Court Opinion

ID: 9742314
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 21:10:38.841957+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:30.913984
License: Public Domain

PAGE, Justice
(dissenting).
I respectfully dissent. The court concludes that only a reasonable articulable suspicion was necessary before police used a canine to detect the odor of narcotics coming from Davis’s apartment. Because I conclude that the dog sniff was a search of Davis’s apartment, not the hallway outside of the apartment, I would require that police have probable cause, rather than merely reasonable suspicion, to conduct the dog sniff. I would therefore exclude the results of the dog sniff as a basis for the warrant used to enter Davis’s apartment. Without the results of the dog sniff, police lacked probable cause to obtain the warrant to enter Davis’s apartment. I would therefore reverse the court of appeals and remand to the district court with instructions to suppress the evidence discovered when police entered the apartment.
Davis argues that the use of the dog constituted a search. I agree. A search occurs whenever government agents intrude upon an area where a person has a reasonable expectation of privacy. California v. Ciraolo, 476 U.S. 207, 211, 106 S.Ct. 1809, 90 L.Ed.2d 210 (1986) (citing Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 360, 88 S.Ct. 507, 19 L.Ed.2d 576 (1967) (Harlan, J., concurring)). Whether the dog sniff was a search therefore requires us to determine what it was that the dog sniffed: if it was an area in which Davis had a reasonable expectation of privacy, then it was indeed a search.
Davis argues that the dog sniff was a search of the inside of his apartment. In contrast, the state characterizes the dog as sniffing merely the “apartment hallway” or “the door of the apartment unit” or “the threshold of [Davis’s] apartment,” and emphasizes that the dog “is not smelling inside the apartment itself.” The Supreme Court, first in Katz, and again in Kyllo v. United States, 533 U.S. 27, 121 S.Ct. 2038, 150 L.Ed.2d 94 (2001), has made it clear *185that the definition of a “search” does not depend on such a “mechanical interpretation of the Fourth Amendment.” Kyllo, 533 U.S. at 35, 121 S.Ct. 2038. In Katz, the government argued that the electronic listening device it had placed on the outside of a public telephone booth did not constitute a warrantless search because it “involved no physical penetration of the telephone booth.” 389 U.S. at 352, 88 S.Ct. 507. The Court dismissed the government’s argument with the observation that “the reach of [the Fourth] Amendment cannot turn upon the presence or absence of a physical intrusion into any given enclosure.” Id. at 353, 88 S.Ct. 507. Similarly, in Kyllo the Court dismissed the government’s argument that its use of thermal imaging did not constitute a search because it detected “only heat radiating from the external surface of the house.” 533 U.S. at 35, 121 S.Ct. 2038 (internal quotation marks omitted). To the contrary, the Court noted, the thermal imager used in Kyllo “reveals the relative heat of various rooms in the house,” and “there is no basis for saying it is not information regarding the interior of the home.” Id. at 35 n. 2, 121 S.Ct. 2038. And, the Court announced that the definition of a “search” under the Fourth Amendment therefore included “obtaining by sense-enhancing technology any information regarding the interior of the home that could not otherwise have been obtained without physical ‘intrusion into a constitutionally protected area,’ ” at least where the technology in question is not in general public use. Kyllo, 533 U.S. at 34, 121 S.Ct. 2038.
Applying this definition makes clear that the use of the dog in this case was not only a search, it was a search of the interior of Davis’s apartment. Although the state emphasizes that the dog was merely in the apartment hallway, police were not searching for narcotics in the hallway, and had they found any (tucked beneath the carpet, for example), it would have been nothing more than a happy accident. Rather, the police were there to search for evidence of drugs in the apartments themselves, and particularly in Davis’s apartment. And, because there was no odor of narcotics emanating from Davis’s apartment that officers could themselves detect, they were doing so using “sense-enhancing technology * * * not in general public use,” namely, a specially trained narcotics-sniffing dog. Kyllo, 533 U.S. at 34, 121 S.Ct. 2038. We should acknowledge that fact here, just as we (and I) should have acknowledged in Carter that police were using a dog sniff to search for evidence of drugs in the storage unit itself. State v. Carter, 697 N.W.2d 199, 208-09 (Minn.2005) (describing the dog sniff as “outside of a storage unit”); id. at 212 (Page, J., concurring specially (describing the dog sniff as “outside a storage unit”)).
