SCOTUS gets one right

[Quantum Windbag]

After coming down with a unanimous ruling that dogs can do the impossible just lat month they decide that allowing dogs to do the impossible on your front porch violates your 4th Amendment rights.

Color me stunned.

The split is also interesting.

Today, before hearing oral argument in Hollingsworth v. Perry, the Supreme Court decided Florida v. Jardines. Splitting 5-4 the Court held that when police brought a drug-sniffing dog onto a homeowner’s front porch it did constitute a “search” for purposes of the Fourth Amendment. Orin may have more to say on the merits. Of immediate interest, however, is the lineup. Justice Scalia wrote for the majority, joined by Justices Thomas, Ginsburg, Sotomayor and Kagan. Justice Alito dissented, joined by the Chief Justice, and Justices Kennedy and Breyer. Justice Kagan also filed a concurring opinion joined by Justices GInsburg and Sotomayor.

The Volokh Conspiracy » Drug-Sniffing Dog on Front Steps Is a ?Search?

 

[mamooth]

Disappointing from Breyer, but expected. Breyer, though a liberal, will usually look favorably on police power.

From the majority opinion:
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When it comes to the Fourth Amendment, the home is first among equals. At the Amendment’s “very core” stands “the right of a man to retreat into his own home and there be free from unreasonable governmental intrusion.” This right would be of little practical value if the State’s agents could stand in a home’s porch or side garden and trawl for evidence with impunity; the right to retreat would be significantly diminished if the police could enter a man’s property to observe his repose from just outside the front window.

We therefore regard the area “immediately surrounding and associated with the home”—what our cases call the curtilage—as “part of the home itself for Fourth Amendment purposes.” That principle has ancient and durable roots. Just as the distinction between the home and the open fields is “as old as the common law,” so too is the identity of home and what Blackstone called the “curtilage or homestall,” for the “house protects and privileges all its branches and appurtenants.” This area around the home is “intimately linked to the home, both physically and psychologically,” and is where “privacy expectations are most heightened.”
...
We have accordingly recognized that “the knocker on the front door is treated as an invitation or license to attempt an entry, justifying ingress to the home by solicitors, hawkers and peddlers of all kinds.” This implicit license typically permits the visitor to approach the home by the front path, knock promptly, wait briefly to be received, and then (absent invitation to linger longer) leave. Complying with the terms of that traditional invitation does not require fine-grained legal knowledge; it is generally managed without incident by the Nation’s Girl Scouts and trick-or-treaters. Thus, a police officer not armed with a warrant may approach a home and knock, precisely because that is “no more than any private citizen might do.”

But introducing a trained police dog to explore the area around the home in hopes of discovering incriminating evidence is something else. There is no customary invitation to do that. An invitation to engage in canine forensic investigation assuredly does not inhere in the very act of hanging a knocker. To find a visitor knocking on the door is routine (even if sometimes unwelcome); to spot that same visitor exploring the front path with a metal detector, or marching his bloodhound into the garden before saying hello and asking permission, would inspire most of us to—well, call the police.
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[whitehall]

How could a justice who spent his entire adult life studying the law- not- think that a drug sniffing dog was there to ....sniff drugs and without a warrant it was a violation of the 4th Amendment? Do some justices play devils advocate for kicks?

 

[CrusaderFrank]

Roberts is turning into a gigantic Souter-like fuck up

 

[Wiseacre]

" Do some justices play devils advocate for kicks? "

Some are dog people, some like cats. Different ideology is all.

 

[Wry Catcher]

Roberts is turning into a gigantic Souter-like fuck up

"Judges must strive for the highest standards of integrity in both their professional and personal lives. They should be knowledgeable about the law, willing to undertake in-depth legal research, and able to write decisions that are clear and cogent. Their judgment should be sound and they should be able to make informed decisions that will stand up to close scrutiny. Judges should be fair and open-minded, and should appear to be fair and open-minded. They should be good listeners but should be able, when required, to ask questions that get to the heart of the issue before the court. They should be courteous in the courtroom but firm when it is necessary to rein in a rambling lawyer, a disrespectful litigant or an unruly spectator."

The Qualities Required of a Judge

Roberts seems to have met the standard, Scalia and Thomas cleary do not.

 

[CrusaderFrank]

After coming down with a unanimous ruling that dogs can do the impossible just lat month they decide that allowing dogs to do the impossible on your front porch violates your 4th Amendment rights.

Color me stunned.

The split is also interesting.

Today, before hearing oral argument in Hollingsworth v. Perry, the Supreme Court decided Florida v. Jardines. Splitting 5-4 the Court held that when police brought a drug-sniffing dog onto a homeowner’s front porch it did constitute a “search” for purposes of the Fourth Amendment. Orin may have more to say on the merits. Of immediate interest, however, is the lineup. Justice Scalia wrote for the majority, joined by Justices Thomas, Ginsburg, Sotomayor and Kagan. Justice Alito dissented, joined by the Chief Justice, and Justices Kennedy and Breyer. Justice Kagan also filed a concurring opinion joined by Justices GInsburg and Sotomayor.

The Volokh Conspiracy » Drug-Sniffing Dog on Front Steps Is a ?Search?

Scalia and Thomas nailed it I can't even imagine what the fuck alito and Roberts were "thinking"

A drug sniffing dog isn't even a dog anymore its....I forget the word my brother has for his trained beagle but its more like a tool

 

[Mad Scientist]

This is a terrible decision and a huge setback for the Police State!

After the ObamaCare ruling, I thought the Supreme Court was completely corrupted and bought off.

We'll just have to re-double our efforts in that area.

 

[gallantwarrior]

I wonder how this decision will be applied when the first drones are launched over our humble abodes?

 

[Wry Catcher]

It is heartening that the 5-4 split was not the usual one. Below is a bit more detail on the Courts reasoning:

Opinion issued in Florida v. Jardines (Updated) : SCOTUSblog

 

[Quantum Windbag]

After coming down with a unanimous ruling that dogs can do the impossible just lat month they decide that allowing dogs to do the impossible on your front porch violates your 4th Amendment rights.

Color me stunned.

The split is also interesting.

Today, before hearing oral argument in Hollingsworth v. Perry, the Supreme Court decided Florida v. Jardines. Splitting 5-4 the Court held that when police brought a drug-sniffing dog onto a homeowner’s front porch it did constitute a “search” for purposes of the Fourth Amendment. Orin may have more to say on the merits. Of immediate interest, however, is the lineup. Justice Scalia wrote for the majority, joined by Justices Thomas, Ginsburg, Sotomayor and Kagan. Justice Alito dissented, joined by the Chief Justice, and Justices Kennedy and Breyer. Justice Kagan also filed a concurring opinion joined by Justices GInsburg and Sotomayor.

The Volokh Conspiracy » Drug-Sniffing Dog on Front Steps Is a ?Search?

Scalia and Thomas nailed it I can't even imagine what the fuck alito and Roberts were "thinking"

A drug sniffing dog isn't even a dog anymore its....I forget the word my brother has for his trained beagle but its more like a tool

If you want to get pissed about something, they handed down a unanimous ruling that dogs are always probable cause for a search when they alert because they might have smelled a really tiny amount of drugs from a few weeks ago.

Supreme Court: Police Dog Ability Doesn't Need To Be Extensively Tested, 'Sniff Is Up To Snuff'