Have I ever mentioned how much I look forward to reading FourthAmendment.com each day to see John Wesley Hall has posted? Here’s a gem:
Leslie A. Lunney, Has the Fourth Amendment Gone to the Dogs?: Unreasonable Expansion of Canine Sniff Doctrine to Include Sniffs of the Home, 88 Or. L. Rev. 829 (2009).
A snippet from the article:
Despite recent evidence that drug-detection dogs are inaccurate a surprising percentage of the time, the Court in Illinois v. Caballes extended the warrantless use of the canine sniff technique to a lawfully stopped vehicle. The impact of the Caballes decision has been felt far beyond vehicle sniffs, however. Lower courts have taken the Place and Caballes decisions as a signal that canine sniffs are per se nonsearches and that it is therefore permissible to conduct suspicionless canine sniffs of homes. Without a warrant requirement, or even a suspicion …
So when your dog sniffs you out at home, it could be a permissibly warrantless drug search? Bad doggie. Bad, bad.