People v. Burns, 2016 IL 118973 (March). Episode 154 (Duration 4:58)

The “no-nights visits” rule is affirmed, can’t bring the sniffer dog to your front step for a little sniff action.

Facts

After receiving a tip that Defendant is selling wee from her apartment, the police bring a dog to her apartment door.

The dog alerts to the presence of contraband. The police then go get a warrant.

Issue

Which begs the question: does the warrantless use of a drug-detection dog at an apartment door, located within a locked apartment building, in the middle of the night, violate defendant’s fourth amendment rights?

SCOTUS Case

The elephant in the room here is Florida v. Jardines, 569 U.S. ___, 133 S. Ct. 1409 (2013).

The State argued that the officers conducted a dog sniff on the landing outside of defendant’s apartment door and that the landing was not part of the defendant’s cartilage under the “property-based” analysis announced in Jardines.

Defendant counters that under Jardines, a search warrant is required to conduct a dog-sniff search at the entrance to a home. Indeed, the problem in Jardines, according to Scalia, was that the cops intruded physically on defendant’s property in order to conduct a search.

Holding

However, the Illinois Supreme Court was not persuaded by this argument.

All the relevant factors pointed to the conclusion that this apartment stoop was part of the cartilage of Defendant’s home.

These factors being: (1) “the proximity of the area claimed to be cartilage to the home”; (2) “whether the area is included within an enclosure surrounding the home”; (3) “the nature of the uses to which the area is put”; and (4) “the steps taken by the resident to protect the area from observation by people passing by.” Dunn, 480 U.S. at 301.

This intrusion onto her locked front stoop at 3:20 am was unconstitutional.

See also the Drug Dog Resource Page.