Search and Seizure

The Michigan Supreme Court is considering whether marijuana found by a firefighter during an emergency call can be used to prosecute a man in the state's Oakland County. A judge and the state appeals court so far have thrown out evidence against Mark Slaughter.

Police officers who smell marijuana coming from an apartment can break down the door and burst in if they have reason to believe this evidence might be destroyed, several Supreme Court's justices suggested Wednesday. In the past, the high court has said police usually cannot enter a home or apartment without a search warrant because of the 4th Amendment's ban on "unreasonable searches and seizures."

While police crack down on drug deals in mostly minority neighborhoods, the drug trade among whites in New York City operates with relative impunity, statistics show. In 2009, only 10 percent of the 46,000 people arrested on marijuana-related charges by the New York City Police Department were white, according to a 2010 study — though whites are often among its heaviest drug users.

A study of "false positives" involving drug-sniffing police dogs suggests some police forces may be using canines to do an end-run around constitutional protections against search and seizure, and may be profiling racial minorities in the process. A survey of primarily suburban police departments in Illinois, carried out by the Chicago Tribune, found that 56 percent of all police searches triggered by a drug-sniffing dog turned nothing up. But, perhaps tellingly, that number jumped to 73 percent when the search involved a Latino subject -- meaning that nearly three-quarters of all dog alerts on Latinos turned up no contraband.

A Superior Court in Ventura County, California, ruled that police in that state can search the contents of an arrested person's cell phone. The ruling allows police in California to access any data stored on an arrestee's phone: photos, address book, Web browsing history, data stored in apps (including social media apps), voicemail messages, search history, chat logs, and more. According to Catherine Crump of the American Civil Liberties Union, "The police can ask you to unlock the phone -- which many people will do -- but they almost certainly cannot compel you to unlock your phone without the involvement of a judge," she said.