Court considers police dog searches

WASHINGTON - Driving 6 mph over the speed limit got Roy Caballes pulled over. But what happened next landed him at the Supreme Court, which considered Wednesday when police can use drug-sniffing dogs.

Caballes was wearing a suit and driving a new Mercury when he was stopped on an Illinois freeway in November 1998. It looked like he would get off with a warning until Krott the drug dog showed up and sniffed out $250,000 worth of marijuana in Caballes' trunk.

Caballes' conviction was overturned on grounds police had no reason to search his car.

Dogs trained to find drugs and bombs are becoming more common in airports and elsewhere - even the Supreme Court - because of terrorism concerns. Police also often use them for routine traffic stops.

Justices will decide whether people who have given police no reason to suspect illegal activity have a constitutional protection against dog searches.

The Supreme Court has tried in recent years to better define the right to be left alone in their homes and vehicles. In this case, the court must clarify earlier opinions that found that drug dog use is not necessarily a search that falls under the Fourth Amendment ban on unreasonable searches or seizures.

"A sniff is not a search," justices were told by Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan.

The court also considered whether a jury that sentenced a convicted killer to death had properly taken into account his religious conversion, which a prosecutor incorrectly contended was irrelevant.

In a 24-year-old case, most justices seemed to agree that the California prosecutor was wrong to make that assertion about William Payton and that a trial judge should have corrected the prosecutor. But the justices were divided over whether the errors made a difference in sentencing.

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