MN: Dog sniff inside car a search

A dog sniff inside a car is a search. But here it was with probable cause. State v. Johnson, 2024 Minn. App. LEXIS 537 (Dec. 23, 2024):

… The Supreme Court stated, however, that a trespass alone is not a search “unless it is done to obtain information.” Id. at 408 n.5. Thus, because the government “physically occupied private property for the purpose of obtaining information,” the Supreme Court concluded that a search had occurred. Id. at 404.
The Supreme Court applied the same principle in Florida v. Jardines, 569 U.S. 1, 1, 133 S. Ct. 1409, 185 L. Ed. 2d 495 (2013). In Jardines, law enforcement took a narcotics-detection dog to Jardines’s front porch and, “[a]fter sniffing the base of the front door,” the dog alerted to the presence of narcotics. 569 U.S. at 4-5. Law enforcement did not have a warrant. Id. at 4. The Supreme Court concluded that it did not need to decide whether the intrusion violated Jardines’s expectation of privacy. Id. at 11. “That the officers learned what they learned only by physically intruding on Jardines'[s] property to gather evidence [was] enough to establish that a search occurred.” Id.

Although neither the United States Supreme Court nor the Minnesota Supreme Court has addressed whether a sniff by a narcotics-detection dog inside a vehicle constitutes a search, the principles established in Jones and Jardines compel us to conclude that the use of a narcotics-detection dog to physically occupy or intrude on any private property constitutes a search. We therefore hold that, under the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution and article I, section 10 of the Minnesota Constitution, a nonconsensual warrantless sniff inside a vehicle by a narcotics-detection dog is a search for which law enforcement must have probable cause to believe will result in a discovery of evidence or contraband.