Court Opinion

ID: 9617792
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 05:01:13.037245+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:04:16.735414
License: Public Domain

Justice YOLLACK
specially concurring in the result only:
I agree with the majority’s conclusion that, based on the facts of this case, the postal inspector had a reasonable suspicion that the Express Mail package contained narcotics. Accordingly, the district court erred in suppressing the package of narcotics found during a dog sniff. I disagree, however, with the court’s conclusion that the dog sniff amounted to a search. Maj. op. at 282.
Consistent with my dissenting opinion in People v. Boylan, 854 P.2d 807 (Colo.1993), I write separately to reiterate my long-standing position that a dog sniff is not a search within the purview of either the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution or Article II, Section 7, of the Colorado Constitution. I continue to believe that the United States Supreme. Court’s decision in United States v. Place, 462 U.S. 696, 103 S.Ct. 2637, 77 L.Ed.2d 110 (1983), and our decision in People v. Wieser, 796 P.2d 982, 985 (Colo.1990), are dispositive on this issue.
The United States Supreme Court has spoken on canine sniffs in United States v. Place, 462 U.S. 696, 103 S.Ct. 2637, 77 L.Ed.2d 110 (1983), where the Court determined that a dog sniff of luggage at an airport for narcotics did not constitute a *284“search” within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The Supreme Court reasoned as follows:
We have affirmed that a person possesses a privacy interest in the contents of personal luggage that is protected by the Fourth Amendment. A “canine sniff’ by a well-trained narcotics detection dog, however, does not require opening the luggage. It does not expose noncontraband items that otherwise would remain hidden from public view, as does, for example, an officer’s rummaging through the contents of the luggage. Thus, the manner in which information is obtained through this investigative technique is much less intrusive than a typical search. Moreover, the sniff discloses only the presence or absence of narcotics, a contraband item. Thus, despite the fact that the sniff tells the authorities something about the contents of the luggage, the information obtained is limited.
Id. at 707, 103 S.Ct. at 2644 (citation omitted).
In my opinion, Place applies regardless of the circumstances surrounding the dog sniff.
In People v. Wieser, 796 P.2d 982, 985 (Colo.1990), we held that a dog sniff for narcotics conducted outside of an individual’s storage locker did not constitute a search under either the United States or the Colorado Constitution.
Under the facts of this case, the dog sniff occurred because the postal inspector had a reasonable suspicion that the Express Mail package contained drugs. In my view, a canine sniff of luggage at an airport, of a locker, or of a package at a post office is not a search within the meaning of the United States or the Colorado Constitution because the dog sniffs not the contents of the package, but only the air surrounding the package, in which there is no reasonable expectation of privacy. See Boylan, 854 P.2d at 813 (and cases cited therein at 814) (Vollack, J., dissenting) (dog-sniff to determine contents of express carrier package is not a search); see also People v. Salih, 219 Cal.Rptr. 603, 173 Cal.App.3d 1009 (1985) (finding that a canine sniff of a United Parcel Service package is not a search); State v. Hammond, 1993 WL 189563 (Del.Super.Ct.1993) (same); State v. Snitkin, 67 Haw. 168, 681 P.2d 980 (1984) (holding that a canine sniff of all the packages in a cargo holding room of a Federal Express office which was used to identify rather than verify a package containing contraband, even though the Drug Enforcement Agency officer had no reason to suspect that any particular package contained drugs, is not a search within the constitutional proscription of the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution or Article 1, Section 7, of the Hawaii Constitution).
I am authorized to say that Justice ERICKSON joins in this special concurrence.