Jacksonville Criminal Lawyer Blog

In Florida, we have what is called implied consent which means that any person who obtains a driver's license in Florida consents to submit to an alcohol test where a police officer makes a valid stop and has probable cause to believe the person is driving under the influence of alcohol. This usually takes the form of a request by the police officer to blow into a breathalyzer at the jail after the person has been arrested for DUI. Whatever the reading is, the state will usually seek to use that evidence against the defendant in court in the DUI case. Where the breathalyzer reading is below the legal limit of 0.08, the police are not likely to unarrest the defendant, for lack of a better word.

A person who has been arrested for DUI can refuse the breathalyzer test. The police will not force a person to blow into the breathalyzer to get a breathalyzer result. In some cases, the police officer can request a test of his/her blood rather than a test of his/her breath. In a recent DUI case that went up to the United States Supreme Court, the DUI suspect refused to submit to a blood alcohol test and the police officer took his blood anyway to test it for alcohol content without a search warrant. The DUI case was appealed all the way to the Supreme Court.

The criminal defense lawyer argued that to take the defendant's blood was a search and seizure under the Constitution, and it was unreasonable without a search warrant signed by a judge. The state argued that there was an exception to the general rule that the police need a search warrant for a search and seizure. Generally, the state needs a search warrant to search someone, including taking their blood. However, there are exceptions to the search warrant requirement. If there are emergency circumstances, such as the risk of losing evidence if the search is delayed, the state may be able to conduct a search without a search warrant. In this DUI case, the state argued that the blood concentration dissipates as time goes by so the police officer needed to get the blood for alcohol testing as soon as possible.

The Supreme Court disagreed. They held that this argument was not sufficient to eliminate the search warrant requirement for blood in a DUI case. There are other circumstances where the state can take blood from a defendant in a DUI case, or test blood that was already taken by medical personnel, but in a standard DUI case where the DUI suspect refuses to give a blood sample, the police cannot force a blood sample without a proper search warrant.

It is certainly not a popular thing to say that the Florida sexual molestation crimes are too severe. However, there is a certain category of sex offender cases that result from overzealous and misguided prosecutions. Consider a situation where an eighteen year old kid, considered an adult under the law, is dating a girl in his school. Maybe they have a class or two together and eat lunch together. They have an open relationship at school and go to the prom together. And then they break up, the girl's parents get mad, the boy gets arrested and charged with a serious felony sex offense, becomes a convicted felon and has to report as a sex offender for the rest of his life and live by the very strict sex offender rules.

This has happened in two cases we are aware of. In both cases, the boy and girl were high school students going to the same school. They saw each other in class, in the hallways, at lunch and at school functions. They started relationships openly at school, and none of the teachers, the principal nor any other school personnel had any issue with it. However, both relationships ended, as high school relationships typically do, and someone got the police involved after the fact. The police, and then the state, using poor judgment, decided to arrest the boys for lewd and lascivious molestation based on these open high school relationships. The problem was that in both cases, the boys had just turned 18 years old and were about three and a half years older than their younger, high school girlfriends. In both cases, the boys decided to plead guilty to the lewd and lascivious molestation charges because they got an offer of probation that sounded pretty good when they considered that they faced serious prison time if they went to trial and were found guilty.

However, the problem was that both kids were considered to be sex offenders which meant they had to report as sex offenders every year for the rest of their lives. They also had to comply with very strict requirements that are put in place to supervise real sex offenders.

In both cases, the defendants came to us well after their cases were finished to see if there was anything we could do to get them off of the sex offender list. In both cases, the boys had graduated high school and gone on to have wives and children. However, they and their families were constantly being harassed due to their very public status as sex offenders. They were adults that had difficult times keeping jobs and owning homes in nice neighborhoods.

Fortunately, Florida enacted a law in 2007 to address this situation where young kids in normal high school relationships get permanently thrown into the mix with the kind of real sex offenders the sex offender laws were designed to address. This law is called the Romeo & Juliet law. It says that a person can be considered for removal from the sex offender list under certain circumstances. The person must not have any other sex offense cases on his/her record or anything else causing him/her to register as a sex offender, the age difference in the relationship must not have been more than four years and the younger person must have been at least fourteen years old at the time of the alleged lewd and lascivious act.

This Romeo and Juliet law does not cover a lot of sex offender situations. It clearly was not passed to give relief to people who were adults and were convicted of engaging in illegal sexual conduct with children. However, it does provide some sanity to situations where two high school kids get into a relationship and the older one gets arrested and labeled a sex offender for his/her entire life because someone gets angry and the police and the state do not know how to use discretion in their jobs.

One other thing of note, while the Romeo & Juliet law was passed in 2007 it applies to anyone who was required to register as a sex offender, even if the incident, the case and the sentencing occurred prior to 2007.

