Illinois Supreme Court Upholds Drug Dog Case

In April of 2014, I authored an article regarding a recent appellate court decision concerning a warrantless drug dog search of an apartment building. The Supreme Court of Illinois affirmed the Circuit Court of Champaign County in People v. Taron R. Burns , 2016 IL 118973, opinion filed March 24, 2016.

This case concerned the warrantless use of a drug-detection dog at the door of an individual apartment within a locked apartment building, in the middle of the evening. The issue is whether the police violated the defendant’s fourth amendment rights in conducting this search. The Court relied on the US Supreme Court decision of Florida v. Jardines , 569 U.S. ___, 133 S. Ct. 1409 (2013) as controlling.

The Illinois Supreme Court concluded that, "under Jardines , 569 U.S. ___, 133 S. Ct. 1409, when police entered defendant’s locked apartment building at 3:20 a.m. with a drug-detection dog, their investigation took place in a constitutionally protected area. We hold that the trial court properly determined that the warrantless use of the drug-detection dog at defendant’s apartment door violated defendant’s rights under the fourth amendment to the United States Constitution. U.S. Const., amend. IV." People v. Taron R. Burns, 2016 IL 118973, page 14.

The Burns decision can be found at http://illinoiscourts.gov/Opinions/SupremeCourt/2016/118973.pdf

For more information about this or any other criminal law topic, please contact the author, James Doerr at (847) 705-7555 or via email at jdoerr@lavellelaw.com.