Florida v Harris - Case brief PDF

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Kara Chrispen CJS 305-01

Florida v. Harris 133 S. Ct. 1050 (2013) FACTS: Clayton Harris was pulled over by Officer Wheetley for an expired license plate. Clayton looked nervous and was shaking. Wheetley saw an open beer can and asked to search the car but Harris refused. The officer then brought over a K9 and he alerted at the diver side door. Wheetley then had probable cause to search the truck. The officer did not find any drugs that the dog was trained to detect. However, it did reveal 200 loose pseudoephedrine pills, 8,000 matches, a bottle of hydrochloric acid, two containers of anti-freeze, and a coffee filter full of iodine crystals. All of those ingredients are for making methamphetamine. Harris was arrested and was charged with possessing pseudoephedrine for the use of manufacturing methamphetamine. When Harris was out on bail, Officer Wheetley pulled him over for a broken brake light and the dog alerted at his driver side door again. He searched the truck again and found nothing of interest. Harris moved to suppress the evidence found in his truck on the grounds that the dog’s alert had not given Wheetley probable cause for a search. Wheetley and this K9 had been through a lot of training and have certifications. Wheetley conceded saying that the certification had expired the year before he pulled over Harris. He also acknowledged that he did not keep complete records of the K9’s performance in traffic stops or other field work, instead he only took records only of alerts resulting in arrest. Wheetley stated that Harris probably transferred the odor of the meth to the door handle, and the K9 responded to that residue. The trial court concluded that the officer did have probable cause to search the truck. The Florida Supreme Court then reversed the holding saying that Wheetley lacked probable cause to search Harris’s vehicle under the Fourth Amendment. The court wrote, “the fact that the dog has been trained and certified is simply not enough to establish probable cause.” The court stressed that there needs to be records of when the dog alerted and did not find contraband. QUESTION: Was the search done by the K9 that alerted at a traffic stop a violation of the Fourth Amendment? NO OPINION: Kagan 1. A police officer had PC to conduct a search when the facts available to him would warrant a person of reasonable caution in the belief that contraband or evidence of a crime is present. 2. Look at the totality of the circumstances. 3. The dog needs to have records of their hits and misses in the field. 4. The finding of a drug-detection dog’s reliability is the same as an anonymous informant, like in Gates, it can’t always be trusted. 5. If a dog does not alert on a car that has drugs, then the mistake will go undetected because the officer will not initiate the search. Field data thus may not capture a dog’s false negatives.

Kara Chrispen CJS 305-01

6. IF the dog alerts to a car and the officer finds nothing, the dog may have not made a mistake at all. The dog may have detected substance that are too small for the officer to locate. Or the dog may have smelled residue. 7. The better measure of a dog’s reliability thus comes away from the field, in controlled testing environments. 8. Evidence of a dog’s satisfactory performance in a certification or training program can itself provide sufficient reason to trust his alert. Only accurate drug-detection dogs enable officers to locate contraband without incurring unnecessary risks or wasting limited time and resources. 9. The defendant must have an opportunity to challenge such evidences of a dog’s reliability....