Blogs
Barry Cooper Says Consent to Searches
Flex Your Rights has eagerly anticipated Barry Cooper's new video Never Get Busted Again: Vol.1 Traffic Stops, which finally arrived yesterday. After reviewing Cooper's DVD, we're disappointed to report that Never Get Busted badly misses the mark regarding consent searches.
We hope the following will not be interpreted as a rebuke of Cooper or his video, much of which we enjoyed. Still, we find it necessary to comment at length on his surprising advice.
Illinois v. Caballes: Dog Sniffs & You
Submitted by Steve Silverman on Tue, 01/25/2005 - 17:41Illinois v. Caballes
543 U.S. 405 (2005)
In Illinois vs. Caballes, the Supreme Court ruled that police do not need reasonable suspicion to use drug dogs to sniff a vehicle during a legitimate traffic stop.
This decision stems from the case of Roy Caballes, who was pulled over for speeding and subsequently arrested for marijuana trafficking after a drug dog was brought to the scene and alerted on his vehicle. The Illinois Supreme Court reversed his conviction, finding that a drug sniff was unreasonable without evidence of a crime other than speeding.
In a 6-2 ruling, the Court held that the Fourth Amendment is not implicated when police use a dog sniff during the course of a legal traffic stop. Justice Stevens wrote the Opinion of the Court, finding that since dog sniffs only identify the presence of illegal items -- in which citizens have no legitimate privacy interest -- the Fourth Amendment does not apply to their use. Justices Souter and Ginsburg dissented, pointing to studies showing that drug dogs frequently return false positives (12.5-60% of the time, according to one study).
What this ruling means:
