Illinois v. Caballes
Encyclopedia
In Illinois v. Caballes, , the Supreme Court held that the Fourth Amendment
is not violated when the use of a drug-sniffing dog during a routine traffic stop does not unreasonably prolong the length of the stop.
state trooper stopped Roy Caballes for speeding on an interstate highway. When the trooper reported the stop to his headquarters
, a member of the state police's drug
interdiction
squad
overheard the report
and proceeded to the location of the stop. When the drug officer arrived, Caballes was in the trooper's car
while the trooper was writing out a warning
ticket
. The drug officer walked his drug-sniffing dog around Caballes' car, and the dog alerted at the trunk
. Inside the trunk, the officers found marijuana. The whole episode
lasted less than 10 minutes.
After unsuccessfully moving to suppress the marijuana before trial, Caballes was convicted of narcotics trafficking and sentenced to 12 years in prison and a $256,136 fine. The trial judge denied Caballes' motion to suppress, reasoning that the officers had not unnecessarily prolonged the traffic stop, and the indication by the dog, of narcotics in the vehicle
, gave them probable cause to search the trunk of Caballes' car. The Appellate Court of Illinois affirmed, but the Illinois Supreme Court reversed, holding that because the dog sniff was performed without reference to specific and articulable facts, it unjustifiably enlarged the scope of the stop into a drug investigation. The Supreme Court agreed to hear the case in order to answer the question of whether the Fourth Amendment
requires reasonable suspicion to justify using a drug-sniffing dog during a routine and otherwise legitimate traffic stop.
However, a seizure that is justified at its inception may become unreasonable if it is unreasonably prolonged in duration. Thus, if the sole reason for the stop is to issue a warning to the motorist, the stop becomes unreasonable if it is prolonged beyond the time reasonably necessary to issue the warning. And if a drug-sniffing dog is used during this unreasonable extension, the use of the dog violates the Fourth Amendment. The Illinois Supreme Court reasoned that using the dog changed the character of the encounter from a routine traffic stop to a drug investigation, and that transformation had to be supported by reasonable suspicion. The Supreme Court instead reasoned that the dog sniff does not change the character of an encounter unless the dog sniff invaded any of the citizen's other reasonable expectations of privacy. The Court concluded it did not.
Official conduct that does not invade a reasonable expectation of privacy is not a "search" under the Fourth Amendment. The possession of contraband
is not anything in which a person
can have a legitimate expectation of privacy
, since it is by definition illegal to possess contraband. In United States v. Place
, the Court had held that a dog sniff is sui generis
because it discloses only the presence or absence of narcotics. By contrast, the information disclosed by the heat sensing device in Kyllo v. United States
disclosed the "intimate details in a home, such as at what hour each night the lady of the house takes her daily sauna and bath." People have a reasonable expectation that such information will be kept private, whereas they have no such expectation in the fact they possessed contraband. Thus, the use of a drug-sniffing dog does not intrude upon any reasonable expectation of privacy, and it was not unreasonable for the Illinois police to use the dog during the time it took them to issue a warning to Caballes.
Caballes argued that it was wrong to assume that the barks of drug-sniffing dogs reveal only information regarding the presence or absence of narcotics. But the Court rejected this argument because there was no information before the state courts to support it, and because he did not point to anything else in which a person has a reasonable expectation of privacy that a dog bark might reveal.
believed that the time had come to revisit the essential premise underpinning both the Court's opinion in United States v. Place
and the majority's opinion in Caballes—that the sniff of a dog is infallible, and can reveal either the presence or absence of narcotics and nothing else. "The infallible dog, however, is a creature of legal fiction.... Their supposed infallibility is belied by judicial opinions describing well-trained animals sniffing and alerting with less than perfect accuracy, whether owing to errors by their handlers, the limitations of the dogs themselves, or even the pervasive contamination of currency by cocaine
." Souter pointed to a study relied on by the State of Illinois in its reply brief, indicating that "dogs in artificial testing situations return false positives anywhere from 12.5% to 60% of the time, depending on the length of the search." If a dog is not infallible, then there is no logical
basis for the sui generis rule underlying Place and Caballes, and every reason to investigate "the actual function that dog sniffs perform." Because the dogs are in the hands of government agents determined to discover evidence of crime, the dog sniff is the "first step in a process that may disclose intimate details without revealing contraband," and hence is a "search" within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment. In the context of a traffic stop, an additional search unrelated to the initial purpose of the stop requires reasonable suspicion. Since in this case the police did not have such suspicion, Justice Souter would have affirmed the decision of the Illinois Supreme Court.
Justice Ginsburg
focused on the long-standing connection in the Court's Fourth Amendment jurisprudence between a traffic stop and the stop-and-frisk authorized in Terry v. Ohio
. The scope of a Terry stop is not circumscribed merely by duration; the manner in which the stop is carried out must also be carefully controlled. Ginsburg would have applied this principle to the traffic stop in this case, and required reasonable suspicion for the police to transform the routine traffic stop into a more extensive search for drugs. The fact that a dog sniff is sui generis only matters if the sole determinant of what is "reasonable" is the length of time a traffic stop lasts. If the Court had recognized that traffic stops must be limited in what police are searching for as well as how long they take to conduct the search, the sui generis
nature of dog sniffs would not have been dispositive of the case. "Under today's decision, every traffic stop could become an occasion to call in the dogs, to the distress and embarrassment of the law-abiding population.... Today's decision clears the way for suspicionless, dog-accompanied drug sweeps of parked cars along sidewalks and in parking lots.... Motorists [would not] have constitutional grounds for complaint should police with dogs, stationed at long traffic lights, circle cars waiting for the red signal to turn green."
Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution
The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution is the part of the Bill of Rights which guards against unreasonable searches and seizures, along with requiring any warrant to be judicially sanctioned and supported by probable cause...
is not violated when the use of a drug-sniffing dog during a routine traffic stop does not unreasonably prolong the length of the stop.
Facts
An IllinoisIllinois
Illinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...
state trooper stopped Roy Caballes for speeding on an interstate highway. When the trooper reported the stop to his headquarters
Headquarters
Headquarters denotes the location where most, if not all, of the important functions of an organization are coordinated. In the United States, the corporate headquarters represents the entity at the center or the top of a corporation taking full responsibility managing all business activities...
, a member of the state police's drug
Drug
A drug, broadly speaking, is any substance that, when absorbed into the body of a living organism, alters normal bodily function. There is no single, precise definition, as there are different meanings in drug control law, government regulations, medicine, and colloquial usage.In pharmacology, a...
interdiction
Interdiction
Interdiction is a military term that refers to the act of delaying, disrupting, or destroying enemy forces or supplies en route to the battle area. A distinction is often made between strategic and tactical interdiction...
squad
Squad
In military terminology, a squad is a small military unit led by a non-commissioned officer that is subordinate to an infantry platoon. In countries following the British Army tradition this organization is referred to as a section...
overheard the report
Report
A report is a textual work made with the specific intention of relaying information or recounting certain events in a widely presentable form....
and proceeded to the location of the stop. When the drug officer arrived, Caballes was in the trooper's car
Čar
Čar is a village in the municipality of Bujanovac, Serbia. According to the 2002 census, the town has a population of 296 people.-References:...
while the trooper was writing out a warning
Warning (traffic stop)
When a traffic stop is made, a warning issued by the officer is a statement that the motorist has committed some offense, but is being spared the actual citation. Officers can use their own discretion whether to issue a citation or warning...
ticket
Traffic ticket
A traffic ticket is a notice issued by a law enforcement official to a motorist or other road user, accusing violation of traffic laws. Traffic tickets generally come in two forms, citing a moving violation, such as exceeding the speed limit, or a non-moving violation, such as a parking violation,...
. The drug officer walked his drug-sniffing dog around Caballes' car, and the dog alerted at the trunk
Trunk (automobile)
The trunk or boot of an automobile or car is the vehicle's main storage, luggage, or cargo compartment. Trunk is used in North American English and Jamaican English; boot is used elsewhere in the English speaking world. Trunk is also primarily used in many non-English speaking regions, such as...
. Inside the trunk, the officers found marijuana. The whole episode
Episode
An episode is a part of a dramatic work such as a serial television or radio program. An episode is a part of a sequence of a body of work, akin to a chapter of a book. The term sometimes applies to works based on other forms of mass media as well, as in Star Wars...
lasted less than 10 minutes.
