On July 27, 2007, Saddiq Abdur-Rashid was pulled over for driving a car without a front license plate. While being questioned, a passenger supposedly told officers a "convoluted tale" about why the guys were on the road, and Abdur-Rashid appeared "nervous and fidgety."
On August 1, 2007, Troy Washington was stopped for driving while talking on his cell phone. Unable to produce a driver's license, or vehicle registration, Washington told officers that the vehicle belonged to a cousin he wasn't able to name.
In both instances, dogs were used to sniff the exterior of the cars, and the animals alerted cops to the location of cocaine and crack cocaine. And each defendant claimed to have been the victim of an illegal search and sought to prevent the introduction of the recovered evidence at their respective trials.
While there were inconsistent outcomes at the trial-court level, the Appellate Division, Third Department, upheld the legality of the officers' conduct. And when the cases reached our state's highest court, the Court of Appeals agreed with the AD3.
Since people usually have an expectation of privacy when in a vehicle, the sniffing qualified as a "search." But because only a "minimal suspicion" is required when it comes to examining a person's car, the Court of Appeals thought that officers had a sufficient basis to use the animals and to retrieve the contraband in each instance.
Were they thrown to the dogs?
To view a copy of the Court of Appeals decision, please use this link: People v. Devone, People v. Abdur-Rashid