HIGH COURT WON'T HEAR APPEALS IN DRUG CASES

Hollywood Man Had Evidence Supressed

WASHINGTON - The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday refused to consider
whether using a police dog to sniff for marijuana from the front door
of a residence constitutes an illegal search.

The state of Florida had asked the justices to hear the case of a
Florida man charged with possession of drugs, including marijuana.

Lawyers for James Rabb of Hollywood had succeeded in suppressing the
drugs that were seized from his house, because the search warrant
that had been issued was based on the dog sniffing at the front door.

It was one of two cases in which the court turned aside requests from
states to get involved in constitutional issues stemming from drug
investigations.

The state of Illinois sought to challenge a state appeals court
decision that a police officer did not have reasonable suspicion when
asking a driver's permission to search his car during a routine traffic stop.

The search of the car driven by John Sloup turned up a pipe used to
smoke crack cocaine.

In the Florida case, the state attorney general said the dog's
sniffing disclosed only the presence of narcotics and did not intrude
on a legitimate expectation of privacy.

The case has been before the Supreme Court previously.

Last year, the justices directed a Florida appeals court to take a
2005 Supreme Court decision into consideration.

In that case, the Supreme Court said a dog's sniffing that detected
marijuana in a car during a traffic stop does not violate the Fourth Amendment.

Earlier this year, the Florida appeals court affirmed its previous
decision to suppress the evidence against Rabb.

The court relied on a 2001 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that the use of
a thermal imager to detect a marijuana growing operation inside a
garage constituted an illegal search.