Search & Seizure – Traffic Stop – Drug Dog Threat

By Deborah Elkins
Published: July 7, 2008

Police did not violate a driver’s Fourth Amendment rights when an officer stopped her pickup truck for an inoperative brake light, and after recalling that he had seen the driver the week before at a house searched for narcotics, and after she declined to consent to a search, asked “Do I have to get a drug dog” before getting her consent to a search after the drug dog alerted multiple times to the presence of drugs in the vehicle; the Court of Appeals affirms defendant’s conviction for possession of the cocaine found on her person.
Ellis v. Commonwealth (Va.Ct.App.) (VLW 008-7-301) (6 pp.)