.2d 387 (2001) support a finding of probable cause to search not only the vehicle itself but also the passengers of a vehicle when there has been a positive alert by a drug detection dog to contraband somewhere in a vehicle. In Wilkes, in a footnote, this Court recognized that the cases from some jurisdictions have taken the position that a positive alert to contraband by a drug dog amounted to probable cause to effectuate a warrantless arrest. In Funkhouser, the Court of Special Appeals held that when a qualified drug dog signals to its handler that narcotics are in a vehicle there is ipso facto probable cause to justify a warrantless Carroll doctrine search of the vehicle. But, petitioner fails to recognize that searches of vehicles pursuant to a positive canine alert and probable cause to do so is well-settled and is distinguishable from the issue raised in this case. [7] Additionally, both Wilkes and Funkhouser are factually distinguishable because in both of those cases the person searched and arrested was the sole occupant of the car and the owner/driver of the car. In neither case was the person searched a mere passenger. In Funkhouser, the Court of Special Appeals stated The police not only had probable cause [after a positive canine scan] to search the Jeep wrangler; they also had probable cause to arrest Funkhouser as its driver and lone occupant. Funkhouser, 140 Md. App. 721, 782 A.2d 402 (2001). (alteration added). Admittedly, we stated in Wilkes that once a drug dog has alerted the trooper to the presence of illegal drugs in a vehicle, sufficient probable cause existed to support a warrantless arrest. 364 Md. at 554 n. 24, 774 A.2d at 439 n. 24. However, as in Funkhouser, Wilkes was the driver and the only person in the vehicle. Petitioner also asserts that the case of United States v. Klinginsmith, 25 F.3d 1507 (10th Cir.1994), cert. denied, 513 U.S. 1059, 115 S.Ct. 669, 130 L.Ed.2d 602 (1994), cited in Wilkes, supports the extension of probable cause to include passengers. Klinginsmith was a passenger in a car driven by another person. The police had placed a sign near the highway that read Narcotic Check Lane Ahead, but the sign was a ruse hoping to get narcotics traffickers who saw the sign to exit the highway on a particular exit. When the driver of the car exited the highway, the police pursued the car and stopped it at a gas station. The troopers began asking questions of both of the occupants, including Klinginsmith, and both men consented when the troopers asked to search the car. In the meantime, a canine unit had arrived on the scene and gave a positive alert for narcotics in the car. The Tenth Circuit held that when the dog `alerted,' there was probable cause to arrest [the driver and passenger]. Klinginsmith, 25 F.3d at 1510. We also recognize that the U.S. District Court for the District of Kansas recently reaffirmed the holding in Klinginsmith in United States v. Garcia, 52 F.Supp.2d 1239 (D.Kan.1999). Despite the holdings in Klinginsmith and Garcia, we hold that those cases are not controlling as to the issue currently for our review. Rather, we hold in line with the body of case law discussed supra, especially our very recent holding in Pringle, and affirm that a positive canine scan to a vehicle's interior compartment generally, without more, does not rise to probable cause to search all passengers of that vehicle. A passenger in an automobile is generally not perceived to have the kind of control over the contents of the vehicle as does a driver and cases from this State have noted the distinction between drivers and owners and passengers of vehicles. Therefore, some additional substantive nexus between the passenger and the criminal conduct must appear to exist in order for an officer to have probable cause to either search or arrest a passenger. Pursuant to the facts of the case sub judice, there was no link, beyond the positive canine alert to drugs in the car somewhere, between respondent and the drug scan by Bosco of the passenger compartment as a whole. At the time of the search of respondent, there was no evidence, other than Bosco's alert to the car in which respondent and four others had been sitting, to establish respondent's possible possession of drugs. There were no circumstances in this case indicating that there were drugs or drug paraphernalia visible to either the occupants of the car or the officers looking into the vehicle, there was no evidence of any odor of drugs emanating from the vehicle that would have been detectable to a passerby or even to a passenger, nor is there any evidence that any of the occupants prior to the search exhibited any suspicious behavior to the officers. We recognize that if, in a particular case, the facts justify it, there may be a constitutionally acceptable basis for searching the passengers, but that is not so under the facts of the case sub judice.