A Dogs Nose Doesn't Trump A Warrant

Finally some common sense at the Supreme Court! Even though the dog was right, you still need a warrant before breaking down the door or gathering evidence at the door!

It was a close decision which means that it probably will be overturned soon meaning as soon as a new Justice is appointed!  It is notable that the so called liberal justices voted to limit the rights of the citizen while the conservatives protected the rights of the average Joe.  Does that mean liberals do not think that we should have any rights?  Probably so.

If true, this is very scary due to the fact that the votes seem to come down 5-4 most of the time, except when Roberts bolts to the other side (we believe under pressure from the White House.)  How can any Jurist not want to protect our rights?

It is due to the liberal's belief that government never does anything wrong and is always right. It can manage our lives better than any of us can. When Mayor Bloomberg (who hates fat people and guns) limits the amount of pop that you can buy, he is telling you that you cannot control yourself so he must.

When the gun grabbers try to get rid of  our guns, they say that an inanimate object is immoral and should be confiscated due to its misuse by some. They know better. Instead of attacking the problem, they look at the symptoms. Instead of looking for ways to determine who might misuse the weapon, they want to impose their will on those of us who use them safely.

Suppose they decided that cars were unsafe. They pollute the air, annually create millions of pounds of waste and  KILL 40,000 people per year. Would we have the same outcry as we do when a few thousand victims are killed by insane idiots?  Doubtful because most of us know that a car is safe when operated in a safe manner, which is no different from a gun.

The Supreme Court will turn most of common sense on its head when they get a new Justice. Obama's choice will not be an "originalist" but rather a person who believes the document is flexible and that not only should we use precedent from this country but from the world. When that day comes, the US Constitution will no longer be what the Founders intended.  We fear that time is near.

Conservative Tom




SCOTUS rules Cops Can’t Just Show Up With A Dog And No Warrant

March 27, 2013 by Ben Bullard 

A majority opinion of the U.S. Supreme Court this week frustrated the State of Florida (as well as the Federal government and 26 other States) by ruling that police who bring a sniff dog onto a homeowner’s property and turn up evidence related to the dog’s signaling are conducting a “search” as defined by the 4^th Amendment.

That means cops can’t suspect you of growing marijuana in a house, turn up casually at your front door with a dog — you know, just to ask a few questions — and thereafter develop probable cause to search the house, as the dog sniffs around at the front door and begins indicating there’s something illegal inside.

That’s exactly what happened to one homeowner in the Miami area in 2006, when police acting on an unverified tip visited the home of Joelis Jardines, with Drug Enforcement Administration agents waiting in the wings. They didn’t have a warrant, and the tip alone wasn’t sufficient probable cause to obtain a search warrant. The cops let the dog sniff at the front door. The dog signaled that narcotics were somewhere nearby. And the cops then applied for and received a search warrant.

The police had initiated no contact with Jardines during this episode. That contact came only when they returned to the house with the search warrant, found the marijuana being grown inside and arrested Jardines.

The Florida Supreme Court had already sided with Jardines after he appealed a lower court’s ruling that dog searches aren’t covered under the 4^th Amendment. Realizing the broad implications the decision could have to limit search powers, the State then appealed the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court.

And lost.

It’s worth culling the high points from Justice Antonin Scalia’s majority opinion:

Since the officers’ investigation took place in a constitutionally protected area, we turn to the question of whether it was accomplished through an unlicensed physical intrusion…

…As it is undisputed that the detectives had all four of their feet firmly planted on the constitutionally protected extension of Jardines’ home, the only question is whether he had given his leave (even implicitly) for them to do so. He had not.

…We have accordingly recognized that “the knocker on the front door is treated as an invitation or license to attempt an entry, justifying ingress to the home by solicitors, hawkers and peddlers of all kinds.” This implicit license typically permits the visitor to approach the home by the front path, knock promptly, wait briefly to be received, and then (absent invitation to linger longer) leave.

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. Thus, a police officer not armed with a warrant may approach a home and knock, precisely because that is “no more than any private citizen might do.”

But 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. An invitation to engage in canine forensic investigation assuredly does not inhere in the very act of hanging a knocker. To find a visitor knocking on the door is routine (even if sometimes unwelcome); to spot that same visitor exploring the front path with a metal detector, or marching his bloodhound into the garden before saying hello and asking permission, would inspire most of us to — well, call the police.

Well said.

Two disappointments, though, about Tuesday’s decision:

• It was close. The majority decision came after a 5-4 vote.
• Tuesday’s victory for 4^th-Amendment freedom stands in contrast to a misstep the court made in January, when it held that police dogs’ training and certification is itself sufficient grounds for courts to admit evidence based on the accuracy of their signaling. That decision came in spite of evidence that “real-world data demonstrate that even trained or certified dogs have a high rate of false alerts” and can take their signaling cues from handlers or from other stimuli in their environments.