Does Drug Dog Sniff Outside Home Violate Privacy Essay

Joelis Jardines was growing marijuana in his home. The police were initially alerted from a tip-off, but later by the actions of a sniffer dog on the porch outside his house. His defense team invoked the Fourth Amendment (violation of privacy) to provide him with a convenient “technical” loophole in the law that may avoid him being convicted. It is clear that he has broken the law – on more than one count – and should be punished for the following reasons:
Firstly, the detective keeping watch on Jardines’ home following a tip-off had observed the air conditioning running constantly – an abnormal situation. Hence (bearing in mind the earlier tip-off) there were reasonable grounds for using a sniffer dog; it was not just a case of a police officer with dog randomly patrolling a neighborhood hoping to find drugs somewhere.
Secondly, once the police had gained access to the house, they did indeed find marijuana plants being grown. That was against the law and should be punished accordingly.
They found that Jardines had illegally bypassed the electricity meter and had as a consequence stolen some $5,000 worth of electricity. That is another punishable offence. He also fled from the house – clearly a guilty action. If he was innocent he had no reason to run.
It is a travesty that much time and money has been wasted in this case in a number of courts of law, simply because of what most would view as a mere technicality, yet cannot hide the fact that Jardines was without question guilty of criminal acts. It is to be hoped that the US Supreme Court’s final decision will be to allow the evidence and thus find Jardines guilty.