Drug Sniffing Dogs no longer PC in Colorado

[Chris0nllyn]

In this opinion, the supreme court considers the impact of the legalization of small amounts of marijuana for adults who are at least twenty-one years old on law enforcement’s use of drug-detection dogs that alert to marijuana when conducting an exploratory sniff of an item or area.

The supreme court holds that a sniff from a drug-detection dog that is trained to alert to marijuana constitutes a search under the Colorado Constitution because that sniff can detect lawful activity, namely the legal possession of up to one ounce of marijuana by adults twenty-one and older. The supreme court further holds that, in Colorado, law enforcement officers must have probable cause to believe that an item or area contains a drug in violation of state law before deploying a drug-detection dog that alerts to marijuana for an exploratory sniff.

The supreme court concludes by determining that there was no probable cause in this case to justify the sniff of the defendant’s truck by a drug-detection dog trained to alert to marijuana, and thus, the trial court erred in denying the defendant’s motion to suppress. The supreme court further concludes that the appropriate remedy for this violation of the Colorado Constitution is the exclusion of the evidence at issue. Thus, the supreme court affirms the court of appeals’ decision to reverse McKnight’s judgment of conviction.

https://www.courts.state.co.us/userfiles/file/Court_Probation/Supreme_Court/Opinions/2017/17SC584.pdf

 

[GURPS]

may they banned everywhere.

 

[Hijinx]

How about dogs that sniff out Cocaine at the border?
Are they illegally searching too?

 

[Chris0nllyn]

How about dogs that sniff out Cocaine at the border?
Are they illegally searching too?

Though I'd make an argument for getting rid of drug dogs altogether for other reasons, no, they aren't illegally searching.

 

[Hijinx]

Though I'd make an argument for getting rid of drug dogs altogether for other reasons, no, they aren't illegally searching.

If they aren't illegally searching for Cocaine, they aren't illegally searching for Marijuana if they do it in schools where kids haven't reached the age required to make yourself stupid with weed.

 

[Chris0nllyn]

If they aren't illegally searching for Cocaine, they aren't illegally searching for Marijuana if they do it in schools where kids haven't reached the age required to make yourself stupid with weed.

The point of the case was to state that drug dogs can't be used for probable cause to search a vehicle is the substance is legal in that state.

A dog that smells marijuana in a car in Colorado can't be used as justification for to search that car.

This is not a Supreme Court of the US case, but a Supreme Court of Colorado case.




Of course, dogs, like speed/red light cameras, are unconstitutional in my opinion as you, as a defendant, can't question your accuser.

 

[Hijinx]

You can question the red light camera.
Many people have done it, and some of them have won.

 

[GURPS]

Of course, dogs, like speed/red light cameras, are unconstitutional in my opinion as you, as a defendant, can't question your accuser.

I have said this for yrs .... and you have to 'trust't handler is doing his job, with all the cops planting drugs over the yrs to 'get a bust'

I trust a K9 about as far as I could throw one.