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Supreme Court Rules Extending Traffic Stop For Dog Sniff Unconstitutional
bmxeroh writes: The Supreme Court ruled today (PDF) that a police officer may not extend a traffic stop beyond the time needed to complete the tasks related to that stop for the purposes of allowing a trained dog to sniff for drugs. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote for the majority (6-3) that police authority "ends when tasks tied to the traffic infraction are — or reasonably should have been — completed." The case, Rodriguez v. United States, 13-9972, all started with Rodriguez was stopped in Nebraska for driving out of his lane. After he was given the ticket for that infraction, he was made to wait an additional seven to eight minutes for a drug dog to arrive which promptly alerted to the presence of drugs in the car. Upon search, the officers found a small bag of methamphetamine in his possession.
It doesn't look like he was under the influence at the time, but the term "driving out of his lane" does kind of give reasonable cause for drug use, but maybe thats profiling.
The problem with this logic is that it fails the "prior probability" test.
Suppose a policeman searches and finds the suspect carrying a large amount of cash, say $4000. That's consistent with a (supposed) drug purchase, so the cash can be confiscated under asset forfeiture laws (assets used in the commission of a crime).
Suppose a policeman notes a youtube video of a chemistry experiment showing a balance scale, some beakers, and jars of chemicals. Those are consistent with "meth lab", so the policeman can search and confiscate all the equipment in the poster's house (this has happened).
The problem with each of these, and your position, is that there is significant prior probability that the behaviour in question is *not* indicative of criminal activity. You are reversing the conditional probabilities.
To put it in words, you are equating "probability of driving out-of-lane, given that he's on drugs" (quite high), with "probability that he's using drugs, given out-of-lane driving" (actually, quite low).
People temporarily drive out-of-lane a great deal to avoid animals and small obstacles, and people temporarily drive out-of-lane because they're distracted. The number of people out-of-lane because they're on drugs is vanishingly small.
Taken to extremes (and we know the police will do this), pretty-much *any* behaviour can be considered consistent with drug use.
In the case of the home lab above, it doesn't matter that the poster is missing key components, nor that he only has some of the ingredients. "Meth makers use glassware, he's got glassware, therefore he's a meth maker".
You see where this leads?
If a policeman observes a crime, take the appropriate action - that's fine. If he *observes* another crime while dealing with it, that's fine too.
But that's not a justification to rummage around in a person's rights just to see what can be pinned on the suspect.
If he doesn't observe a crime, he shouldn't go looking for one.
There is a lawyer who's doing some nice comics that explain all those intricacies - he has a strip covering dogs.
However, dogs are still BS, for the simple reason that a signal from the dog is considered to be probable cause, which is ridiculous because they can be conditioned quite easily to do so at the handler's signal (and often do it without the signal just to please the handler).
However dogs are nearly useless in this scenario. Its been shown that in a case where there is suspicion dogs "hit" nearly 100% of the time even in controlled situations where its known there is nothing for them to hit on. Dogs are only useful if the handler has no particular suspiscion or, in tracking. In these kinds of stops they are really just props.
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
Just so you know -- it isn't actually the same here. There's fairly well established case law involving if /police/ require RS. However... individuals /acting like/ police, that aren't actually police... that "just happen" to have an officer present have no such bar.
The particular example I'm thinking of is game and fish wardens, who can demand to search your trunk if you happen to be near a forest and it's hunting season. Or not hunting season but near hunting season and you left somewhere with deer. Oh, and by-the-way, there's an officer nearby who happens to be there for his protection -- and now that your trunk is open, all contents are in plain sight.
It's in state laws, it's been upheld on court challenge.
Additional problems include the 100 mile "border free zone" https://www.aclu.org/know-your-rights-governments-100-mile-border-zone-map where any border patrol agent may search you for any reason. The population that has no 4th amendment right in this region exceeds 2/3 of the US (that's about 200 million people in case you wonder). Once again, the police might not have the right to search you without a warrant, but if it's customs, ice, border patrol or whatever -- they just might need police or DEA there for their protection.
So yes, you're sort of, just barely technically correct. But in practice, they can and will be present for a search without a warrant.