Is the police dog a good boy?
That’s what the Supreme Court was asked to decide in a case accusing Idaho police dogs of violating the US Constitution.
The nine justices will likely decide in the fall whether to hear the Mountain Home Police Department’s appeal of a lower court ruling that found its K-9, a Belgian Malinois named Nero, improperly placed its paw on a driver’s car that stopped for a spin. in the summer of 2019, USA Today reported.
Officers claimed the dog “alerted” them to the presence of drugs in the vehicle – and found pill bottles and plastic bags containing methamphetamine residue.
This allowed them to obtain a warrant and search driver Kirby Dorff’s motel room, where they allegedly found another 19 grams of methamphetamine and drug paraphernalia — and arrested him on drug possession charges.
Dorff was later convicted but appealed, claiming the police dog had trespassed on his vehicle — a violation of the Fourth Amendment that protects against unreasonable government searches and seizures.
Nero, a K-9 officer with the Mountain Home Police Department, put his foot on a suspect’s vehicle when he smelled drugs inside the car in the summer of 2019. Mountain Home Police Department
The Idaho Supreme Court ultimately ruled in his favor, finding that Nero’s actions amounted to a warrantless search, and Dorff’s conviction was overturned.
Police argued that Dorff did not have a valid driver’s license when he was stopped after making an “improper turn” and crossing three lanes of traffic, according to local channel KTVB.
Nero and his handler then approached and circled the car three times, and on the second pass, body camera footage showed the dog jumping up several times. Then on the third pass, Nero put his front foot on the driver’s door and window, the outlet reported.
Don Slavik, executive director of the American Police Canine Association, argues that K-9s will sometimes stand on their hind legs on cars for balance as they chase scents.
“Dogs are used for scent detection because of their unique ability to follow a trained scent to its source,” he told USA Today. “When the dog detects the trained scent, it will follow the scent to its source, or get as close to it as possible.”
The case centered on whether Nero violated suspects’ Fourth Amendment protections against unlawful search and seizure. Fairfax Media via Getty Images
But in March 2023, the Idaho high court ruled 3-2 in Dorff’s favor, with the majority finding that there is a difference between a dog sniffing the air around a vehicle and touching it when it tries to sniff the interior – likening it to the difference between someone brushing a stranger’s wallet and someone who puts his hands on her without consent.
“It’s also the difference between a dog’s tail brushing the bumper of your vehicle as it walks — and a dog, which, without privilege or consent, approaches your vehicle to jump on its roof, sit on its hood, stand up. on his window or door,” the majority opinion reads.
Judge Gregory Moeller, however, wrote in a dissenting opinion that he could not agree “that an unreasonable search or physical intrusion occurred because Nero’s foot briefly touched the outside of Dorff’s vehicle.”
Chief Justice Richard Bevan also argued in his own dissenting opinion, “Fairness … requires us to consider the degree of governmental intrusion, not to suppress all evidence where any intrusion occurred.”
He wrote that the decision “transforms” the Fourth Amendment analysis into a “system of liability,” because he believes the officer’s intent in handling the dog and the extent to which the K-9 was trespassed are irrelevant.
It is unclear what the US Supreme Court might rule in this case, should it choose to hear it.
The high court ruled in 2013 that Miami-Dade police violated the Fourth Amendment when they led police dogs past the home of a man suspected of growing marijuana.
But in another case that year, a majority of justices ruled that another Florida police officer’s use of a drug-sniffing dog to conduct a trunk search during a routine traffic stop was constitutional.
The Mountain Home Police Department declined to comment on pending litigation.
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
