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CA3: Drug dog jumping into car on his own was not a search

By John Wesley Hall, Jr.

Where a drug dog jumps into a stopped car on his own, without direction of the officer to conduct the sniff, it is not a search, and Place governs. A few other courts have reached the issue, and they are in accord. United States v. Pierce, 09-3865 (3d Cir. October 1, 2010): In determining that Cole’s “interior sniffs” were not a search, the District Court was persuaded by the reasoning set forth in United States v. Hutchinson, 471 F. Supp. 2d 497 (M.D. Pa. 2007), where the defendant, like Pierce, entered a conditional guilty plea and preserved the issue of the legality of a K-9 dog’s “interior sniffs,” which led to the recovery of substantial quantities of marijuana from the back seat of the van he was driving...continue to full post

Full post as published by Fourth Amendment on October 04, 2010 (boomark / email).