Police Dog Searches Do Not Invade Privacy, U.S. Supreme Court Rules
By David G. Savage, The Los Angeles Times

WASHINGTON — The use of police dogs to sniff a car for drugs does not violate the privacy rights of a stopped motorist, the Supreme Court ruled Monday, even if the officers had no reason to suspect the car and its driver were carrying drugs.

The high court's decision gives police broad, but not unlimited, authority to use canines to search for drugs or bombs — whether on the highways or in schools, at airports and office buildings.

While the case before the court was argued as a test of police power in the war on drugs, dogs also play an important role in the war on terrorism. In recent years, trained dogs have been used increasingly at airports and at the borders to sniff for explosives, and the justices made clear they would not stand in the way of such searches.

But the case decided today tested a common situation on the highways. An Illinois state trooper stopped a motorist on an interstate highway for driving 71 m.p.h. where the speed limit was 65. While the motorist, Ray Caballes, waited for the officer to write him a speeding ticket, a second trooper headed for the scene with a drug-sniffing dog.

The dog walked around the car and "alerted" to the trunk. Based on that evidence, the officers searched the trunk, found marijuana and Caballes was sentenced to 12 years in prison.

The Illinois Supreme Court would have voided the conviction on the grounds that the police did not have the authority to turn a traffic stop into a drug search.

But in a 6-2 decision in Illinois vs. Caballes, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the police may use drug-sniffing dogs so long as the officers have a reasonable basis for stopping a motorist or a pedestrian in the first place.

"In our view, conducting a dog sniff would not change the character of a traffic stop that is lawful at its inception and otherwise executed in a reasonable manner," said Justice John Paul Stevens for the court.

It would be a different matter, he said, if the first police officer had held the motorist for some time while he awaited the arrival of the second officer and his dog.

"A seizure (of the motorist) can become unlawful if it is prolonged beyond the time reasonably required to complete that mission" of writing a ticket, he said.

The two dissenters said the court's ruling would lead to a much wider use of drug-sniffing dogs.

"Today's decision clears the way for suspicion-less, dog-accompanied drug sweeps on parked cars along sidewalks and in parking lots," said Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and David H. Souter.