Another aspect of the drug-sniffing dog case that is mentioned in passing
in the opinion (the appellate lawyer didn't think there was enough to brief
this issue) was the car stop itself, in which a police-state type practice
occurs: police only have enough "cause" to write a ticket, but police "make
what they described as a routine request for permission to search..." (and
amazingly most people say yes -another indictment of government schools that
create "good citizens" who waive their constitutional rights and cannot say
"NO" to searches). In the cited case the driver said "NO."
There is a disturbing trend among some law enforcement
agencies to routinely try to search with no cause, by inducing people to
"give permission." If the police are refused permission to search,
then some police slowly write a traffic ticket, as they radio and await the
arrival of a drug dog. This issue was discussed in a newspaper editorial endorsing the drug dog appeals decision. The dog is the excuse police use in order to
obtain "probable cause" to overcome the car-owner's refusal of a search.
The police know that the case law says that without additional evidence,
the police cannot detain someone any longer than it takes to write the traffic
ticket. The police have no basis to detain any longer than that for
a traffic infraction. Of course, the police are always still slowly
writing the ticket when the dog arrives.
In
the drug-dog case cited the suppression hearing included the radio logs to show
how long the wait was. Nevertheless, the judge decided the ticket writing was
fast enough for government work. The judge ruled that the defendant
was not detained too long.
Some law enforcement agencies seem to use drug-dogs to
punish people for exercising their rights by refusing a search. Future
cases should argue that the police don't have cause to detain a person even
long enough to pick up the radio and call the dog.