Court Opinion

ID: 9845801
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 03:28:34.194604+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:16:22.212324
License: Public Domain

Justice ERICKSON
specially concurring:
The issue to be resolved is whether the dog sniff of a public storage locker constitutes a search that violates the fourth amendment of the United States Constitution or Article II, section 7 of the Colorado Constitution. The focus on the right to privacy need not extend to the total factual scenario addressed by the majority. In People v. Unruh, 713 P.2d 370 (Colo.1986), we addressed a bizarre set of facts and by a divided vote upheld the search of a safe that was made after a warrant was obtained following a positive dog sniff of the safe. I joined Justice Rovira in his special concurrence in Unruh because the dog sniff did not, in my opinion, constitute a. search under the facts in that case that would trigger application of either the *987United States or Colorado constitutional principles relating to search and seizure.
The United States Supreme Court squarely addressed the issue in United States v. Place, 462 U.S. 696, 103 S.Ct. 2637, 77 L.Ed.2d 110 (1986). In Place, the Court found that despite the defendant’s reasonable expectation of privacy in luggage he checked with an airline, a dog sniff of that luggage at a public airport was not a search. Id. at 707, 103 S.Ct. at 2644. The Court stated:
We have affirmed that a person possesses a privacy interest in the contents of personal luggage that is protected by the Fourth Amendment. A “canine sniff” by a well-trained narcotics detection dog, however, does not require opening the luggage. It does not expose noncontra-band items that otherwise would remain hidden from public view, as does, for example, an officer’s rummaging through the contents of the luggage.
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Therefore, we conclude that ... 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.
Id. (citations removed). The lesson from Place is clear: a dog sniff is not a search. The only fourth amendment question is whether the police had the right to be where they were when a dog was used to identify narcotics. If the police bring a dog into a suspect’s home without a warrant, it is not the dog sniff that is at issue, but the violation of the defendant’s right to privacy by the illegal entry.
The majority’s analysis of the facts leading up to the dog sniff is unnecessary in this case.1 The sole question is whether the defendant had a legitimate expectation of privacy in the storage locker that would vitiate the search warrant that was based upon the dog sniff. Since the dog sniff was not a search, the only issue is whether the defendant had a legitimate expectation of privacy in the public locker that would prevent the use of a dog to determine whether narcotics were in the locker. In short, did the police have the right to be outside the locker when they used the dog to identify narcotics within the locker? The dog sniffed a locker rented by the defendant in a public storage facility. The' locker was adjacent to a roadway that was accessible to all persons visiting the lockers. The owner of the facility contacted Officer Johnson to report suspicious behavior. The police officer himself had a locker at the facility which gave him the same right to use the roadway that was afforded to others who rented lockers. Johnson testified that the dog merely sniffed the air outside the locker. Under the facts of this case, the police had the right to be outside of the locker and did not violate the defendant’s right of privacy by having a trained dog smell the odors emanating from the locker. Accordingly, I concur that the trial court erred in finding that the defendant’s right of privacy was violated.

. No issue exists regarding probable cause or the totality of the circumstances as set forth in Illinois V. Gates, 462 U.S. 213, 103 S.Ct. 2317, 76 L.Ed.2d 527 (1983).