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Comment by hacknat | Hacker News Reader

Read the opinion carefully, it explicitly says that the order of events is not justification enough. You are right in saying that this doesn't prohibit dog sniffs in all traffic stops. Period. However, you are wrong that stating that a dog sniff can be justified by simple ordering, see page 8:

>>The critical question, then, is not whether the dog sniff occurs before or after the officer issues a ticket, as JUSTICE ALITO supposes, post, at 2–4, but whether conducting the sniff “prolongs”—i.e., adds time to—“the stop,” supra, at 6.

and page 7:

>>a dog sniff, unlike the routine measures just mentioned, is not an ordinary incident of a traffic stop

SCOTUS is in fact saying that a dog sniff must be supported by what they call "individualized suspicion".

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>>a dog sniff, unlike the routine measures just mentioned, is not an ordinary incident of a traffic stop

Alito's dissent states that a preliminary dog sniff will become an ordinary incident as a result of this ruling. It will be the new standard procedure for K-9 officers who initiate traffic stops. A future Officer Struble will simply get the dog out first for everyone he stops, post Rodriguez and a bit of officer training.

Officers that don't have a dog in the back will still have to establish reasonable suspicion to call in a K-9 sniff, just as they did before the ruling. So I can't see this ruling having an impact for longer than it takes to re-train officers.

> If it's an ordinary incident of a K-9 traffic stop, it's not prolonging the stop.

Its still a search not reasonably related to the justification of the stop, which would seem to make it unreasonable as an ordinary procedure. Sure, Scalia might vote to uphold it, but if Scalia's view was controlling he wouldn't need to.

The Court has held that dog sniffs are not searches; they only reveal whether contraband is present. Unlike wiretaps, physical searches of houses, etc. there's no privacy concern.

The issue here was that everything necessary to complete the traffic stop was finished, and by conducting an additional dog sniff (or doing anything else, really), the officer did something out of the ordinary to prolong the stop.

The Court has held that dog sniffs are not searches; they only reveal whether contraband is present. Unlike wiretaps, physical searches of houses, etc. there's no privacy concern.

If dogs alert based on officer cues as often as they do for illicit substances, then once the science makes its way into the legal consciousness this ruling will have to change. Note: I couldn't find the right search terms to get a good reference, only a prior mention: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7180985

Edit: another comment in this thread has a better link: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9418172

Downvoter: you probably disagree with the Court's interpretation, and personally, I'm with you. Dog sniffs should in theory have nothing to do with traffic stops, because the point is something completely different - to find drugs and weapons.

The way the Court historically treats the dog sniff is unique - it's not a classic search of possessions or property, because the only thing it reveals about them is whether or not they're contraband. Officers can freely perform a dog sniff during a Terry/motor stop with no additional requirement. The dog sniff does not require probable cause or even reasonable suspicion - in fact, it is frequently used to help establish them.

Sure, we might not like it, but that's the way the law is currently read.

Now they will simply add an extra officer. As long as he conducts the search while the other officer does traffic related things, I don't see how this would prevent a dog sniff search.

To do that, you'd have to know in advance which officers were going to be making traffic stops in which they would want an excuse to make an otherwise unconstitutional excuse so you could preposition K9 units to assist them, or you'd have to have every patrol car have two officers and a dog. Either of these is impractical.

We should cut to the subtext here and stipulate: trained dog handling officers can cue their dogs to alert.

So the problem is, if you're on a traffic patrol and already have a drug dog (many do), then the following sequence remains blessed:

1. Make a reasonable traffic stop

2. Approach vehicle with drug dog

3. Cue dog to alert concurrent with traffic stop handling

4. Conduct car search based on cued alert

No delay has been added in this procedure, and by the letter of the opinion today, it looks like that search will hold up.

Drug dogs are basically lie detectors with fur. Just as unreliable, just as easy to misuse, and yet people still think they're doing something useful.

What happens when a large percentage of the cued alerts result in nothing found via search?

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2011-01-06/news/ct-met-ca...

Evidently a Supreme Court Ruling. Hopefully there will be a ruling that drug dogs aren't considered probable cause soon.

That's my reading too. But before we get too mechanistic about what's going to happen: no police department can afford to put two officers and a drug dog in every traffic patrol car. Police departments will be able to adapt so that the patrols that already had drug dogs will often (but not always) be able to use them. What they won't be able to do is ensure that any stop can be converted on a whim to a drug search.

It's an incremental win, but a win.

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