Because I conclude that this was a search for evidence of narcotics inside Davis’s residence, I also conclude, consistent with the positions I took in Wiegand and in Carter, that probable cause was required. State v. Wiegand, 645 N.W.2d 125, 139 (Minn.2002) (Page, J., concurring and concurring specially); Carter, 697 N.W.2d at 212 (Page, J., concurring specially). The Fourth Amendment and Article I, Section 10, of the Minnesota Constitution provide that “[t]he right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated.” U.S. Const, amend. 4; Minn. Const, art. I § 10. This was not a search of a car during a routine traffic stop, or luggage given to airport baggage handlers. It was a search of a private residence, in which the resident rightfully has the highest expectation of privacy. As the Supreme Court observed in Kyllo,
*186the Fourth Amendment draws “a firm line at the entrance to the house.” That line, we think, must be not only firm but also bright- — -which requires clear specification of those methods of surveillance that require a warrant. * * * Where, as here, the Government uses a device that is not in general public use, to explore details of the home that would previously have been unknowable without physical intrusion, the surveillance is a “search” and is presumptively unreasonable without a warrant.
533 U.S. at 40, 121 S.Ct. 2038 (citation omitted).
The court agrees that the use of the dog constituted a search, but sidesteps the issue of what the dog was searching by describing the search in innocuous terms: “the use of the narcotics-detection dog in the common hallway of an apartment building.” The court having agreed that the use of the dog constituted a warrant-less search, one might reasonably expect the court to then ask whether this search fell within one of the recognized exceptions to the requirement that a search be conducted under the authority of a warrant supported by probable cause, such as a search incident to arrest, or “hot pursuit,” or even consent. But instead the court applies a balancing test to determine whether the use of the dog was an unreasonable intrusion into Davis’s privacy.1 I believe the court’s application of a balancing test in these circumstances is also error.
The balancing test the court applies — a comparison between Davis’s privacy expectations and the degree of intrusiveness of the search — has its roots in the Supreme Court’s decision in Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968). In Terry, the Court recognized “a narrowly drawn authority to permit a reasonable search for weapons for the protection of the police officer, where he has reason to believe that he is dealing with an armed and dangerous individual, regardless of whether he has probable cause to arrest the individual for a crime.” Id. at 27, 88 S.Ct. 1868. The Court did so by weighing “the nature and extent of the governmental interests involved,” id. at 22, 88 S.Ct. 1868, against “the nature and quality of the intrusion on individual rights which must be accepted if police officers are to be conceded the right to search for weapons in situations where probable cause to arrest for crime is lacking.” Id. at 24, 88 S.Ct. 1868.
But, and this is the critical point, in Teiry the Supreme Court applied this balancing test only after acknowledging that, under the circumstances present in Terry, the Warrant Clause of the Fourth Amendment did not apply. The Court emphasized:
If this case involved police conduct subject to the Warrant Clause of the Fourth Amendment, we would have to ascertain whether “probable cause” existed to justify the search and seizure which took place. However, that is not the case. We do not retreat from our holdings that the police must, whenever practicable, obtain advance judicial approval of searches and seizures through the warrant procedure, or that in most instances failure to comply with the warrant requirement can only be excused by *187exigent circumstances. But we deal here with an entire rubric of police conduct— necessarily swift action predicated upon the on-the-spot observations of the officer on the beat — which historically has not been, and as a practical matter could not be, subjected to the warrant procedure. Instead, the conduct involved in this case must be tested by the Fourth Amendment’s general proscription against unreasonable searches and seizures.
Terry, 392 U.S. at 20, 88 S.Ct. 1868 (citations omitted). That is, the Terry balancing test is to be applied only in a circumstance that “historically has not been, and as a practical matter could not be, subjected to the warrant procedure.” Id.
Terry, in turn, provided the basis for the Supreme Court’s conclusion in United States v. Place that authorities could briefly seize a traveler’s luggage, based only upon a reasonable, articulable suspicion of wrongdoing. 462 U.S. 696, 702, 103 S.Ct. 2637, 77 L.Ed.2d 110 (1983). The Court’s opinion in Place does not explicitly discuss why the detention of Place’s luggage was analyzed under the general reasonableness clause of the Fourth Amendment, rather than the Warrant Clause; indeed, Justice William Brennan’s concurrence questioned the use of the balancing test at all. Id. at 718, 103 S.Ct. 2637 (Brennan, J., concurring). But one could imagine that a search of a traveler’s luggage “as a practical matter could not be” subjected to the warrant requirement, Terry, 392 U.S. at 20, 88 S.Ct. 1868, particularly as world events have unfolded since Place was decided.
We, in turn, applied the Terry balancing test when we concluded in Carter that police needed nothing more than a reasonable, articulable suspicion of wrongdoing in order to conduct a search by dog sniff of the outside of a storage unit. 697 N.W.2d at 211. But, unfortunately, we failed to consider the threshold question required before applying the Terry balancing test, namely, whether the circumstances presented in Carter required “necessarily swift” actions, “which historically has not been, and as a practical matter could not be, subjected to the warrant procedure.” It is clear they did not. Carter was a dog-sniff search of a rented storage unit, which police had kept under surveillance for some four weeks. 697 N.W.2d at 203. Nothing precluded the police from obtaining a warrant to use a dog to search Carter’s rented storage unit for narcotics except a lack of probable cause.
In applying the Terry balancing test in Carter, we also followed the lead of the Alaska Court of Appeals and the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, which have adopted the standard of reasonable, articulable suspicion to dog sniffs. 697 N.W.2d at 211 (citing McGahan v. State, 807 P.2d 506, 510-11 (Alaska Ct.App.1991), and Commonwealth v. Johnston, 515 Pa. 454, 530 A.2d 74, 79 (1987)). The Alaska and Pennsylvania courts both concluded, as we did, that the dog sniff constituted a search. McGahan, 807 P.2d at 509; Johnston, 530 A.2d at 79 (dog sniff constituted a search under state law). And each employed the Terry balancing test to support the use of the dog sniff in the absence of a warrant or probable cause. McGahan, 807 P.2d at 510; Johnston, 530 A.2d at 79-80. The Pennsylvania court justified its use of the Terry balancing test on the following considerations:
[A] canine sniff-search is inherently less intrusive upon an individuars privacy than other searches such as wiretapping or rummaging through one’s luggage; it is unlikely to intrude except marginally upon innocent persons; and an individual’s interest in being free from police harassment, annoyance, inconvenience and humiliation is reasonably certain of *188protection if police must have a reason before they may, in the circumstances of this case, utilize a narcotics detection dog.
Johnston, 530 A.2d at 79-80. Similarly, the Alaska court cites “minimally intrusive” searches and seizures as “an exception to the warrant requirement.” McGahan, 807 P.2d at 510 (citing Hayes v. State, 785 P.2d 33, 37 (Alaska Ct.App.1990)).
