15 03, 2021

CA10 – United States v. Goldberg – Positive Alert without Final Trained Response is Sufficient

By |2021-04-01T15:57:57+00:00March 15th, 2021|CA10, Federal Circuits, Vehicle Sniffs|0 Comments

United States v. Goldberg 2021 U.S. App. LEXIS 7431 (10th Cir. Mar. 15, 2021) U.S. Court of Appeals Tenth Circuit To the extent that Goldberg brings a legal challenge, this court has held that an alert, as opposed to a final indication, is sufficient to establish probable cause. See Moore, 795 F.3d at 1232 (“We have held that an alert, or a change in a dog’s behavior in reaction to the odor of drugs, is sufficient to establish probable cause to search a vehicle, and that a final indication is not necessary.”); Parada, 577 F.3d at 1282 This [...]

5 02, 2021

Arkansas – Can I search a passenger subsequent to a K9 Alert (or other PC)?

By |2021-02-05T20:40:14+00:00February 5th, 2021|Arkansas, State Court, Vehicle Sniffs|0 Comments

Arkansas Rules of Criminal Procedure 14.1 - Vehicular Searches (a) An officer who has reasonable cause to believe that a moving or readily movable vehicle is or contains things subject to seizure may, without a search warrant, stop, detain, and search the vehicle and may seize things subject to seizure discovered in the course of the search where the vehicle is: (i) on a public way or waters or other area open to the public; (ii) in a private area unlawfully entered by the vehicle; or (iii) in a private area lawfully entered by the vehicle, provided that exigent circumstances [...]

19 01, 2021

Ohio Supreme Court- Delay in finding car insurance enabled a reasonable dog sniff

By |2021-02-08T20:03:28+00:00January 19th, 2021|Narcotics Detection, Ohio, State Court, Vehicle Sniffs|0 Comments

021-Ohio-119, 2021 Ohio App. LEXIS 108 (5th Dist. Jan. 19, 2021) The trial court found, and we agree, that Trooper Browne did not unreasonably prolong the stop. There was testimony that he was still in the process of conducting the traffic stop when he walked his K9 around appellant’s vehicle. Appellant was still in the process of looking for proof of insurance. Approximately thirteen minutes had passed between the stop and the K9 sniff and appellant was still attempting to locate current proof of insurance. As noted by the trial court, Trooper Browne testified that he was going to give [...]

29 10, 2020

Kentucky Supreme Court – Unreasonable Delay for Drug Dog

By |2021-02-08T21:28:15+00:00October 29th, 2020|State Court, Vehicle Sniffs|0 Comments

Commonwealth v. Mitchell, 2020 Ky. LEXIS 394 (Oct. 29, 2020) AFFIRMING IN PART, REVERSING IN PART,AND REMANDING We outlined in Davis v. Commonwealth our test for when officers impermissibly extend stops. In Davis we stated, “[t]here is no ‘de minimis exception’ to the rule that a traffic stop cannot be prolonged for reasons unrelated to the purpose of the stop.” A stop is unreasonably extended when the “tasks tied to the traffic infraction are –or reasonably should have been –completed...” In Smith v. Commonwealth, a canine officer, at the request of police detectives who had been surveilling Smith, initiated a [...]

29 05, 2020

Alabama Court of Appeals – Dog Sniff at Apartment Door Unreasonable and Violation of Jardines

By |2021-02-08T22:35:01+00:00May 29th, 2020|Alabama, Narcotics Detection, Residence, State Court|0 Comments

Earl v. State, 2020 Ala. Crim. App. LEXIS 44 (May 29, 2020) “We consider whether the use of a drug-sniffing dog to sniff the door seams of the apartment was, under the reasoning of Jardines, an illegal search in violation of Earl’s Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable searches. We hold that it was, and that the remaining facts in the affidavit did not show probable cause to issue a search warrant for the apartment. We reverse and remand.” Earl v. State, 2020 Ala. Crim. App. LEXIS 44 (May 29, 2020): We agree with the reasoning of the [...]

