Court Opinion

ID: 9691910
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 15:24:39.723443+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:19:28.131011
License: Public Domain

GREENE, Judge,
dissenting, in which BELL, C.J., joins:
The majority holds that a canine sniff, conducted to detect the presence of drugs, of the exterior of an apartment from a common area is not a search within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment. One implication of this holding is that a canine sniff can never constitute a search provided that the handler and the dog are situated in a place they have a right to be. In addition, if the detection of drugs by use of a canine does not constitute a search, then another implication of this holding is *513that whenever police utilize this technique, they are free to act without the restraint of probable cause or reasonable suspicion. A far reaching consequence of today’s holding is that those who reside in apartment buildings with gated or secured entrances will be afforded greater protections under the law than those who reside in apartment buildings that are left unsecured or open to the public. Moreover, this decision may indeed constitute a logical extension of the rationale of Place and Jacobsen, resulting, however, in random canine searches in targeted neighborhoods. See United States v. Roby, 122 F.3d 1120, 1127 (8th Cir.1997) (Heaney, J., dissenting) (“I do not believe that the Fourth Amendment protects only those persons who can afford to live in a single-family residence with no surrounding common space”). Because of these and other concerns, I respectfully dissent.
The search of a home or person should be given the greatest level of protection:
The Fourth Amendment protects the individual’s privacy in a variety of settings. In none is the zone of privacy more clearly defined than when bounded by the unambiguous physical dimensions of an individual’s home — a zone that finds its roots in clear and specific constitutional terms: “The right of the people to be secure in their ... houses ... shall not be violated.” That language unequivocally establishes the proposition that “[a]t 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.” The Fourth Amendment has drawn a firm line at the entrance to the house. Absent exigent circumstances, that threshold may not reasonably be crossed without a warrant.
Nebraska v. Ortiz, 257 Neb. 784, 600 N.W.2d 805, 828 (1999) (Connolly, J., concurring). (Internal citations omitted.)
The protection of the home from unreasonable searches and seizures is a core value of the Fourth Amendment. Payton v. New York, 445 U.S. 573, 100 S.Ct. 1371, 63 L.Ed.2d 639 (1980). Thus, I disagree with the majority’s conclusion that a canine *514sniff is not a search.1 For example, in New Hampshire v. Pellicci 138 N.H. 528, 580 A.2d 710, 716 (1990), the court stated:
Employing a trained canine to sniff a person’s private vehicle in order to determine whether controlled substances are concealed inside is certainly a search.... The drug detection dog discerned something not otherwise apparent to the officers through their own senses, aided or unaided, and advised them of what the dog had discovered by means the officers could perceive. The very purpose of bringing the dog to the vehicle was to have it detect any contraband that might be hidden inside. The sniff, in short, was a prying by officers into the contents of Pellicci’s possessions, which, concealed as they were from public view, could not have been evident to the officers before the prying began.
See also 1 William R. LaFave, Search and Seizure, § 2.2(f), at 366 n. 189, 367 n. 202 (2d ed. 1987). The reach of the Fourth Amendment cannot turn upon the presence or the absence of a physical intrusion into any given enclosure. Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 353, 88 S.Ct. 507, 512, 19 L.Ed.2d 576, 583 (1967) (holding that the government’s eavesdropping activities violated petitioners reasonable expectation of privacy and constituted a search within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment).
Here, the canine sniff at the threshold to apartment A, like the canine sniff in Pellicci was a search. The search was conducted on less than probable cause. When police inten*515tionally use an investigative technique, in this case a dog, to detect the presence of drugs by directing the dog to a residence or person, that action constitutes a search. I cannot ignore the fact that the police went to that location to detect evidence of criminal activity. In my view, the police should not have brought the dog to the apartment complex without probable cause and a search warrant. For me, the Fourth Amendment draws the line at the entrance to the residence. Absent exigent circumstances, the police may not reasonably cross the threshold without a warrant. The canine sniff at the door of Fitzgerald’s apartment was not a detection of something in the hallway, but rather was a detection of something inside Fitzgerald’s apartment — a private dwelling. In other words, it was not a search of the hallway — an area of limited expectation of privacy. But rather, it was a search specifically aimed at the contents inside Fitzgerald’s apartment — an area of greater expectation of privacy. Thus, it is Fitzgerald’s reasonable expectation of privacy in his apartment that is at issue.
The majority focuses on the scope and nature of the “sniff’ or “test” rather than the location in determining whether a legitimate privacy interest exits. See maj. op. at 494. The majority concludes that the only locational or circumstantial determination relevant to the inquiry is whether the dog was permitted outside the object sniffed. Id. I would have no quarrel with this analysis if the scope and nature of the “search” was an object, i.e., an automobile, piece of luggage, or the like used in transit. My disagreement with the majority holding is that a random scanning of residences or people for the detection of contraband will lead to no protections for those who cannot afford to live in residences with no surrounding common space and subject them to selective law enforcement.
