Opinion ID: 1310247
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 14

Heading: whether the fourth amendment is implicated

Text: The majority fails to conclusively state how the protections of the Fourth Amendment apply to Ortiz. As the majority correctly states, the Fourth Amendment and Neb. Const. art. 1, § 7, prohibit only unreasonable searches and seizures. Obviously, if no search or seizure occurred, Ortiz could not claim the protections of the Fourth Amendment, and the inquiry would end. See, e.g., U.S. v. Colyer, 878 F.2d 469 (D.C.Cir.1989) (canine sniff was not search and therefore neither reasonable suspicion nor probable cause was required). Because it is clear that a seizure did not take place in the instant case where there was nothing tangible taken or detained by the police, I focus my inquiry only on whether a search occurred. United States v. Karo, 468 U.S. 705, 104 S.Ct. 3296, 82 L.Ed.2d 530 (1984). See, generally, State v. Cox, 247 Neb. 729, 529 N.W.2d 795 (1995) (discussing relation of property interests to determination of whether seizure has occurred). As the majority stated, this court has traditionally relied on the principles enunciated in Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 88 S.Ct. 507, 19 L.Ed.2d 576 (1967), when considering whether Fourth Amendment protections are involved. See, also, State v. Havlat, 222 Neb. 554, 385 N.W.2d 436 (1986) (discussing Katz ). A person's right to invoke the protection of the Fourth Amendment as to unreasonable searches and seizures depends not upon a property right in the invaded place, but upon whether the person who claims protection of the Fourth Amendment has a legitimate expectation of privacy in the invaded place. Katz, supra ; State v. Harms, 233 Neb. 882, 449 N.W.2d 1 (1989). Although the Fourth Amendment protects people, not places, one cannot understand an individual's privacy expectations without reference to a place. Katz, supra (Harlan J., concurring). Thus, we have held that `[o]wnership and possessory rights in places are still important in determining whether or not a particular person has a legitimate expectation of privacy in a particular place.' Harms, 233 Neb. at 888, 449 N.W.2d at 5. I concede there is a split of authority regarding whether a canine sniff constitutes a search. Relying on the dicta in United States v. Place, 462 U.S. 696, 103 S.Ct. 2637, 77 L.Ed.2d 110 (1983), which stated that a canine sniff of luggage that was detained in a public airport did not constitute a search within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment, the federal courts overwhelmingly hold that canine sniffs are not searches. See State v. Waz, 240 Conn. 365, 692 A.2d 1217 (1997) (citing federal cases). We have also previously relied on Place to determine that a canine sniff of an express mail package did not constitute a search. State v. Morrison, 243 Neb. 469, 500 N.W.2d 547 (1993), disapproved on other grounds, State v. Johnson, 256 Neb. 133, 589 N.W.2d 108 (1999). In addition to Place, United States v. Jacobsen, 466 U.S. 109, 104 S.Ct. 1652, 80 L.Ed.2d 85 (1984), made it clear that some types of police techniques such as field tests and dog sniffs are not protected as searches under the Fourth Amendment because of the limited nature of the intrusion. Jacobsen further indicated that if a police technique reveals only the presence or absence of contraband, the Court does not view the technique used to be a search. State courts are also divided on the issue. Some courts conclude, usually on the basis of their state constitution, that canine sniffs constitute searches. However, other courts apply the reasoning of Place and Jacobsen to conclude that canine sniffs do not constitute a search. The reasoning of Place and Jacobsen is not without criticism, some of which I find relevant to the instant case. First, as Justice Brennan noted in his dissent in Jacobsen, when the focus is on the nature of the item sought and revealed through the use of a dog sniff, the resulting theory is that individuals have no reasonable expectation of privacy due to the fact that they are carrying contraband. As Justice Brennan stated, this is contrary to the fundamental principle that `[a] search prosecuted in violation of the Constitution is not made lawful by what it brings to light.' Jacobsen, 466 U.S. at 140, 104 S.Ct. 1652, quoting Byars v. United States, 273 U.S. 28, 47 S.Ct. 248, 71 L.Ed. 520 (1927). Such a focus also ignores the principles articulated in Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 88 S.Ct. 507, 19 L.Ed.2d 576 (1967), in which the Court held that Katz had a legitimate expectation of privacy in his telephone conversation regardless of the illegality of the content of that conversation. What a person knowingly exposes to the public, even in his own home or office, is not a subject of Fourth Amendment protection.... But what he seeks to preserve as private, even in an area accessible to the public, may be constitutionally protected. Katz, 389 U.S. at 351-52, 88 S.Ct. 507. I agree that a dog sniff is undisputably less intrusive than a full-blown search due to its ability to identify only the presence or absence of contraband. However, as illustrated by Justice Brennan's dissent in Jacobsen and this court's reliance on the principles enunciated in Katz, this distinction alone should not be the deciding factor when considering whether the sniff constitutes a search. Were this to become the deciding factor, the court would act to foreclose any consideration of the circumstances under which the sniff was conducted and may very well [pave] the way for technology to override the limits of law in the area of criminal investigation. Jacobsen, 466 U.S. at 137-38, 104 S.Ct. 1652 (Brennan, J., dissenting). See, also, Hope Walker Hall, Sniffing Out the Fourth Amendment: United States v. Place Dog SniffsTen Years Later, 46 Maine L.Rev. 151 (1994). To the extent that a few cases appear to consider the ability of canine sniffs to detect only contraband as the deciding factor without considering other circumstances, I find the reasoning of those cases