29 05, 2020

Alabama Court of Civil Appeals – $52,560 – Dog Alert without Presence of Drugs Fails to Support Asset Forfeiture

By |2021-02-10T16:34:56+00:00May 29th, 2020|Alabama, Narcotics Detection, State Court, Vehicle Sniffs|0 Comments

Martinez-Camacho v. State, 2019 Ala. Civ. App. LEXIS 102 (Aug. 2, 2019) Based on the precedents described above, we are not persuaded by the State's argument based on Agee, Wherry,$10,000, and Harris, all of which are distinguishable in pertinent respects regarding the relationship between the property and purported drug transactions at issue. The facts in the present case reflect that a drug-detection dog alerted to an unknown narcotic of unknown legality and of unknown quantity, at an unknown specific location (truck or money), in a vehicle where a few stacks of possibly illegally acquired, bound cash were hidden. The only [...]

8 05, 2020

Ohio Court of Appeals 6th District – Intentionally Stalling Traffic Stop for Dog was Unreasonable

By |2021-02-10T15:37:20+00:00May 8th, 2020|Narcotics Detection, Ohio, State Court, Vehicle Sniffs|0 Comments

State v. Werder, 2020-Ohio-2865, 2020 Ohio App. LEXIS 1835 (6th Dist. May 8, 2020) There was no reasonable suspicion to continue the stop in this case. The officer called for backup and a dog, and the first officer there told him to stall for the dog. Nothing was done for eight minutes to pursue the basis of the traffic stop. The state did not argue that reasonable, articulable suspicion of criminal activity arose during the traffic stop to justify further detaining Werder; it made no closing argument and filed no brief in opposition to Werder’s motion to suppress, despite the [...]

29 04, 2020

Arkansas Court of Appeals – Drug Dog Alerted While Warning Being Written Did Not Extent Stop

By |2021-02-10T15:42:07+00:00April 29th, 2020|Arkansas, Narcotics Detection, State Court, Vehicle Sniffs|0 Comments

Mickens v. State, 2020 Ark. App. 280, 2020 Ark. App. LEXIS 307 (Apr. 29, 2020) Here, Officer Collins testified that he was still in the process of writing appellant’s warning ticket when Detective Robertson arrived with Zeke. Therefore, the legitimate purpose of the stop had not ended when Zeke alerted on appellant’s vehicle. Once Zeke alerted on the vehicle, there was no additional suspicion needed for the vehicle to be searched.[15] And to the extent that appellant attempts to argue that there was no reasonable suspicion to allow the dog to sniff the exterior of the car, this argument also [...]

19 12, 2019

Federal Western District of Missouri – FedEx Package was not Seized by Moving for a Dog Sniff

By |2021-02-10T15:55:32+00:00December 19th, 2019|Federal Districts, Missouri, Narcotics Detection|0 Comments

United States v. Green, 2019 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 218043 (W.D. Mo. Dec. 19, 2019) The Court agrees with Judge Whitworth's analysis in all respects. Regarding the first issue, the police did not "seize" the package until after the dog alerted to the presence of drugs. It was  not a seizure to remove the package from the FedEx conveyor belt, carry it 200 feet to the back of the warehouse, and subject it to a dog sniff. This was in accordance with FedEx's established procedures and requirement that dogs not be around the conveyor belt. As a result, FedEx did not lose [...]

20 08, 2019

Ohio Court of Appeals – Dog Alert is not PC to Search Passenger

By |2021-02-10T16:13:40+00:00August 20th, 2019|Narcotics Detection, Ohio, State Court, Vehicle Sniffs|0 Comments

State v. Chapman, 2019-Ohio-3339, 2019 Ohio App. LEXIS 3422 (7th Dist. Aug. 20, 2019) Turning to the facts in this case, there is no question that Hyra’s alert established probable cause to search the automobile. In its response to the motion to suppress before the trial court, the State advocated the adoption of the bright line rule announced by the Tenth Circuit in Anchondo, supra, that a canine alert on a vehicle, like the odor of burning marijuana in Moore, supra, establishes probable cause for a warrantless search of both the vehicle and its occupants. We choose instead to adopt [...]

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