History teaches us that a free society cannot remain free if police are permitted to use drug detection dogs or any other crime detection device without restraint. General public opinion, I believe, supports the notion of sanctity of the home. In addition, the United States Supreme Court has recognized a *516traditional expectation of privacy within a dwelling place. United States v. Knotts, 460 U.S. 276, 282, 103 S.Ct. 1081, 1085, 75 L.Ed.2d 55, 62 (1983). Therefore, there should be at least a reasonable restraint on government surveillance, to the extent that even an investigative technique which can discover only contraband is not permissible if conducted at random. The majority today opens the door to wholesale random drug detection by police officers in apartment complexes, motels, offices, shopping centers, parking lots, and other places where people gather, provided the search is conducted from a place the police have a right launch their operation.
The majority here and other federal and state courts have criticized the holding in United States v. Thomas, 757 F.2d 1359 (2nd Cir.1985). Thomas holds that using a canine sniff to discover narcotics within a particular apartment is a search because it is an intrusion upon a person’s “heightened expectation of privacy inside the dwelling.” The Thomas court explained:
Although using a dog sniff for narcotics may be discriminating and unoffensive relative to other detection methods, and will disclose only the presence or absence of narcotics, it remains a way of detecting the contents of a private, enclosed space. With a trained dog police may obtain information about what is inside a dwelling that they could not derive from the use of their own senses. Consequently, the officers’ 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 (internal citation omitted).
Consistent with most courts who challenge the reasoning of Thomas, the majority joins the chorus on the grounds that any assertion of heightened expectations runs contrary to the lessons of Place and Jacobsen, that possession of contraband has no legitimate expectation that its presence will not be revealed. See United States v. Colyer, 878 F.2d 469 (D.C.Cir. 1989). It is because of the core protections of the Fourth *517Amendment, and the historical context of its development, that I focus upon the heightened expectation of the privacy in the dwelling and in the person. Therefore, I believe the U.S. Constitution mandates probable cause as a basis for that intrusion.
Moreover, the rationale of Place assumes that the dog sniff is accurate and that the privacy interests of those involved will not be compromised. Professor La Fave points out that mistakes made by the dog and handler “can — and more than rarely do — result in a false positive identification of drugs.”2 1 Wayne R. LaFave, Search and Seizure, § 2.2, at 107, n. 140.46, 2004 pocket part (3d ed. 1996). See Robert C. Bird, An Examination of the Training and Reliability of the Narcotics Detection Dog, 85 Ky. L.J. 405 (1996). Mistakes can intrude significantly on one’s legitimate expectations of privacy. One court has found that the reason dogs may alert falsely is because of the high percentage of cash that contains sufficient quantities of cocaine to trigger a response in a dog. United States v. Six Hundred Thirty-Nine Thousand Five Hundred and Fifty-Eight Dollars ($639,558) in U.S. Currency, 955 F.2d 712, 714 n. 2 (D.C.Cir.1992) (pointing out that experts have concluded that anywhere from seventy to ninety-nine percent of all currency in the United States is contaminated by detectable amounts of cocaine).
Second, if the majority is correct and a dog sniff is not a search, then that decision grants the police virtually absolute discretion in who and what they target. Members of minority *518groups, those who reside in less desirable or the least affluent neighborhoods, particularly, may be at risk that such surveillance techniques will be directed against them. Now officers will have absolute discretion to randomly walk dogs down any street, approach any person in the hallways of buildings, and sniff any exterior of a dwelling provided the officer conducts the scan from a common area. A free society cannot remain free if police may use drug detection dogs or any other crime detection device without restraint. The Fourth Amendment should be the restraint. Therefore, in my view, the use of a canine to scan the outside of a dwelling, even from a place the police have a right to be, is presumptively unreasonable without a warrant.
Furthermore, as the majority points out, some states have decided not to follow or extend Place and Jacobsen when interpreting their own state constitutions and have concluded that a dog sniff can be a search. See maj. op. n. 14 at 511. Moreover, 46 states now recognize a state constitutional exclusionary rule. Some states apply a reasonable suspicion standard and others apply a probable cause standard. See New York v. Dunn, 77 N.Y.2d 19, 563 N.Y.S.2d 388, 564 N.E.2d 1054, 1058 (1990) (“To hold [that a canine sniff is not a search], we believe would raise the specter of the police roaming indiscriminately through the corridors of public housing projects with trained dogs in search of drugs”); Pennsylvania v. Johnston, 515 Pa. 454, 530 A.2d 74, 79 (1987) (“[I]t is our view that a free society will not remain free if police may use this, or any other crime detection device, at random and without reason.”).
