Supreme Court OKs drug-sniffing dogs in traffic stops

The Supreme Court ruled on Monday that in making a routine traffic stop, the police can permit a trained dog to sniff the car for drugs without the need for any particular reason to suspect the driver of a narcotics violation.
The 6-to-2 decision set aside a ruling by the Illinois Supreme Court, which held in 2003 that a state trooper who had stopped a man for speeding had broadened the scope of the encounter beyond constitutional limits by having the dog sniff the car. The dog alerted the police to the trunk, which contained $250,000 worth of marijuana. The addition of the dog impermissibly turned a traffic stop into a drug investigation, the Illinois court said.