Florida V Jardines
Florida V Jardines
Jardines
FACTS:
In this case, an unverified tip that was received by the police claiming that
the residence of the respondent Jardines was being used to grow marijuana.
Acting on the tip and ascertaining that no one was home, two detectives
went brought a drug-detection dog to the front door.
From outside the front door, the dog gave a “positive alert for narcotics”.
That same day, the police department applied for, received, and executed a
warrant to search Jardines’ home on the basis of the dog’s alert. The
warranted search uncovered marijuana plants and Jardines was charged with
trafficking in cannibis.
Jardines moved to suppress the marijuana plants at trial on the ground that
the canine investigation was an unreasonable search.
The trial court granted the motion.
However, the appellate court reversed, holding that a dog sniff does not
constitute a 4th Amendment search because it “detects only contraband, and
because no one has a “legitimate” privacy interest in contraband.
Florida SC quashed the appellate court’s decision and sustained the trial
court’s. It stated that the “warrantless sniff test conducted at the front door
of the residence was an unreasonable government intrusion into the sanctity
of the home and violated the 4th Amendment.
ISSUE: W/N the act of the policemen in conducting a warrantless search at the
front door of Jardines with the aid of a drug-detection dog constitutes search within
the meaning of the 4th Amendment
HELD:
Yes. The SC US affirmed the ruling of the trial court. It held that
“government’s use of trained police dogs to investigate the home and its
surroundings is a “search” within the meaning of the 4th Amendment.
It made some significant pronouncements:
- The 4th Amendment which protects the “right of the people to be secure in
their persons, houses, papers and effects against unreasonable searches
and seizures”, establishes a simple baseline: When “the Government
obtains information by PHYSICALLY INTRUDING” on persons, houses,
papers or effects, “a search” within the original meaning of the 4 th
Amendment” has been “undoubtedly occurred.”
The officers gathered information in an area belonging to Jardines and
immediately surrounding his house, and which enjoys protection as part of
the house itself. They gathered the information by PHYSICALLY ENTERING
and OCCUPYING the area to engage in conduct not explicitly or implicitly
permitted by the homeowner. That the officers learned what they learned
only by physically intruding on Jardine’s property to gather evidence is
enough to establish that a search occurred.
At the 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 outside the front window.
The area “immediately surrounding and associated with the home, “called the
curtilage, is “part of the home itself for the 4th Amendment purposes.”
The “curtilage” is intimately linked to the home, both physically and
psychologically, and is where “privacy expectations are most heightened.”