Decide whether law enforcement officers followed Fourth Amendment procedural rules when gathering evidence.

Assignment Preparation

First: Read the scenario below.

Scenario

In January 2019, a confidential informant told police that Dave Nelson was selling heroin from his apartment. The informant also said that Nelson lived on the second floor of an apartment building, drove a red Chevy pickup, and that the informant had seen two shotguns in Nelson’s pickup in the past 3 months.

Police showed the informant a photo of Nelson, and the informant confirmed that the man in the photo was the man selling heroin from his apartment. Police also confirmed that Nelson was the registered owner of a red Chevy pickup.

Police later saw Nelson’s red Chevy pickup with the matching license plate number parked in the parking lot of the apartment building the informant described. When police looked at the resident directory for that building, they learned that a person named Nelson was listed as an emergency contact and lived in apartment 202.

Based on this information, police officers went to the apartment building with a K-9. The building manager allowed the officers to enter the secured entrance. The officers, including the K-9, proceeded to the second floor. The dog was trained to detect narcotics through smell. The dog walked down the hallway, sniffing at all of the doors on the way to apartment 202. When the dog sniffed the door frame of apartment 202, the dog alerted to the presence of narcotics.

Based on the K-9’s alert to the presences of narcotics, police applied for and obtained a search warrant for Nelson’s apartment. The affidavit in support of the warrant describe the dog sniff and the fact that the dog alerted to the presence of narcotics when it sniffed at the door frame of Nelson’s apartment.

When the police executed the search warrant, Nelson was in the apartment. Police found several firearms, ammunition, a box of small empty plastic bags, a plastic bag containing 28 grams of heroin, two digital scales, several cells phones, and $700 cash in small denominations.

Second: Listen to the oral argument in State v. Edstrom. In this case, the State of Minnesota is appealing a decision by the Minnesota Court of Appeals, which ruled that a drug sniff of an apartment hallway was unconstitutional. (Note: There was a problem with the podium microphone during the first minute of the recording; nothing vital was missed).

As you listen to the oral argument, make notes about the arguments by attorneys and questions from the justices whether tenants have an expectation of privacy in the hallway.

Video: Minnesota Supreme Court Oral Argument – State v. Edstrom
Third: Read the Minnesota Supreme Court’s Opinion regarding State v. Edstrom. This is the Court’s opinion following the oral argument.

File: Minnesota Supreme Court Opinion – State v. Edstrom Click for more options
tipClick for more options Review and reflect on the wording on page 19 of the Edstrom opinion where the Court says, “that the use of a narcotics-sniffing dog in the hallway of an apartment building is a search under the Minnesota Constitution.”
References

Minnesota Judicial Branch. (2018, April 11). Minnesota Supreme Court Video Oral Argument. Retrieved from http://www.mncourts.gov/SupremeCourt/OralArgumentWebcasts/ArgumentDetail.aspx?vid=1201.

Minnesota Judicial Branch. (2018, August 15). Minnesota Supreme Court Opinion. Retrieved from https://mn.gov/law-library-stat/archive/supct/2018/OPA161382-081518.pdf.

Assignment Instructions

Dave’s attorney has filed a motion to suppress, asking the judge to exclude evidence found in Dave’s apartment. Dave’s attorney argues that the dog search of Dave’s apartment door was an illegal search. Therefore, Dave’s attorney argues that the dog’s alert to drugs could not be used to obtain the search warrant for Dave’s apartment.