{"id":60820,"date":"2025-04-15T10:57:38","date_gmt":"2025-04-15T15:57:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/?p=60820"},"modified":"2025-04-16T09:09:24","modified_gmt":"2025-04-16T14:09:24","slug":"ca8-dogs-instinctive-head-in-the-car-window-wasnt-a-trespass","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/?p=60820","title":{"rendered":"CA8: Dog&#8217;s instinctive head in the car window wasn&#8217;t a trespass"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>The dog touching the car was instinctive and not handler directed. Therefore, it\u2019s not a trespass. There\u2019s some doubt in the existing rule in this circuit, but not here. <a href=\"https:\/\/ecf.ca8.uscourts.gov\/opndir\/25\/04\/241573P.pdf\">United States v. Munoz<\/a>, 2025 U.S. App. LEXIS 8808 (8th Cir. Apr. 15, 2025):<\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<p>Chacon argues the dog\u2019s contact with the car was an unlawful trespass, thus an unreasonable search. \u201cThe use of a well-trained narcotics-detection dog \u2026 during a lawful traffic stop, generally does not implicate legitimate privacy interests.\u201d Caballes, 543 U.S. at 409. \u201cAbsent police misconduct, the instinctive actions of a trained canine do not violate the Fourth Amendment.\u201d United States v. Lyons, 486 F.3d 367, 373 (8th Cir. 2007) (holding a drug dog sticking his head through an open window was not a search because the dog did so \u201con his own\u201d and \u201cwas not directed\u201d to do so).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The district court did not clearly err by finding \u201cno convincing evidence to show that the trooper directed the drug dog to make any physical contact with the vehicle.\u201d \u201c[V]ideo footage instead supports the Government\u2019s position that the drug dog acted instinctively when the points of contact were made.\u201d Because the dog acted instinctively, his contact with the car did not violate the Fourth Amendment. True, since Lyons, this court has cast doubt on the dog-instinct versus officer conduct distinction because \u201cthe subjective intent of police officers is almost always irrelevant to whether an action violates the Fourth Amendment.\u201d United States v. Pulido-Ayala, 892 F.3d 315, 319 (8th Cir. 2018), citing Ashcroft v. al-Kidd, 563 U.S. 731, 736\u201337 (2011). Nevertheless, when, as here, \u201cthe dog\u2019s alert alone, without\u201d the instinctive act \u201cwould have given [officers] probable cause to search \u2026 the inevitable discovery doctrine justifies[s] admitting evidence.\u201d Id.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The dog touching the car was instinctive and not handler directed. Therefore, it\u2019s not a trespass. There\u2019s some doubt in the existing rule in this circuit, but not here. United States v. Munoz, 2025 U.S. App. LEXIS 8808 (8th Cir. &hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/?p=60820\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27,70],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-60820","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dog-sniff","category-trespass"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60820","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=60820"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60820\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":60826,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60820\/revisions\/60826"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=60820"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=60820"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=60820"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}