State v. Lugo, Minn.S.Ct., 11/30/2016. The cops were sitting on a "known drug house" outside of which Mr. Lugo was sitting in a car. After a while Mr. Lugo got out of the car, went into this "known drug house", stayed about twelve minutes, then drove off. Another set of cops stopped Mr. Lugo. Mr. Lugo didn't stop right away; rather he pulled into a parking lot, drove across it, turned around, came partially back and finally stopped. Just before stopping he leaned over in his seat as though he was trying to hide something. Mr. Lugo had recently been arrested for drug possession. He lied about the identity of the owner of the car. Last, but not least, he blurted out "Man just take me to jail, please."
After all that it was time to send in the dog. Dog sniffed around the exterior of the car and "alerted" to a couple of places. The resulting search turned up drugs. Mr. Lugo challenged this search, but limited to bringing in the dog. On these undisputed facts, Justice Lillehaug concluded that the officer had a reasonable, articulable suspicion that Mr. Lugo was engaged in drug-related criminal activity sufficient to expand the scope of the initial stop to include the dog sniff.
The state had actually lost the suppression hearing in the trial court. This set up a legal dispute over the proper standard of review when it's the state who is initiating a pretrial appeal. You can read about that if you're so inclined; suffice it to say that the outcome makes it easier for the state to bring pretrial appeals.
Mysteriously, Justice Stras concurs only in the result. There's no elucidation of where he parted company with the majority opinion.
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