After unsuccessfully moving to suppress the marijuana before trial, Caballes was convicted of narcotics trafficking and sentenced to 12 years in prison and a $256,136 fine. The trial judge denied Caballes' motion to suppress, reasoning that the officers had not unnecessarily prolonged the traffic stop, and the indication by the dog, of narcotics in the vehicle
Vehicle
A vehicle is a device that is designed or used to transport people or cargo. Most often vehicles are manufactured, such as bicycles, cars, motorcycles, trains, ships, boats, and aircraft....
, gave them probable cause to search the trunk of Caballes' car. The Appellate Court of Illinois affirmed, but the Illinois Supreme Court reversed, holding that because the dog sniff was performed without reference to specific and articulable facts, it unjustifiably enlarged the scope of the stop into a drug investigation. The Supreme Court agreed to hear the case in order to answer the question of whether the Fourth Amendment
Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution
The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution is the part of the Bill of Rights which guards against unreasonable searches and seizures, along with requiring any warrant to be judicially sanctioned and supported by probable cause...
requires reasonable suspicion to justify using a drug-sniffing dog during a routine and otherwise legitimate traffic stop.
Majority opinion
The Fourth Amendment guards against "unreasonable searches and seizures." Under the Court's Fourth Amendment jurisprudence, a traffic stop is a "seizure," and requires reasonable suspicion that the driver of the vehicle has violated a traffic law. In this case, it was undisputed that Caballes was speeding. Thus, the traffic stop by itself was lawful from the start.However, a seizure that is justified at its inception may become unreasonable if it is unreasonably prolonged in duration. Thus, if the sole reason for the stop is to issue a warning to the motorist, the stop becomes unreasonable if it is prolonged beyond the time reasonably necessary to issue the warning. And if a drug-sniffing dog is used during this unreasonable extension, the use of the dog violates the Fourth Amendment. The Illinois Supreme Court reasoned that using the dog changed the character of the encounter from a routine traffic stop to a drug investigation, and that transformation had to be supported by reasonable suspicion. The Supreme Court instead reasoned that the dog sniff does not change the character of an encounter unless the dog sniff invaded any of the citizen's other reasonable expectations of privacy. The Court concluded it did not.
Official conduct that does not invade a reasonable expectation of privacy is not a "search" under the Fourth Amendment. The possession of contraband
Contraband
The word contraband, reported in English since 1529, from Medieval French contrebande "a smuggling," denotes any item which, relating to its nature, is illegal to be possessed or sold....
is not anything in which a person
Person
A person is a human being, or an entity that has certain capacities or attributes strongly associated with being human , for example in a particular moral or legal context...
can have a legitimate expectation of privacy
Privacy
Privacy is the ability of an individual or group to seclude themselves or information about themselves and thereby reveal themselves selectively...
, since it is by definition illegal to possess contraband. In United States v. Place
United States v. Place
United States v. Place, was a decision by the Supreme Court of the United States, which held that a sniff by a police dog specially trained to detect the presence of narcotics is not a "search" under the meaning of the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution...
, the Court had held that a dog sniff is sui generis
Sui generis
Sui generis is a Latin expression, literally meaning of its own kind/genus or unique in its characteristics. The expression is often used in analytic philosophy to indicate an idea, an entity, or a reality which cannot be included in a wider concept....
because it discloses only the presence or absence of narcotics. By contrast, the information disclosed by the heat sensing device in Kyllo v. United States
Kyllo v. United States
Kyllo v. United States, , held that the use of a thermal imaging device from a public vantage point to monitor the radiation of heat from a person's home was a "search" within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment, and thus required a warrant...
disclosed the "intimate details in a home, such as at what hour each night the lady of the house takes her daily sauna and bath." People have a reasonable expectation that such information will be kept private, whereas they have no such expectation in the fact they possessed contraband. Thus, the use of a drug-sniffing dog does not intrude upon any reasonable expectation of privacy, and it was not unreasonable for the Illinois police to use the dog during the time it took them to issue a warning to Caballes.
Caballes argued that it was wrong to assume that the barks of drug-sniffing dogs reveal only information regarding the presence or absence of narcotics. But the Court rejected this argument because there was no information before the state courts to support it, and because he did not point to anything else in which a person has a reasonable expectation of privacy that a dog bark might reveal.
