William_T._Bianco,_David_T._Canon]_American_Polit

107

Drug-Sniffing Dogs:

An Illegal Search?

In 2013, the Supreme Court was presented with the case of

Joelis Jardines, whom police suspected of growing marijuana

inside his Miami home based on an anonymous tip. Police

went to the home with a trained drug-detection dog. On

the front porch, the dog gave a positive signal indicating

the presence of drugs. The police returned with a search

warrant, found a marijuana-growing operation, and arrested

Jardines. However, the Florida Supreme Court threw out

the evidence, arguing it was an illegal search. The case then

made its way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which was faced with

this question: Should drug-sniffing dogs be allowed outside

a home without a warrant? More broadly, in the context of

rapidly changing technology, what is the public’s “reasonable

expectation” for privacy?

A drug-sniffing dog is no more invasive than the

surveillance technologies we encounter every day.

The Court has ruled that police do not need a search warrant

to have drug-sniffing dogs search luggage at an airport or

a car that has been stopped for a traffic violation unrelated

to drugs. Lower courts have also ruled that sniffs are not

considered searches in a hotel hallway, at a school locker,

outside a passenger train’s sleeper compartments, or outside

an apartment door. Is a sniff outside someone’s home any

more invasive?

It might not seem that way, especially when you consider

the reach of new surveillance methods that are on the horizon.

Other technologies that are becoming more common or will

be used soon include RFIDs (radio frequency identifications),

which are the size of a grain of rice and transmit information

wirelessly through radio waves; facial recognition software

and iris scanners; “smart dust devices”—tiny wireless

micromechanical sensors—that can detect light and

movement; and drones, which have primarily been used for

military purposes but also have vast potential for tracking

suspects in any situation.

Warrantless surveillance of somebody’s home

crosses a line. Lower courts have been split on whether

drug-sniffing dogs may be used outside a home without a

warrant, due, in part, to a Supreme Court precedent giving

homes stronger Fourth Amendment protection than cars,

lockers, or other areas. For example, in 2001 the Court ruled

that police needed a warrant to use a thermal-imaging device

TAKE

A S TA N D

outside a home when trying to detect marijuana that was

believed to be growing under heat lamps inside.

The U.S. Supreme Court ultimately agreed in the Jardines

case, saying that there is a general expectation that anyone

may come onto a front porch as long as the uninvited person

simply knocks and then leaves if there is no answer. The

majority opinion wryly noted: “Complying with the terms of

that traditional invitation does not require fine-grained legal

knowledge; it is generally managed without incident by the

Nation’s Girl Scouts and trick-or-treaters.” But, they continued,

“introducing a trained police dog to explore the area around

the home in hopes of discovering incriminating evidence is

something else. There is no customary invitation to do that.”a

New and future technologies continue to complicate the

question of just what is “reasonable.” Justice Alito raised this

question in oral arguments in a Supreme Court case involving

a GPS tracking device. He said, “Technology is changing

people’s expectations of privacy.... Maybe 10 years from now

90 percent of the population will be using social networking

sites and they will have on average 500 friends and they will

have allowed their friends to monitor their location 24 hours

a day, 365 days a year, through the use of their cell phones.

Then—what would the expectation of privacy be then?”b

take a stand

1. If you had to decide the case of the drug-sniffing dog,
   how would you have ruled? Do you think that homes
   should have stronger privacy expectations than cars or
   school lockers? Even when it concerns illegal drugs?


2. How would you answer Justice Alito’s question about
   the expectation of privacy in an era of rapidly changing
   technology? When should law-enforcement officials
   have to get a warrant to monitor our behavior?

Federal agents use a drug-sniffing dog to inspect a car.

Study guide

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