Here, because the majority concludes that the police had reasonable suspicion to conduct a canine sniff at Fitzgerald’s door, it ultimately concludes that we need not decide the state constitutional question. In order to provide Maryland residents with greater protection against random canine sniffing searches, I believe we should reach the state constitutional question and declare canine sniffs of dwellings conducted on less than probable cause presumptively unreasonable. In addition, Maryland should adopt its own exclusionary rule.
*519Unlike the majority, I find persuasive the proposition that “the warrantless canine search of an apartment based on reasonable suspicion is illogical and improper.” Ortiz at 830:
Justifications stated by the court in Com. v. Johnston, 515 Pa. 454, 530 A.2d 74 (1987), and most others for the adoption of a reasonable suspicion standard are (1) in cases involving searches of public places or items such as luggage that are in transit, there is a diminished expectation of privacy in those items; (2) the concern that the utility of drug-detecting dogs will be lost if warrant procedures are required; and (3) the nature of the search is not intrusive, i.e., it does not require the opening of the object or the entrance to the place being searched and can only detect contraband.
Even the intermediate appellate court concluded that, “[tjhere is no such half-way thing as a quasi-search of a residence requiring some lesser or intermediate justification.” If the canine sniff is a search, the Fourth Amendment applies requiring a warrant based on probable cause. If is it not a search, the Fourth Amendment is inapplicable. Fitzgerald v. State, 153 Md.App. 601, 690, 837 A.2d 989, 1039 (2003). The proper standard, absent exigent circumstances, is a warrant supported by probable cause.
Here, because the drug detection activity infringes upon an individual’s reasonable expectation of privacy in the home, that activity is ipso facto a search. The majority, however, is unable to reach that conclusion, primarily because of its reliance on the position that there is no reasonable expectation of privacy in contraband. I submit the Court should look beyond the substance at hand and focus on the core values embodied in the Fourth Amendment This case involves core Fourth Amendment protections: the right of the people to be secure in their homes from unreasonable governmental intrusion. If the majority feels constrained to find Fourth Amendment coverage in cases involving a canine sniff, the Court may find coverage under Article 26.
*520This case presents this Court with the opportunity to break with the tradition of reading Article 26 of the Maryland Declaration of Rights in pari materia with the Fourth Amendment. We should interpret Article 26, in such a fashion, so as to afford citizens greater protections than those as interpreted under the Fourth Amendment. There is, and should be, a heightened expectation of privacy in a dwelling. Second, there should be a lower expectation of privacy in luggage and other inanimate objects. Third, police do not lose the utility of drug detection dogs by requiring a warrant prior to the canine sniff of a dwelling. Finally, even though a canine sniff is less intrusive than opening doors or windows, the use of this technique, absent probable cause, dilutes the core protections embodied in the Fourth Amendment and Article 26 of the Maryland Declaration of Rights.
Chief Judge BELL has authorized me to state that he joins in this dissenting opinion.

. In reaching this conclusion, the majority holds that Karo and Kyllo are irrelevant to the dog sniff doctrine. Specifically, Kyllo, the majority asserts, is a discussion about the need to limit the advancing technology and that dog sniffs do not fall into the category of technology. Other courts, however, have concluded that Kyllo has diminished the rationale for the proposition that dog sniffs are not searches. See, e.g., Colorado v. Haley, 41 P.3d 666, 671 n. 2 (Colo.2001). In other words, the reason the rationale is no longer sound is because the Court in Kyllo concluded that the use of a thermal imaging device on a home constituted a search even though it only detected heat radiating from the home. See Kyllo v. United States, 533 U.S. 27, 35, 121 S.Ct. 2038, 2043-44, 150 L.Ed.2d 94, 102-103 (2001).

. Professor LaFave points to the case of Doe v. Renfrow, 475 F.Supp. 1012 (N.D.Ind.1979), aff'd. in part, 631 F.2d 91 (7th Cir.1980) to illustrate his point that drug dogs do not always accurately disclose the presence or absence of narcotics. In Renfrow, a dog alerled on a 13-year-old student during a school-wide “sniff" of other students. The dog continued to alert even though the student emptied her pockets. This led to a body search where the student was required to remove all her clothing. No drugs were found, “but it was later discovered that the student had been playing that morning with her dog, who was in heat.” 1 Wayne R. LaFave, Search and Seizure (3d ed. 1996), § 2.2(f), p. 455.
In the present case it was raised on appeal, but not developed at trial, that the dog in this case was trained also to alert on Valium.