In the 2013 case Florida v. Jardines, the Supreme Court held that police violated the Fourth Amendment when they deployed a drug-detecting dog on the front porch of a house without a warrant. But last year in United States v. Johnson, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit said that was not true when police deployed a drug-detecting dog at the doorstep of an apartment.
The 4th Circuit was wrong, the Cato Institute argues in a brief urging the Supreme Court to review that decision. The appeals court's ruling "impermissibly curtails constitutional protections in the domestic setting where they matter most," say Cato lawyers Matthew Cavedon, Dan Greenberg, and Laura Bondank. "This Court has repeatedly explained the importance of Fourth Amendment protections for both the home and the area 'immediately surrounding and associated with' it."
