PA grants review of whether consent to search includes a dog sniff an hour later

Review granted: Commonwealth v. Valdivia, 2017 Pa. LEXIS 234 (Feb. 1, 2017), from Commonwealth v. Valdivia, 2016 PA Super 181, 145 A.3d 1156 (2016):

Whether, in a case of first impression, the Superior Court erred in holding that a reasonable person would have understood that their consent to a roadside search of their vehicle would encompass a canine sniff of all of the packages contained inside the vehicle, and that said consent was knowing, intelligent, and voluntary where the police officers withheld pertinent information about the forthcoming search from Petitioner, including that the canine search would not start any sooner than an hour from when Petitioner’s consent was given?


Lower court holding: By the time defendant consented, the officer had reasonable suspicion to detain defendant for investigation after issuing a warning. Defendant gave an unusually elaborate reason for traveling on the highway: He was driving a rental vehicle one way, which was a common tactic of drug smugglers; he had two boxes wrapped in Christmas paper, also a common drug smuggler tactic; he had been charged with selling drugs in Florida; and he changed his story when he was asked to get out of the vehicle to receive the warning. Commonwealth v. Valdivia, 2016 PA Super 181, 145 A.3d 1146 (2016).

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