The United States Supreme Court has issued a unanimous ruling on the issue of drug sniffing police dogs and the 4th amendment. The decision reversed a ruling from the Florida Supreme Court in the case of Florida v. Harris.
The defendant in the case was a man named Clayton Harris of Blountstown, Florida.
On June 24, 2006 he was driving in his truck when a canine officer named Wheetley noticed his license tags had expired so he pulled Harris over. Upon doing so Wheetley noticed that Harris was disoriented and Harris refused to allow the truck to be searched. So he decided to have his dog Aldo take a walk around the truck and the dog “alerted” to a suspicious odor on the driver’s door handle.
Based on this alert Wheetley searched the truck but did not find any substances that Aldo was trained to detect. He did however discover items commonly used to produce methamphetamine. While these substances did have innocent uses the combination of them and the volume strongly suggested improper purposes. Harris was arrested and after being given his proper Miranda warnings he admitted to having produced the drugs.
While out on bail Wheetley again encountered Harris, pulling him over for a broken brake light. Aldo was again used to search the vehicle and again alerted to the presence of drugs but this time nothing of any significance was found.
At trial Harris’s attorneys sought to exclude the evidence found in the truck on the grounds that probable cause had not been established and thus his 4th amendment rights were violated
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