A Colorado Supreme Court ruling on the use of dogs in drug searches appears to be a big win for privacy rights. But some are warning that it invites federal action that could threaten cannabis legalization in the Centennial State.<\/p>\n
The May 20\u00a0ruling<\/a>\u00a0found that using police dogs trained to sniff out cannabis itself constitutes a search \u2014 and therefore, a dog\u2019s \u201calert\u201d cannot be used as probable cause for a more extensive search. In fact, the ruling held, the very use of the dog requires probable cause.<\/p>\n \u201cThe dog\u2019s sniff arguably intrudes on a person\u2019s reasonable expectation of privacy in lawful activity,\u201d Supreme Court Justice William Hood wrote for the majority in the 4-3 decision. \u201cIf so, that intrusion must be justified by some degree of particularized suspicion of criminal activity.\u201d<\/p>\n The case stems from a 2015 arrest in Moffat County, in the state\u2019s northwest corner, as the Denver Post<\/a>\u00a0relates. A police officer in the town of Craig stopped a truck that was deemed to be suspicious and called in a K-9 unit from the county sheriff\u2019s department for a sniff test. The dog, amusingly named Kilo, alerted for drugs in the truck. Deputies searched the vehicle and uncovered a meth pipe with some residue. The driver, Kevin McKnight, was taken into custody, and later convicted of two drug-possession charges.\u00a0<\/p>\n But here\u2019s the catch. Kilo was trained to alert to cannabis as well as methamphetamine, cocaine,\u00a0heroin<\/a>\u00a0and so on. So, McKnight\u2019s lawyers appealed, arguing that the deputies\u2019 search was illegal because Kilo could have been alerting to a legal quantity of cannabis. The deputies therefore didn\u2019t have enough evidence to justify a search the truck.<\/p>\n The Colorado Supreme Court agreed, overturning McKnight\u2019s convictions.<\/p>\n \u201cBecause there was no way to know whether Kilo was alerting to lawful marijuana or unlawful contraband, Kilo\u2019s sniff violated McKnight\u2019s reasonable expectation of privacy,\u201d the majority opinion stated.<\/p>\n But did the court overstep, inviting a federal backlash that could actually threaten Colorado\u2019s cannabis legalization? That\u2019s what the Colorado Sun<\/a>\u00a0argues, in an article with the following ominous headline: \u201cDid the Colorado Supreme Court just throw the state\u2019s marijuana-legalization regime into question? The chief justice seems to think so.\u201d<\/p>\n Chief Justice Nathan Coats, in his strongly worded dissent, warned that the ruling had basically thrown down the gauntlet to the feds. \u201cI object specifically to its radical reconstruction, in the wake of our recent marijuana initiative, of the state\u2019s own constitutional Bill of Rights,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n The majority in\u00a0People v. McKnight<\/em>\u00a0cited Amendment 64 \u2014 the constitutional change approved by the voters to legalize cannabis in 2012 \u2014 as extending the privacy protections in the state\u2019s Bill of Rights. But because the substance that was actually found was methamphetamine, Coats argued, the ruling effectively extended privacy protections to that too. It means that \u201can individual is held to have a reasonable expectation of privacy in the commission of [a] federal crime.\u201d And this invites the federal response that U.S. law \u201cpreempts\u201d state law.<\/p>\n \u201cI am particularly concerned that in going to such lengths to craft a rationale for imposing limitations on the use of drug detection dogs, the majority unwittingly exposes not only the marijuana initiative itself but even the state\u2019s constitutional Bill of Rights to a much greater risk of federal preemption than would previously have been the case,\u201d Coats stated.<\/p>\n And while the case did not concern federal law, which could provide a safeguard against the federal courts taking it up, Coats isn\u2019t so sure. \u201cWhile resting a decision solely on state grounds may generally be an effective technique for insulating state courts from further federal review, that is clearly not the case with regard to the supremacy of federal law,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n How realistic a fear is this? While under the current reactionary and erratic administration nothing can be ruled out, the correct answer is probably\u2026 Not very.<\/p>\n The\u00a0U.S.