The People of the State of Colorado, Petitioner v. Kevin Keith McKnight, Respondent. — Samour, J., Dissenting

Summary

Justice Samour, dissenting, would hold that a trained dog's sniff of odors escaping into the public air outside a lawfully stopped car is not a search under either the Fourth Amendment or article II, section 7, even if state law permits possession of some marijuana. He reasoned that the driver has no reasonable expectation of privacy in odors exposed to public air, and that the majority improperly inferred a rule from federal precedent and analogized the sniff to thermal imaging of a home. Chief Justice Coats, dissenting, likewise would reverse, emphasizing federal supremacy, the absence of a state-created privacy interest in violating federal law, and the majority's unexamined adoption of a state exclusionary rule.