Court Opinion

ID: 9789637
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 01:39:28.256926+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:37:23.674746
License: Public Domain

BUTTLER, J.,
specially concurring.
Because the facts of this case do not require that we decide whether the use by police of a dog trained to alert to the scent of contraband is a search under any and all circumstances, I write separately.
In this case, the officers were not out on a fishing expedition to seek out marijuana; the trial court found that they were engaged in a training exercise with “Breaker” at the *687mini-storage facility where they had the owner’s permission. While engaged in the training exercise, “Breaker” unexpectedly alerted to defendant’s storage unit, thereby indicating that it contained contraband. Under those limited and unusual circumstances, I would accept the “plain smell” doctrine, because: (1) the officers were where they had a right to be and were not engaged in a general search or fishing expedition, and the discovery of the scent was inadvertent; and (2) it was accomplished without the use of any technological enhancement. Because dogs with more sensitive olfactory nerves have been used in police work for centuries, I do not consider their use in this instance as a technological enhancement.
On these limited bases, I would affirm the trial court. It is not necessary to go any further in this case, and, in particular, to approve the language quoted from numerous federal cases and other jurisdictions relating to the use of trained dogs to detect contraband. Much of that language is too broad and might be used later to justify the use of electronic equipment in fishing expeditions to detect contraband. There is no reason in this case to rely on or to approve that language.