\u00a0Supreme Court<\/a>\u00a0actually\u00a0issued its own favorable ruling<\/a>\u00a0on the use of drug dogs in 2015. In the 6-3 ruling that April, the country\u2019s highest court found that the Constitution forbids police from holding a suspect without probable cause \u2014 even for the few extra minutes it takes for a drug dog to arrive.\u00a0<\/p>\n Writing for the majority, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg stated: \u201cWe hold that a police stop exceeding the time needed to handle the matter for which the stop was made violates the Constitution\u2019s shield against unreasonable seizures.\u201d<\/p>\n The case,\u00a0Rodriguez v. United States<\/a><\/em>, concerned by a man who was pulled over for driving on the shoulder of a Nebraska highway. After the officer issued a warning for bad driving, he asked whether he could walk a drug dog around the vehicle. Motorist Dennys Rodriguez refused. The officer nonetheless detained him for \u201cseven or eight minutes\u201d until a backup unit arrived with the dog \u2014 who promptly alerted for drugs. Rodriguez was arrested for methamphetamine possession. The Supreme Court overturned his conviction. Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Anthony Kennedy dissented.<\/p>\n The U.S. Supreme Court has of course tilted further to the right with the ascension of Brett Kavanaugh in October \u2014 replacing Kennedy, held to be the swing vote on the court. But in the\u00a0Rodriguez<\/em>\u00a0decision, Kennedy dissented, while conservatives John Roberts and Antonin Scalia sided with the majority. Strictly civil libertarian cases such as these often fail to break down along predictable left-right lines.<\/p>\n And within days of the Colorado high court decision came another very favorable sign from the feds \u2014 this time from the Justice Department, and directly concerning cannabis in Colorado.<\/p>\n In a brief filed May 22, U.S.\u00a0Solicitor General Donald Verrilli Jr. urged the Supreme Court not to hear the case brought by Nebraska and Oklahoma challenging Colorado\u2019s cannabis legalization as contrary to federal law. The case had been brought\u00a0directly to the high court<\/a>, as a matter between states, back in 2014. It has since been awaiting a decision from the justices on whether to take it on.<\/p>\n As the\u00a0Denver Post<\/a>\u00a0reports, Verrilli wrote that case \u201cshould be denied because this is not an appropriate case for the exercise of this Court\u2019s original jurisdiction. Entertaining the type of dispute at issue here \u2014 essentially that one State\u2019s laws make it more likely that third parties will violate federal and state law in another State \u2014 would represent a substantial and unwarranted expansion of this Court\u2019s original jurisdiction.\u201d<\/p>\n Failure to hear the case would kill it, and leave Colorado\u00a0cannabis legalization<\/a> intact. With favorable signs from both the Supreme Court and the Justice Department, a federal \u201cpreemption\u201d action against Amendment 64 is probably a long shot.<\/p>\n TELL US<\/strong>, have you ever had a run-in with a police dog?<\/p>\n The post Colorado Courts Tighten Legal Leash on Drug Dogs, With Contested Implications for Cannabis<\/a> appeared first on Cannabis Now<\/a>.<\/p>\n
A Colorado Supreme Court ruling on the use of dogs in drug searches appears to be a big win for privacy rights. But some are warning that it invites federal action that could threaten cannabis legalization in the Centennial State. The May 20\u00a0ruling\u00a0found that using police dogs trained to sniffContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":190,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1408,50,216,21,10084,1852,1134,230,90,2176,4821],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35594"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/190"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35594"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35594\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35595,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35594\/revisions\/35595"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35594"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35594"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35594"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Privacy Implications of Legal Cannabis<\/h4>\n
Does the Ruling (Paradoxically) Threaten Colorado Legalization?<\/h4>\n
Favorable precedent from SCOTUS<\/strong><\/h4>\n
Justice Department Weighs in for Colorado Legalization \u2014 Really<\/h4>\n
\n
\nRead More: Colorado Courts Tighten Legal Leash on Drug Dogs, With Contested Implications for Cannabis<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"