If you were convicted of a sex crime under these circumstances in Florida and believe you may fall under the Romeo & Juliet law, feel free to contact us for a free consultation to see if you are eligible for removal from the sex offender registration requirement.

Legal shows on television do not normally have much association with reality, but one thing you often see on there is true. When a person gets arrested and the polic say he/she has a right to remain silent, a right to a lawyer and anything he/she says can and will be used against him/her, that is definitely true. Anyone who has been arrested has a Constitutional right to remain silent. Anyone who has been arrested has a right to speak to a criminal defense lawyer before he/she gives any sort of statement to the police. For some reason, a lot of people ignore those Constitutional rights and freely speak to the police after an arrest. Almost invariably, that person does severe damage to his/her case by doing so. Criminal defense attorneys sometimes say, one way to solve the jail overcrowding problem would be if people shut up when they were arrested by the police.

It cannot be stressed enough how important it is for someone arrested for a crime or suspected of having committed a crime to understand that he/she has an absolute right to not talk to the police and to talk to a criminal defense lawyer. However, the police are not going to ask you twice, and they are not going to hold your hand during this process. The police have a job to do and that is to arrest you and put you in jail if they think you have committed a crime. The whole idea of them getting a statement from you is to help them do that. You telling them you did not do the crime is not likely to change their minds. They did not go to the trouble of arresting you and bringing you in for a statement just to apologize and send you on your way if you tell them you are innocent. In all likelihood, you will only dig yourself a much deeper hole by giving a statement under those circumstances when you do not even know what evidence they have, if any.

In order to assert your Constitutional rights to remain silent and speak to a lawyer, you must be clear that is what you want to do. An equivocal or half-hearted request to stop talking or see if you can call someone will not get the job done. You must be very clear and assertive that you want to speak to a criminal defense lawyer before making any statements. You cannot say you want to go home or you want to call a friend or family member. You have to clearly express a desire to speak to an attorney in lieu of giving any sort of statement. Anything short of that may not be a sufficient assertion of your Constitutional rights. However, if you do make a clear statement that you want to speak with a criminal lawyer, the police are supposed to stop all questioning at that point. You can always resume speaking to the police at a later time, but if you do, you will likely be doing so with the benefit of knowing much more about the case, the laws the penalties you face and whether you have anything to gain by making a statement. The police always have something to gain by you making a statement after an arrest, you, on the other hand, may not.

if you have any questions about speaking to the police in a specific criminal case or in general, feel free to contact us for a free consultation about your rights in a criminal case.

The Florida Stand Your Ground Law, as it is commonly known, received a lot of popularity, or perhaps notoriety, as a result of the pending Trayvon Martin/George Zimmerman case. The law, which really is not very extraordinary, is basically a self defense law that says a person can use force if he/she reasonably believes he/she is about to be the victim of force. The force used by the defendant has to be reasonable under the circumstances and in consideration of the kind of force used or threatened by the alleged victim. In simple terms, if someone is in the process of doing, or is about to do, something violent to you, you can do something violent to him/her as long as you do not go overboard, and there is no duty to retreat from the situation.

One benefit of the Florida Stand Your Ground law is that a defendant charged with a violent crime can have the criminal defense lawyer file a Stand Your Ground motion and have a hearing prior to a trial. If it is established that the defendant meets the parameters of the Florida Stand Your Ground law, the defendant is immune from prosecution. This means that the judge must throw the charges out, and the defendant does not have to take his/her chances with a jury.

One exception to the Florida Stand Your Ground law is that the defendant cannot benefit from the law if the defendant is engaged in an unlawful activity. An obvious example would be a person burglarizing a home, the homeowner comes out with a gun and threatens to shoot the defendant so the defendant shoots the homeowner first. That would clearly fall within a Stand Your Ground situation as a person would have a right to shoot another to avoid being shot him/herself. However, the exception would apply and the defendant would not be allowed to succeed on a Stand Your Ground claim because he/she was engaged in an unlawful activity (burglary) at the time.

In a recent shooting case near Jacksonville, Florida, a defendant shot and killed a person who was pointing a gun at him and threatening him. Based on that, it was a pretty clear Stand Your Ground situation. However, the defendant was a convicted felon, and convicted felons are not permitted to possess guns in Florida. The question was whether possession of a firearm by a convicted felon was the kind of "unlawful activity" that prevents a defendant from asserting the Stand Your Ground immunity.

The court recently held that a convicted felon who is in the possession of a firearm can assert the Stand Your Ground immunity under a specific part of that statute. However, a different court in Florida has rendered a contrary decision. At this point, it is not exactly clear whether a convicted felon in possession of a firearm can use the Stand Your Ground law as an immunity from criminal charges because of the different opinions. Ultimately, the Florida Supreme Court may have to decide the issue once and for all.