Dissenting opinions
Justice SouterDavid Souter
David Hackett Souter is a former Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. He served from 1990 until his retirement on June 29, 2009. Appointed by President George H. W. Bush to fill the seat vacated by William J...
believed that the time had come to revisit the essential premise underpinning both the Court's opinion in United States v. Place
United States v. Place
United States v. Place, was a decision by the Supreme Court of the United States, which held that a sniff by a police dog specially trained to detect the presence of narcotics is not a "search" under the meaning of the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution...
and the majority's opinion in Caballes—that the sniff of a dog is infallible, and can reveal either the presence or absence of narcotics and nothing else. "The infallible dog, however, is a creature of legal fiction.... Their supposed infallibility is belied by judicial opinions describing well-trained animals sniffing and alerting with less than perfect accuracy, whether owing to errors by their handlers, the limitations of the dogs themselves, or even the pervasive contamination of currency by cocaine
Cocaine
Cocaine is a crystalline tropane alkaloid that is obtained from the leaves of the coca plant. The name comes from "coca" in addition to the alkaloid suffix -ine, forming cocaine. It is a stimulant of the central nervous system, an appetite suppressant, and a topical anesthetic...
." Souter pointed to a study relied on by the State of Illinois in its reply brief, indicating that "dogs in artificial testing situations return false positives anywhere from 12.5% to 60% of the time, depending on the length of the search." If a dog is not infallible, then there is no logical
Logic
In philosophy, Logic is the formal systematic study of the principles of valid inference and correct reasoning. Logic is used in most intellectual activities, but is studied primarily in the disciplines of philosophy, mathematics, semantics, and computer science...
basis for the sui generis rule underlying Place and Caballes, and every reason to investigate "the actual function that dog sniffs perform." Because the dogs are in the hands of government agents determined to discover evidence of crime, the dog sniff is the "first step in a process that may disclose intimate details without revealing contraband," and hence is a "search" within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment. In the context of a traffic stop, an additional search unrelated to the initial purpose of the stop requires reasonable suspicion. Since in this case the police did not have such suspicion, Justice Souter would have affirmed the decision of the Illinois Supreme Court.
Justice Ginsburg
Ruth Bader Ginsburg
Ruth Joan Bader Ginsburg is an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. Ginsburg was appointed by President Bill Clinton and took the oath of office on August 10, 1993. She is the second female justice and the first Jewish female justice.She is generally viewed as belonging to...
focused on the long-standing connection in the Court's Fourth Amendment jurisprudence between a traffic stop and the stop-and-frisk authorized in Terry v. Ohio
Terry v. Ohio
Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1 , was a decision by the United States Supreme Court which held that the Fourth Amendment prohibition on unreasonable searches and seizures is not violated when a police officer stops a suspect on the street and frisks him without probable cause to arrest, if the police...
. The scope of a Terry stop is not circumscribed merely by duration; the manner in which the stop is carried out must also be carefully controlled. Ginsburg would have applied this principle to the traffic stop in this case, and required reasonable suspicion for the police to transform the routine traffic stop into a more extensive search for drugs. The fact that a dog sniff is sui generis only matters if the sole determinant of what is "reasonable" is the length of time a traffic stop lasts. If the Court had recognized that traffic stops must be limited in what police are searching for as well as how long they take to conduct the search, the sui generis
Sui generis
Sui generis is a Latin expression, literally meaning of its own kind/genus or unique in its characteristics. The expression is often used in analytic philosophy to indicate an idea, an entity, or a reality which cannot be included in a wider concept....
nature of dog sniffs would not have been dispositive of the case. "Under today's decision, every traffic stop could become an occasion to call in the dogs, to the distress and embarrassment of the law-abiding population.... Today's decision clears the way for suspicionless, dog-accompanied drug sweeps of parked cars along sidewalks and in parking lots.... Motorists [would not] have constitutional grounds for complaint should police with dogs, stationed at long traffic lights, circle cars waiting for the red signal to turn green."
See also
External links
- Oyez.org US Supreme Court Multimedia
- Transcript of the oral argument
- Opening brief of the State of Illinois as Petitioner
- Brief of Caballes as Respondent
- Reply brief of the State of Illinois as Petitioner
- Amicus brief of the ACLU
- Amicus brief of the Solicitor General
- Case note in the Harvard Law Review, 119 Harv. L. Rev. 179 (2005)
- "Bark if you love Justice Souter!" — Dahlia LithwickDahlia Lithwick-External links:*...
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