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The whole point of my response was not to argue with you, but to point out that the Court has sliced the pie closely between Place (where contrary to your statement, there was a seizure - of Place's luggage and thus the reason that the evidence was ruled inadmissible by the Court), Edmond, Caballes, and Kyllo.
Indeed, there is a split that has developed in the wake of Kyllo concerning dog sniffs of homes that the Court will likely take up next (and that might foreclose car sniff arguments altogether). See People v. Jones, 279 Mich. App. 86 (2008) (dog sniff at front door not a search) and State v. Rabb, 920 So.2d 1175 (Fla. App. 4DCA 2006) (dog sniff of house impermissible use of sensory enhancement absent a search warrant).
Now, those cases involve a HOME, which is very different from a car. But, I still contend that an argument can be made that random dog sniffs of cars, even in a public place, without more, would not support an unwarranted search of the car. Especially considering that once the dog hits on the car the police will have to detain you and the car, thus seizing you, to conduct the full search, with the only support for that seizure being the random sniff. This is too close to Edmond for me.
In other words: Edmond says that the police cannot randomly detain you, sniff your car, and then search your car based on the sniff. Your reading of the cases results in allowing the police to randomly sniff your car, detain you, and then search your car based on the sniff. I don't see a constitutionally different result in those two. Of course, the modern Court often finds a difference where I don't.
I should also add that my argument completely fails if the police have previously observed the owner of the car blazing on the river bank!
(And, I didn't say that it mattered what Souter's opinion said. I merely noted that his dissent "provides some good citation to cases" that a person might be interested in checking out because there is "some really interesting stuff in those opinions" about error rates of drug dogs.) |
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Well, the Supremes haven't decided the issue, so I will continue to argue violation until they do. New 
BoaterTalk 
