GUEST POST: The dog sniff cases: Amidst a sigh of relief, additional burden for public defenders

by Jonathan Rapping, President of Gideon’s Promise, an organization dedicated to training and supporting public defenders across the South.

Detection dogs have become a powerful weapon used in the effort to ferret out crime.  But because their use aids law enforcement at the expense of personal privacy, the practice has important Fourth Amendment implications.  The Supreme Court recently decided two cases that will help shape the way police use canines to interact with civilians in their quest to gather evidence of wrongdoing.  These cases address two important issues: when police may use canines to investigate civilians; and how the public can be sure these dogs are sufficiently reliable to protect against any unwarranted invasion of privacy.

In a case decided this week addressing the first issue, Florida v. Jardines, the Court drew a line at the doorstep to the home, holding that for police to bring a canine onto a person’s front porch to search for evidence inside the home violates the Fourth Amendment.  While this decision provided a sigh of relief to those of us concerned about our shrinking protections from police scrutiny, it is muted by the Court’s ruling last month in Florida v. Harris.  This case, which addresses the second issue, encourages more aggressive use of canines against civilians outside of the home.  By placing the burden on the target of the operation to prove that either the dog or its handler was unqualified, the Harris Court makes it difficult for victims of reckless policing to show that the police violated constitutional standards.  Because almost all canine/civilian encounters happen outside the home, the ruling will place ever more cumbersome burdens on the public defenders tasked with defending the vast majority of those affected by these rulings.