MAY, J.
Hoop contends the dog sniff of his door is a search within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment, and therefore the officers were required to have a warrant before bringing the dog up to his home. . . . .
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As long as an officer is lawfully on the premises, the officer may have a dog sniff the residence without implicating the Fourth Amendment. Reed, 141 F.3d at 650; Brock, 417 F.3d at 697. “The route which any visitor to a residence would use is not private in the Fourth Amendment sense, and thus if police take that route for the purpose of making a general inquiry or for some other legitimate reason, they are free to keep their eyes open. . . .” Trimble v. State, 842 N.E.2d 798, 802 (Ind. 2006) (quoting 1 Wayne R. LaFave, Search and Seizure: A Treatise on The Fourth Amendment § 2.3(e), at 592-93 (4th ed. 2004)). “Just as evidence in the plain view of officers may be searched without a warrant, evidence in the plain smell may be detected without a warrant.” United States v. Roby, 122 F.3d 1120, 1125 (8th Cir. 1997) (citation omitted) (holding Fourth Amendment not implicated when officers brought dog into common hallway outside Roby’s hotel room), rehearing and rehearing en banc denied. “The fact that the dog, as odor detector, is more skilled than a human does not render the dog’s sniff illegal.” Id. at 1124-25. Therefore, Detective Krider could lawfully approach Hoop’s front door using the walkway that would ordinarily be used by any visitor, and the sniff did not implicate the Fourth Amendment. The dog sniff alone was sufficient to establish probable cause, Reed, 141 F.3d at 650, and the warrant was valid under Fourth Amendment.
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Hoop argues that under [Ind. Const.] Art. 1, § 11, officers must have reasonable suspicion to conduct a dog sniff of a private residence. He compares his case to Litchfield, in which our Supreme Court held reasonable suspicion was required for a trash search. 824 N.E.2d at 364.
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As Litchfield placed overriding weight on the need to restrict arbitrary selection of persons to be searched, and that same concern is present here, we conclude reasonable suspicion is needed to conduct a dog sniff of a private residence. [Footnote omitted.]
. . . [T]he State does not address whether the tip and the information about Hoop’s power usage establish reasonable suspicion. However, the State argues the officers relied on the warrant in good faith. We agree, and therefore we need not decide whether the officers had reasonable suspicion. . . .
There has been no allegation that the warrant was based on false information, the warrant was facially deficient, or the magistrate was not detached and neutral. Nor do we think the affidavit was “so lacking in indicia of probable cause as to render an official belief in the existence of the warrant unreasonable.” . . . The dog sniff alone would provide probable cause for a warrant, and the officers had no reason to think the sniff was unlawful. [Footnote omitted.] The sniff was permissible under the great weight of authority under the Fourth Amendment. No case has squarely addressed the issue under Art. 1, § 11. Although we find support for a reasonable suspicion requirement in Litchfield, neither Litchfield nor previous opinions assessing the reasonableness of dog sniffs under Art. 1, § 11 clearly foreshadow the result in this case. Therefore, we conclude the officers reasonably relied on the magistrate’s conclusion that the dog sniff was in accordance with the law.
FRIEDLANDER, J., and BRADFORD, J., concur.