Opinion ID: 2755606
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Search after Canine Alert

Text: Lastly, Chartier contends that there was no probable cause to search him after Reso alerted to the vehicle and the vehicle search proved fruitless. We conclude that the search was permissible. Under the Fourth Amendment, “a warrantless search of the person is reasonable only if it falls within a recognized exception” to the warrant requirement. Missouri v. McNeely, 133 S. Ct. 1552, 1558 (2013). “Among the exceptions to the warrant requirement is a search incident to a lawful arrest.” Arizona v. Gant, 556 U.S. 332, -7- 338 (2009). Such a search may include a search of the arrestee’s person to remove weapons and seize evidence to prevent its concealment or destruction. Id. at 339 (citing Chimel v. California, 395 U.S. 752, 763 (1969)). Whether the search of Chartier’s person falls within the search-incident-to-arrest exception thus turns on whether there was probable cause for Chartier’s arrest. Probable cause exists at the time of arrest if the totality of the circumstances known to the officers involved is “sufficient to warrant a prudent person’s belief that the suspect had committed or was committing an offense.” United States v. Mendoza, 421 F.3d 663, 667 (8th Cir. 2005) (quoting United States v. Cabrera-Reynoso, 195 F.3d 1029, 1031 (8th Cir. 1999)). A dog sniff by a reliable drug dog that results in an alert on a vehicle gives an officer probable cause to believe there are drugs present. United States v. Donnelly, 475 F.3d 946, 955 (8th Cir. 2007). The only question, then, is whether Reso’s alert on the vehicle was sufficient to establish probable cause that Chartier himself possessed, or had possessed, illegal drugs.3 First, the fact that Reso alerted to the vehicle, coupled with the fact that a thorough search of the vehicle revealed no obvious source of the scent to which he alerted, made it more likely that the scent had come from one of the vehicle’s occupants. See United States v. Anchondo, 156 F.3d 1043, 1045 (10th Cir. 1998) (“Even if the subsequent fruitless search of the car diminished the probability of contraband being in the car, it increased the chances that whatever the dog had alerted to was on the defendants’ bodies.”). The occupants of the Grand Marquis had only recently exited the vehicle. The scent of drugs can be transferred from a person’s body to a vehicle, and a “well-trained drug-detection dog should alert to such odors[.]” Florida v. Harris, 133 S. Ct. 1050, 1059 (2013). Naaktgeboren had already found muriatic acid and airline tubing in the car, as well as a package of needles on Chartier’s person. Furthermore, given that Reso specifically alerted outside the passenger door, where Chartier had been sitting, and that Sivola had already shown 3 Chartier has not challenged Reso’s reliability as a drug-detection canine. -8- Naaktgeboren the contents of her pockets, the totality of the circumstances known to Naaktgeboren was sufficient to warrant a reasonable belief that Chartier possessed or had possessed illegal drugs on his person. Naaktgeboren thus had probable cause to arrest Chartier, rendering his pre-arrest search of Chartier’s person lawful. Chartier argues that it was not until Naaktgeboren found the drugs in his pockets that he was subject to arrest and that the drugs found after the search could not retroactively justify the search. True it is that the fruits of a search incident to arrest that precedes the arrest may not serve as the justification for the arrest. Sibron v. New York, 392 U.S. 40, 63 (1968). Here, however, probable cause for arrest existed even before the search, and since “the formal arrest followed quickly on the heels of the challenged search of [Chartier’s] person, we do not believe it particularly important that the search preceded the arrest rather than vice versa.” Rawlings v. Kentucky, 448 U.S. 98, 111 (1980). Thus the search of Chartier’s person did not violate his constitutional rights.