The Supreme Court just upheld a decision to supress evidence in a marijuana case because police did not have probable cause to bring in a drug-sniffing dog. I like Scalia’s comment:
Interesting mix of justices on this one: Scalia, Thomas, Ginsberg, Sotomayor and Kagan voted with the majority, while Roberts, Alito, Kennedy, and Breyer dissented.
Bad link
Only on the porch. The Court decided that a dog sniff exceeds what one expects the public to do on one’s cartilage.
It’s a new area of Fourth Amendment law. Very interesting.
I really hope you mean curtilage.
No, no, cartilage. Very new area of law. They can’t get all up in your grill. 
Thanks for the good link.
Actually, this ruling is consistent with other recent rulings. For example, courts have ruled that scanning a house with thermal imaging devices constitutes a search, and the police need a warrant to do so.
At first glance I would have to agree. It is not a sweeping change of the interpretation of the 4th or even a huge change on how dogs can be used. It tweaks it a bit for when dogs are used in a very specific manner.
The “sweeping change” (relatively speaking) is that until Jones the test for a search was whether it violates the reasonable expectation of privacy. No one thought it mattered if the search was or was not a technical trespass.
This is the first application of that newly minted concept outside the GPS tracker context, suggesting it may find wider purchase than expected.
I don’t think it goes that far. A police officer is still able to go on the property and knock on the door. That is still not trespass.
Didn’t we do a thread on this subject?
This is a brandy new SCOTUS decision. If there was a thread it was before the decision came down today.
I tell ya, these 5-4 votes annoy me. Must have been easier when the court first organized when it only had 6 members.
I agree with the majority though.
This was a “sort of” companion case handed down in feb.
Yes, that was my thread, but no decision until now.
Goes what far? I wasn’t implying that *any *presence would be a trespass. The point is that, previously, whether it was a trespass or not was irrelevant (or at least not dispositive).
My impression is that it comes down to whether specialized equipment. ie. dog’s nose or thermal imager, is being utilized.
If the officer walks up on the porch and can smell the weed or see the bong on your coffee table through the window, your butt is still in a crack.
I think the general priciple is, if the police don’t have a warrant, then they can’t do anything that any random person wouldn’t be allowed to do. There’s nothing stopping you from knocking on someone’s door to ask them questions, but if you start searching their property without permission, you’re tresspassing.
In a way this decision is disappointing, because it means we’re never going to have drug-sniffing dogs harnessed to drones flying over neighborhoods, the dogs barking whenever they pass over a house with drugs. 
Cancelling plans for moat filled with laser sharks.
Your house is still your castle, the decision didn’t change that! That’d only be a problem if you tried to put the moat around a neighbor’s house.