Taking a package from the USPS mail line for a dog sniff does not implicate the Fourth Amendment

A package seemed suspicious from its handwritten label and its using only the recipient’s last name and its weight compared to its likely contents. Pulling the package off the mail line for a dog sniff was a de minimus delay of the package that implicated no constitutional rights. United States v. Alexander, 2006 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 84388 (N.D. Ohio November 20, 2006):

These characteristics combine to defeat Defendant Alexander’s overly-general argument that the package’s “size and appearance was identical to every other U.S. Postal Service Express mail shipping box that is shipped in U.S. mail.” Further, Alexander overlooks the fact that the Fourth Amendment protects legitimate privacy interests, which do not include items exposed to the public. See Katz, 389 U.S. at 351. Briefly detaining the package from the public mail flow, Detective Cook lawfully subjected it to a “sniff test” by his canine partner. See Place, 462 U.S. at 707. The detention of the package and the sniff test did not otherwise delay the delivery of the package. Thereafter, the postal inspectors employed established police procedure to apply for and obtain valid search warrants from Magistrate Judge Vecchiarelli and Cuyahoga County Judge Russo to examine the package’s contents and attempt a controlled-delivery to Alexander’s home. Taken together, these police procedures do not violate Alexander’s constitutional rights against unreasonable search and seizure.

Police officers showed that the protective sweep of plaintiff’s home was justified by a legitimate fear of officer safety, so summary judgment should have been granted to the officers. Fishbein v. City of Glenwood Springs, 469 F.3d 957 (10th Cir. November 22, 2006):

In our case, the second of these factors is more easily addressed and we dispose of it first. While the Fishbeins maintain that there is “considerable doubt” as to whether the sweep of their home was narrowly tailored to the preservation of officer safety, there is in fact little evidence to suggest the officers’ sweep was meant for anything other than police protection. Neither Officer Keiter nor Officer Hagberry removed any items from the house. No person within the house was arrested. The Fishbeins’ argument is based entirely on Plaintiff Aaron Hughes’s estimate that it took the officers “a little less than five minutes maybe” to complete their sweep. Appellants’ App. at 205. The Fishbeins urge this Court to surmise that the officers were gathering evidence during this time, behavior outside the bounds of a protective search. Buie, 494 U.S. at 326. Such a conclusion, however, would be unsupported speculation. We do not think five minutes is a self-evidently excessive time for police to conduct a limited protective sweep to ensure that there are no armed and dangerous persons lurking on the premises. Buie counsels that the sweep should be “no longer than is necessary to dispel the reasonable suspicion of danger.” 494 U.S. at 335-36. But given the cluttered interior of the Fishbein home, the time spent removing the two teenagers, the officers’ concerns regarding the cache of weapons, and the fact that Officers Keiter and Hagberry neither removed evidence from the house nor made arrests while inside, we have little trouble in concluding that their sweep was legitimately aimed at securing officers’ safety.

Officers had cause for stop based on traffic offenses, and there was reasonable suspicion from other information the officers had gathered before. Ultimately, the police obtained probable cause. “[T]he police are not required to rule out all innocent explanations to establish probable cause, and in any event, the facts here did not suggest innocent activity.” United States v. Meeks, 2006 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 84586 (E.D. Mo. November 21, 2006).