Court Opinion

ID: 9845802
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 03:28:34.197993+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:16:22.216044
License: Public Domain

Justice MULLARKEY
concurring in the judgment:
The framework for analyzing this case was developed in People v. Unruh, 713 P.2d 370 (Colo.1986). In Unruh, we recognized that a dog sniff could be a search if “it was an intrusion into something that the individual reasonably expected to be private.” Id. at 377. Because a dog sniff is a minimally intrusive search, however, we held that a showing of reasonable suspicion rather than probable cause was required prior to a warrantless search by dog sniff. Id. at 379. In adopting the “reasonable suspicion” test, we followed Justice Blackmun’s concurrence in United States v. Place, 462 U.S. 696, 723, 103 S.Ct. 2637, 2653, 77 L.Ed.2d 110 (1983) (Blackmun, J., concurring in judgment). Unruh is consistent with other decisions applying the “reasonable suspicion” test to a search done by a dog sniff. See, e.g., United States v. Colyer, 878 F.2d 469, 479 (D.C. Cir.1989) (alternate holding); United States v. Whitehead, 849 F.2d 849, 858 (4th *988Cir.1988); Horton v. Goose Creek Independent School District, 690 F.2d 470, 479 (per curiam) (5th Cir.1982).
Applying TJnruh to the facts of the case now before us, I would conclude that the defendant had a reasonable expectation of privacy in the storage locker, but that the police had a reasonable suspicion justifying a warrantless dog sniff search of the locker. The configuration of the storage locker facility is not entirely clear from the record, however it does not seem that the passageway can be characterized as a public place. The storage facility was surrounded by a fence and access to the storage lockers was limited by the facility owner. In order to gain entry, visitors were required to pass through the gate, enter the office, and sign in on a log sheet. The defendant’s locker was garage-sized with an overhead sliding door of approximately ten feet by twelve feet. The locker space was secured with a padlock to which the defendant had the only key. The owner did not retain a key to the locker. Under the facts, the defendant had a reasonable expectation of privacy.
I also would hold that the police had reasonable suspicion prior to conducting the dog sniff of the defendant’s storage locker. In Unruh, we held that the dog sniff was a minimally intrusive search justifiable on reasonable suspicion based on the principles from Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968). In order to conduct a warrantless sniff search, then, “the police officer must be able to point to specific and articulable facts which, taken together with rational inferences from those facts, reasonably warrant that intrusion.” Id. at 21, 88 S.Ct. at 1880. “Reasonable suspicion” must be given a practical, common sense construction. As this court has recognized, officers are not required to weigh precisely their observations since they do not carry out their duties in an analytical vacuum. People v. Casias, 563 P.2d 926, 932 (Colo.1977).
Justice Yollack’s opinion recounts extensive surveillance done by the police in which the defendant was in constant contact with a person identified by the federal Drug Enforcement Administration as a known drug dealer. Whenever that person visited Denver, the two men were always observed together. They visited numerous apartments and houses in the metropolitan area, stopped at a “head shop” and briefly visited the home of the co-lessee of the defendant’s storage locker. In addition, the police had received an independent citizen tip from the owner of the storage locker facility. She told the police that a person, later identified as the defendant, had visited his locker daily for the past five or six days carrying only a back pack and staying for periods of approximately five minutes. He drove three different motorcycles on his visits, but used the same plates which were registered in California under the defendant’s name. The defendant signed in at the office by name, and the physical description given by the owner matched that of the defendant. Based on his prior surveillance of the defendant’s activities with the drug dealer, the defendant’s conduct with respect to the locker, and the fact that the co-lessee of the locker lived at one of the addresses visited by the drug dealer and the defendant, the officer drew the inference that drugs or money were being stored at the locker. In my view, the dog sniff was supported by a reasonable suspicion that illegal drugs were kept in the storage locker.
Accordingly, the “reasonable suspicion” test is met and I concur in the reversal of the trial court’s suppression order.
LOHR and KIRSHBAUM, JJ., join in this concurrence.