US Supreme Court considers drug-sniffer dog cases

The US Supreme Court considered whether deploying a drug-sniffing police dog on the porch of a home without a search warrant violates a suspect's right to privacy. The country's highest court is due to issue its ruling next year, after spending two hours on that and a similar case. In the first case, a dog named Franky had sniffed a suspect smell through an air conditioning shaft on the porch of a house in a suburb of Miami where police had been tipped off that marijuana was being grown. Authorities then obtained a search warrant and confirmed their suspicions. The nine-member panel must decide whether the presence of a sniffer dog in front of private property without legal permission constitutes a violation of the Constitution. Nicole Saharsky, the government's lawyer, argued that that there was no "reasonable expectation of privacy." "So as this case comes to the court, it is with the dog and the officer lawfully in place at the front door, approaching the front door just like any Girl Scout, trick-or-treater, or anyone else could," she said. However, that did not appear to be the opinion of a majority of the judges, including Stephen Breyer. "That's pretty unusual behavior, whether it's a policeman or anybody else," he said. While acknowledging that it is normal for visitors to approach a door, potentially even with dogs, he asked: "Do you expect them to sit there for ... 15 minutes, not knocking on the door, doing nothing?" Fellow justice Sonia Sotomayor also seemed to have reservations. "I let people knock on my door because they have to say something to me. I don't let a dog come up to my door -- I don't willy-nilly invite it to come up to my door." Florida state's attorney Gregory Garre argued that the search be deemed constitutional and that the owner's sentence be upheld "There was no ... physical invasion," he said. In the second case taken up, the judges must decide whether sniffer dogs must be proven to be reliable before they can justifiably search a car for drugs. In this particular case, a dog named Aldo was sat in alert mode in front of the door of a car whose driver had been stopped by police for having an expired license plate. Under the seat, the police discovered 200 pills intended for making methamphetamine. Several weeks later, the same dog stopped the same individual and alerted his handler but no drugs were detected. The driver had doubted the reliability of the dog and had argued that the search of his car was unconstitutional. Aldo is certified to detect methamphetamine but not its ingredients and was not with his usual handler. Garre said the court should "rely on detection dogs as reliable predictors of the evidence of contraband, evidence of the presence of explosives or likewise. The justices appeared split on the subject during the hearing, with Ruth Ginsburg pointing out that if "there is no certification, no training, how would the state establish that the dog was reliable in detecting drugs." Sotomayor, meanwhile, added that, if there is no national standard for certification "then how do you expect a judge ... to decide whether the certification and the training are sufficiently adequate."