to be unpersuasive. See, U.S. v. Reed, 141 F.3d 644 (6th Cir.1998); U.S. v. Lingenfelter, 997 F.2d 632 (9th Cir.1993); U.S. v. Colyer, 878 F.2d 469 (D.C.Cir.1989). More importantly, the U.S. Supreme Court left unclear whether canine sniffs do not constitute searches only when conducted in areas such as airports, where the expectation of privacy on the part of passengers is already lowered. See Hall, supra. This is an important distinction because as one author has noted, the large majority of federal court decisions address dog sniffs in the context of luggage or other public areas outside of the defendant's personal residence. Such cases require only a plain application of the dicta in United States v. Place, 462 U.S. 696, 103 S.Ct. 2637, 77 L.Ed.2d 110 (1983). However, when a sniff occurs in the context of an area where there is a heightened expectation of privacy, the Second Circuit, along with many state courts, concludes that such sniffs do constitute searches. See Hall, supra (listing cases). I find the reasoning of these cases to be convincing. In United States v. Thomas, 757 F.2d 1359 (2d Cir.1985), the Second Circuit held that a canine sniff conducted at the threshold of an apartment constituted a search of that apartment under the U.S. Constitution, requiring a warrant based upon probable cause. Specifically, the court held: Here the defendant had a legitimate expectation that the contents of his closed apartment would remain private, that they could not be sensed from outside his door. Use of the trained dog impermissibly intruded on that legitimate expectation. The Supreme Court in Place found only 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. ... Because of [the defendant's] heightened expectation of privacy inside his dwelling, the canine sniff at his door constituted a search. Thomas, 757 F.2d at 1367. Thus, the Thomas court stated: It is one thing to say that a sniff in an airport is not a search, but quite another to say that a sniff can never be a search. The question always to be asked is whether the use of a trained dog intrudes on a legitimate expectation of privacy. Id. at 1366. Other federal circuits have reconciled the holding of Thomas by noting that the issues in the cases they had under consideration did not involve an area such as a dwelling where the expectation of privacy is heightened. I believe this implicitly acknowledges that there may be some instances in which a canine sniff might be considered a search. See, e.g., U.S. v. Stone, 866 F.2d 359 (10th Cir.1989) (distinguishing United States v. Thomas, 757 F.2d 1359 (2d Cir.1985), on basis of heightened expectation of privacy); U.S. v. Whitehead, 849 F.2d 849, 857 (4th Cir.1988) (distinguishing sleeping car on train from dwelling in United States v. Thomas, supra , and stating Place obviously did not sanction the indiscriminate, blanket use of trained dogs in all contexts), abrogated in part on other grounds, Gozlon-Peretz v. United States, 498 U.S. 395, 111 S.Ct. 840, 112 L.Ed.2d 919 (1991); U.S. v. Thomas, 787 F.Supp. 663 (E.D.Tex.1992) (placing dog inside trunk and passenger compartment of vehicle constituted invasion into area where there was expectation of privacy). See, also, Hope Walker Hall, Sniffing Out the Fourth Amendment: United States v. Place Dog SniffsTen Years Later, 46 Maine L.Rev. 151 (1994) (discussing cases). This distinction has been noted by state courts as well. See, State v. Young, 123 Wash.2d 173, 867 P.2d 593 (1994) (noting that private residences were not involved in prior cases where Washington appellate courts approved warrantless dog sniffs); State v. Dearman, 92 Wash.App. 630, 962 P.2d 850 (1998) (dog sniff of garage of private residence required warrant based on probable cause). Although a canine sniff for narcotics may be less intrusive in relation to other investigatory methods and will disclose only the presence or absence of narcotics, it remains a way of detecting the contents of a private, enclosed space. Through the use of a dog, officers are able to obtain information about what is contained within a dwelling that they could not obtain utilizing their own senses. Consequently, the officer's use of a dog is not a mere improvement of their sense of smell, as ordinary eyeglasses improve vision, but is a significant enhancement accomplished by a different, and far superior, sensory instrument. Thomas, 757 F.2d at 1367. See, also, Dearman, 92 Wash.App. at 636, 962 P.2d at 853 (using a narcotics dog goes beyond merely enhancing natural human senses and, in effect, allows officers to `see through the walls of the home'); State v. Pellicci, 133 N.H. 523, 580 A.2d 710 (1990) (canine sniff of vehicle is search because dog discerned something not otherwise apparent to officers through their own senses). The majority in the instant case never addresses whether they consider the canine sniff conducted at the threshold of Ortiz' apartment to be a search. Rather, the majority states that Ortiz had some expectation of privacy in the hallway and applies a reasonable suspicion standard to determine whether the sniff was reasonable. I disagree with this reasoning. As illustrated by United States v. Thomas, 757 F.2d 1359 (2d Cir.1985), Dearman, supra, and others, the dog in the instant case was not used to locate contraband in the hallway. Rather, it was used to determine whether there was contraband inside Ortiz' apartment. As the second part of this concurrence illustrates, the location of the dog in attempting to determine the contents of the apartment may be a consideration when determining whether the search was reasonable, but it does not change the fact that the officers used the canine to locate something inside a private dwelling. Thus, it is Ortiz' expectation of privacy in his apartment that is at issue. Under the facts of the instant case, I agree with the reasoning of Thomas and other authorities that a canine sniff at the threshold of an apartment constitutes a search of that apartment, thus involving the Fourth Amendment. Accordingly, I would hold that the canine sniff in the instant case constituted a search.