Court Opinion

ID: 9754899
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 20:17:49.92939+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:28:00.519049
License: Public Domain

Justice HOBBS,
dissenting:
¶ 1 I respectfully dissent. Our doctrine of stare decisis compels us to "apply prior prece-edent unless we are clearly convineed that (1) the rule was originally erroneous or is no longer sound due to changing conditions and (2) more good than harm will come from departing from precedent." Friedland v. Travelers Indem. Co., 105 P.3d 639, 644 (Colo.2005). This doctrine reflects a centuries-old understanding that it is valuable to society to have stability in the law. So when considering whether to overturn precedent, it is our role not only to consider whether we were wrong in the earlier case, but whether destabilizing the law is worth it. In my view, the Majority today overturns our precedent without adequate explanation.
12 Our precedent could not be clearer: "under the Colorado Constitution, we conclude that a dog sniff search of a person's automobile in connection with a traffic stop that is prolonged beyond its purpose to conduct a drug investigation intrudes upon a reasonable expectation of privacy and constitutes a search and seizure requiring reasonable suspicion of criminal activity." People v. Haley, 41 P.3d 666, 672 (Colo.2001). Although we have acknowledged that the United States Supreme Court has interpreted the federal Fourth Amendment differently, id. at 678, we have explained that article II, section 7 of the Colorado Constitution affords broader protection in the area of dog sniff searches. Id. at 671, 673. Recognizing that it is our duty to interpret the Colorado Constitution independently of the U.S. Constitution, we interpreted our state's founding document to establish a different "balance between governmental and individual interests," a balance "best struck by requiring reasonable suspicion as a prerequisite to the dog sniff search." Id. at 673 (citing People v. Unruh, 713 P.2d 370, 379 (Colo.1986)).
¶ 3 The Majority distinguishes the present case from Haley on the basis that the decision in Haley depended on the sniff search occurring after "an unlawfully prolonged detention of the defendant's vehicle." Maj. op. 579. The language to which the Majority cites, without quoting, is this:
We now hold that our precedent of requiring reasonable suspicion for a dog sniff search, in combination with our precedent requiring reasonable suspicion to prolong a traffic stop after its original purpose has been accomplished, applies to this case.
Haley, 41 P.3d at 672 n. 4 (emphasis added). However, we made clear in Haley our analysis applied to any traffic stop "prolonged beyond its purpose to conduct a drug investigation." Id. at 672. Shoehorning a sniff search into a lawful traffic stop, without reasonable suspicion to conduct the sniff search, was precisely what caused the traffic stop in Haley to become-as we held-unlawful. In the case now before us, the Majority's only attempt at a factual distinction from Haley is its statement that "there is no suggestion that the defendant's truck was unlawfully stopped or detained." Maj. op. ¶ 10. But here, as in Haley, while the police officers had justification for stopping the vehicle and detaining it, they had no reasonable suspicion to conduct a sniff search. There is no meaningful distinction between the facts of these two cases.
¶ 4 Hedging on its ability to distinguish Haley, the Majority admits that its opinion requires it "to narrow our own pronouncements concerning the use of trained narcotics detection dogs." Id. The Majority does not dispute that these "pronouncements" in a string of our cases were holdings of this *372court. Overturning them requires a stare decisis analysis that the Majority neglects.1
15 Not only the principle of stare decisis, but the substance of the law, leads me to conclude here that Haley squarely applies. The Colorado Constitution, in affording more expansive protections to citizens than the U.S. Constitution, prohibits a sniff search without reasonable suspicion. In Haley, we held the defendants had "a privacy interest in their persons and vehicle being free from unreasonable governmental intrusion" including a traffic-stop sniff search. Haley, 41 P.3d at 674. The more protective ambit of our Colorado Constitution should remain in place. The Majority simply defaults to a result-oriented conclusion that there is no "privacy interest in the possession of contraband." Maj. op. 578. Nor is there any privacy interest, of course, in possession of a murder weapon or stolen goods. It has always been a fallacy to suggest that finding such items justifies a search. This fallacy cannot short-circuit the inquiry into whether the search itself-the object of article II, section 7's protection-for such items is reasonable.
T6 The Majority rejects the possibility "that the alert of a trained narcotics detection dog can indicate anything more than the presence or absence of contraband." Maj. op. 111. This ignores the likelihood of false positives in canine detection. The Chicago Tribune, for example, in a 2011 analysis of Illinois police department data on roadside traffic stops, "found that only 44 percent of those alerts by [drug-sniffing] dogs led to the discovery of drugs or paraphernalia.2 Even more disturbing, "[flor Hispanic drivers, the success rate was just 27 percent."3 This may be because "[!Jeading a dog around a car too many times or spending too long examining a vehicle, for example, can cause a dog to give a signal for drugs where there are none." 4 False positives may also arise because "police agencies are inconsistent about the level of training they require and few states mandate training or certification." 5 So when police use a dog to sniff-search a vehicle, they introduce a likelihood that they will conduct a full search of the vehicle and its occupants without knowing that drugs are present, and without having reasonable suspicion in the first place. One implication of this fact is that the subsequent search by police officers lacks probable cause. Another is that the Majority has mischaracterized the privacy interest of the occupants of the vehicle: it is not merely the "privacy interest in the possession of contraband," but the full privacy interest against search without adequate justification-against "unreasonable searches," in the language of our constitution.
1 7 It is unreasonable to expect a person in this state to be constantly subject to the government using dogs to search their belongings for drugs without the government having any articulable facts raising a reasonable suspicion of the drugs' presence. Here the Majority compromises the liberty and privacy interests of Coloradans.
T8 The U.S. Supreme Court has no power to interpret the Colorado Constitution. We should not reverse our precedent regarding our own constitution every time the U.S. Supreme Court decides a new case. Such an approach disregards the value of our federalist system of government.
Accordingly, I respectfully dissent.
I am authorized to state that Chief Justice BENDER joins in this dissent.
Justice HOBBS dissents, and Chief Justice BENDER joins in the dissent.

. As such, the staying power of the 3. Id. opinion is questionable. A holding dispatching so boldly with the stare decisis doctrine 4. Id. be overturned.

. Dan Hinkel & Joe Mahr, Tribune Analysis: Drug-sniffing Dogs in Traffic Stops Often Wrong, Chicago Tribune, Jan. 6, 2011.

. Id.

. Id.

. Id.