United States v. Whitaker, No. 14-3290 (7th Cir. 2016)
Annotate this CaseActing on information that drugs were being sold from a certain Madison apartment, law enforcement obtained permission from the apartment property manager and brought a narcotics- detecting dog to the locked, shared hallway of the apartment building. The dog alerted to the presence of drugs at a nearby apartment door and then went to the targeted apartment where Whitaker lived. After the officers obtained a search warrant, Whitaker was arrested and charged with drug and firearm crimes based on evidence found in the apartment. At the time, Whitaker was serving a term of supervised release for a conviction as a felon in possession of a firearm, 18 U.S.C. 922(g)(1). After the district court denied his pretrial motions challenging the search and the dog’s reliability, Whitaker entered a conditional guilty plea that preserved his right to appeal. The Seventh Circuit reversed, holding that the use of the dog was a search under the Fourth Amendment and the Supreme Court’s 2013 decision, Florida v. Jardines. No “good faith” exception applied.
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