Florida v. Jardines

Florida v. Jardines
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued October 31, 2012 Decided March 26, 2013
Full case name	State of Florida, Petitioner v. Joelis Jardines, Respondent
Docket no.	11-564
Citations	569 U.S. 1 (more) 133 S. Ct. 1409; 185 L. Ed. 2d 495; 2013 U.S. LEXIS 2542; 81 U.S.L.W. 4209
Case history
Prior	evid. suppressed at trial; reversed, 9 So.3d 1 (Fla. 3d DCA 2008); quashed, 73 So.3d 34, (Fla. S. Ct. 2011); rehearing denied, unpubl. order, (Fla. S. Ct. 2011); cert. granted, 565 U.S. 1104 (2012).
Holding
The government's use of trained police dogs to investigate the home and its immediate surroundings is a "search" within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment. Supreme Court of Florida affirmed.
Court membership
Chief Justice John Roberts Associate Justices Antonin Scalia · Anthony Kennedy Clarence Thomas · Ruth Bader Ginsburg Stephen Breyer · Samuel Alito Sonia Sotomayor · Elena Kagan
Case opinions
Majority	Scalia, joined by Thomas, Ginsburg, Sotomayor, Kagan
Concurrence	Kagan, joined by Ginsburg, Sotomayor
Dissent	Alito, joined by Roberts, Kennedy, Breyer
Laws applied
U.S. Const. amend. IV

Florida v. Jardines, 569 U.S. 1 (2013), was a United States Supreme Court case which resulted in the decision that police use of a trained detection dog to sniff for narcotics on the front porch of a private home is a "search" within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution, and therefore, without consent, requires both probable cause and a search warrant.^[1]

In 2006, police in Miami, Florida received an anonymous tip that a home was being used as a marijuana grow house. They led a drug-sniffing police dog to the front door of the home, and the dog alerted at the front door to the scent of contraband. A search warrant was issued, which led to the arrest of the homeowner.

Twenty-seven U.S. states and the Federal government, among others, had supported Florida's argument that this use of a police dog was an acceptable form of minimally invasive warrantless search.^[2][3] In a 5–4 decision, the Court disagreed, despite three previous cases in which the Court had held that a dog sniff was not a search when deployed against luggage at an airport, against vehicles in a drug interdiction checkpoint, and against vehicles during routine traffic stops. The Court made clear by this ruling that it considers the deployment of a police dog at the front door of a private residence to be another matter altogether.