Illinois v. Roy I. Caballes (543 U.S. 405)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided January 24, 2005 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 543 U.S. 405 · 125 S. Ct. 834
- Decided
- January 24, 2005
- Term
- October Term 2004
- Vote
- 6–2
- Majority author
- Justice Stevens
- Issue area
- Criminal Procedure
- Disposition
- Vacated and remanded
- Outcome
- Petitioning party won
- Ideological direction
- Conservative
Opinion excerpt
Justice Stevens delivered the opinion of the Court. Illinois State Trooper Daniel Gillette stopped respondent for speeding on an interstate highway. When Gillette radioed the police dispatcher to report the stop, a second trooper, Craig Graham, a member of the Illinois State Police Drug Interdiction Team, overheard the transmission and immediately headed for the scene with his narcotics-detection dog. When they arrived, respondent’s ear was on the shoulder of the road and respondent was in Gillette’s vehicle. While Gillette was in the process of writing a warning ticket, Graham walked his dog around respondent’s car. The dog alerted at the trunk. Based on that alert, the officers searched the trunk, found marijuana, and arrested respondent. The entire incident lasted less than 10 minutes. Respondent was convicted of a narcotics offense and sentenced to 12 years’ imprisonment and a $256,136 fine. The trial judge denied his motion to suppress the seized evidence and to quash his arrest. He held that the officers had not unnecessarily prolonged the stop and that the dog alert was sufficiently reliable to provide probable cause to conduct the search. Although the Appellate Court affirmed, the Illinois Supreme Court reversed, concluding that because the canine sniff was performed without any “‘specific and articulable facts’ ” to suggest drug activity, the use of the dog…
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