Court Opinion

ID: 9634851
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 13:26:09.422715+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:44:05.201049
License: Public Domain

McDERMOTT, Justice,
concurring.
I join only in the result.
The detection of an odor and the tapping of a public telephone are emphatically different things. One is a direct police action designed to invade the privacy one can expect *472from the line for which they have paid. On the other hand if one cannot contain the odor of their business from seeping into the public domain they have betrayed their secret. If the odor proves the nature of the substance, and that substance is illegal contraband there is probable cause for a warrant. If the smeller, whether it is an experienced man, machine, trained dog, pig, or canary, can say upon training or experience that such an odor emanates from an illegal substance the warrant should issue. The other considerations are entertaining concepts for a world where people cannot die from what they smell.