Florida v. Jardines, a US Supreme Court case from 2013, related to the 4th Amendment and a drug sniffing dog and a front porch. And Florida (of course). But, the same thing now applies to people in Lehigh County and your Lehigh County criminal lawyer should know the implications behind this very important case.
The police received an unverified tip that marijuana was being grown in the defendant's residence. He began surveillance of the defendants home. After 15 minutes of no activity, two officers, one of them a trained K9 handler, approached the residence with the drug sniffing canine. Upon reaching the front porch, the dog alerted that it had picked up an odor of cocaine or marijuana, signaling that the source of the odor was the front door. Based on the canine's alert and the unverified tip, the officers obtained a search warrant for the residence, and upon execution of the search, found multiple marijuana plants.
The defendant was charged with drug trafficking. The Supreme Court of Florida affirmed an order of the Florida trial court suppressing the evidence, finding no probable cause for the 4th Amendment search, rendering such search invalid and the warrant based on the canines alert was therefore invalid. The Supreme Court of United States granted the review of the case to determine the limited question of whether the government's use of trained dogs to investigate. Around the residence constitutes a "search" for fourth amendment purposes. The High Court determine that such behavior does constitute a search for the 4th Amendment purposes. The court also determined the front porch of the residence constitutes "curtilage" under US Constitutional precepts. Accordingly, the search warrant was defective in this case, because the police use the device (a term that was argued by the dissent) unavailable to the public, the form of a trained police dog, to make observations not readily available otherwise, and uses those observations to justify the authorization of the warrant. The Supreme Court of Florida's affirmance of the order suppressing the evidence was affirmed in a 5 to 4 decision.