But the Supreme Court has refused to recognize “minimally intrusive” searches, at least in criminal cases, as an exception to the warrant requirement. In Arizona v. Hicks, 480 U.S. 321, 107 S.Ct. 1149, 94 L.Ed.2d 347 (1987), the Court held that moving stereo equipment to note its serial numbers constituted a “search” that, in the absence of a warrant, was illegal. Id. at 324, 326, 107 S.Ct. 1149. As the Court observed, “A search is a search, even if it happens to disclose nothing but the bottom of a turntable.” Id. at 325, 107 S.Ct. 1149. And, as the Court observed in Katz, in the absence of the procedural safeguards inherent in the warrant application process, “this Court has never sustained a search upon the sole ground that officers reasonably expected to find evidence of a particular crime and voluntarily confined their activities to the least intrusive means consistent with that end.” 389 U.S. at 356-57, 88 S.Ct. 507.
Moreover, the Supreme Court’s discussion of dog sniffs in Place raises serious doubt that the Court would approve of our reasonable, articulable suspicion standard for dog sniffs of a private residence. After all, the Court’s observations about dog sniffs in Place were predicated on the Court’s view that a dog sniff is not a search at all:
The purpose for which respondent’s luggage was seized, of course, was to arrange its exposure to a narcotics detection dog. Obviously, if this investigative procedure is itself a search requiring probable cause, the initial seizure of respondent’s luggage for the purpose of subjecting it to the sniff test — no matter how brief — could not be justified on less than probable cause.
⅜ ⅝ ⅜ ⅝
In these respects, the canine sniff is sui generis. We are aware of no other investigative procedure that is so limited both in the manner in which the information is obtained and in the content of the information revealed by the procedure. Therefore, we conclude that the particular course of investigation that the agents intended to pursue here— 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.
462 U.S. at 706-07, 103 S.Ct. 2637 (citations omitted). See also City of Indianapolis v. Edmond, 531 U.S. 32, 40, 121 S.Ct. 447, 148 L.Ed.2d 333 (2000) (“The fact that officers walk a narcotics-detection dog around the exterior of each car at the Indianapolis checkpoints does not transform the seizure into a search.”).
Nor should we continue to blithely assume that dog sniffs are “minimally intrusive” in the sense we described in Carter: an investigative technique that discloses only the presence or absence of narcotics. 697 N.W.2d at 207. As Justice David Souter observed in his dissent in Illinois v. Caballes, the “infallible dog” is “a creature of legal fiction.” 543 U.S. 405, 411, 125 S.Ct. 834, 160 L.Ed.2d 842 (2005) (Souter, J., dissenting). In reality, even a “reliable” dog may alert when no narcotics are present (a false positive) between 7% and 38% of the time. See United States v. Limares, 269 F.3d 794, 797-98 (7th Cir.2001).
*189As a result of all of this, our jurisprudence in this area has become what Justice Harry Blackmun warned of in his dissent in Place: “an emerging tendency on the part of the Court to convert the Terry decision into a general statement that the Fourth Amendment requires only that any seizure be reasonable.” Place, 462 U.S. at 721, 103 S.Ct. 2637 (Blackmun, J., dissenting). To the contrary, Justice Blackmun continued:
While the Fourth Amendment speaks in terms of freedom from unreasonable seizures, the Amendment does not leave the reasonableness of most seizures to the judgment of courts or government officers: the Framers of the Amendment balanced the interests involved and decided that a seizure is reasonable only if supported by a judicial warrant based on probable cause.
Id. at 722, 103 S.Ct. 2637. We were wrong to apply the Terry balancing test to the search in Carter, and the court is wrong to apply a balancing test in this case as well.
This case marks a significant departure from our constitutional jurisprudence because it is the first time the court has authorized the search of a private residence based on anything less than probable cause in the absence of exigent circumstances. It is a departure that takes us down a road that erodes Fourth Amendment protections in one’s home. That is a road I am unwilling to go down.
I respectfully dissent.

. As part of its justification for a lesser standard, the court notes with approval the argument that to require probable cause and a warrant before using a narcotics-detection dog would significantly reduce the "law enforcement utility" of such animals. It is obvious to me that a dog able to reliably detect the presence of narcotics could be invaluable, once police are properly inside a residence under the authority of a warrant, in narrowing the scope of the search.