We believe it would make sense to allow a person who has been convicted of a felony to have protection under the self defense laws. A defendant can only successfully use the Stand Your Ground argument if he/she can show that he/she was in reasonable fear of death or serious bodily injury. If, under those circumstances, the defendant needs to use a gun to avoid death or serious bodily injury, a person should have that right under the law if the only issue is that he/she was convicted of a felony some time in the past.

For instance, imagine a situation where a defendant is at a friend's house minding his own business and someone comes in with a gun and threatens the defendant. The defendant sees his friend's gun, grabs it and shoots the other person to avoid being shot himself. If the defendant had a felony conviction for possessing more than 20 grams of marijuana ten years earlier, should that person not be able to avail himself of the Stand Your Ground Immunity? We do not think so.

The United States Constitution, along with the Florida Constitution, protects people from unreasonable searches and seizures. There are many cases decided by state and federal courts which elaborate on what is a legal search and seizure by the police and what violates a person's right to privacy under the Constitution. However, as many legal cases as there are, they do not perfectly cover every situation. This is particularly true where a new technology is developed that gives the government access to people and information that was not possible before.

Somewhat recently, government officials have attempted to track people via GPS in their phones and otherwise. As a result, there have been court decisions in Florida and throughout the United States discussing whether the police need a warrant before they can track someone's movement by GPS. There is now a new technology called Stingray that allows the government to track cell phone signals inside vehicles, homes and certain buildings. With this technology, the government can use a person's cell phone data, such as text messages and emails, to determine the exact location of the cell phone. Law enforcement officials are apparently using this technology to track people without first applying for a search warrant and getting permission from a judge. The government's position is that the technology does not retrieve information on the cell phone, just its location, so a search warrant is not required.

This tracking device, which apparently costs between $60,000 and $175,000, is primarily being used in drug cases (the government does love to spend money on the war on drugs). As of now, we have not seen any legal opinions that have directly addressed this particular Stingray technology. However, as the government makes greater use of it and makes drug and other arrests as a result, the issue of whether the government can track a person by his/her cell phone data without a warrant will likely be the subject of future criminal cases and appeals.

In Florida, a defendant can be convicted of possession of marijuana or other drugs based on constructive possession. However, the state has to prove both that the defendant knew the drugs were present and had some sort of dominion or control over the drugs. For example, if a person walks into a friend's house who is having a party and sees marijuana on the table and stays at the party but never touches it or smokes the marijuana, he would not be guilty of possession of marijuana if the police come in and arrest him. It is not illegal to be in the same room as illegal drugs and there is no legal obligation to leave a place where drugs may be present, although it might be a good idea to avoid legal problems.

A recent possession of marijuana case was a common example of a constructive possession of drugs case where the state would have a very difficult time proving its case short of the suspects giving statements to the police. A police officer pulled over a driver and immediately smelled marijuana in the vehicle. The police officer ultimately searched the vehicle and found marijuana in a backpack in the hatchback area of the vehicle. There were three occupants in the vehicle. The police officer arrested all of them, but they could not prove a possession of marijuana case on any of them. Basically, in order to prove that one or more of the occupants was guilty of possession of marijuana, the state would have to prove they knew the marijuana was present and establish proof it belonged to one or more of them or on or more of them was in possession of the marijuana. That is the idea with a constructive possession case- since the police did not see the suspect actually possess the marijuana, the state can still try to prove the marijuana was actually possessed by a suspect or belonged to a suspect with circumstantial evidence, or a confession.

In this case, the state could easily prove each suspect knew the marijuana was there because everyone could smell it. However, there was insufficient evidence to prove it belonged to any of them or any of them had actually possessed it. The vehicle was rented, and there was nothing else in the backpack indicating if it belonged to any of them. No one made any statements so the state had nothing more than proximity. As a result, this was insufficient for a possession of marijuana conviction for any of them

This scenario, or something similar, comes up very often. As criminal defense lawyers in Jacksonville, Florida, we handle these kinds of drug cases very often. The police usually do not go down without a fight, so to speak. If it is not clear who owns the marijuana, the police will not just apologize for the inconvenience and walk away. Normally, they will separate the occupants and strongly encourage them to say which person(s) owns the marijuana. Usually this takes the form of a threat to arrest everyone unless someone claims the marijuana. Most people fall for that. Oftentimes, more than one person claims the marijuana. However, people should know that they have a right to remain silent. If they do remain silent, the police officer is telling the truth that he/she will arrest everyone. However, it is usually better to be arrested without giving the police evidence, i.e. a confession, to make there case better against you than get arrested and give the police everything they need to convict you and give you a harsh sentence.

Most traffic stops, whether it is just a traffic ticket situation or one that leads to criminal charges like DUI or possession of drugs, result from a police officer claiming to observe a person violate some traffic law. It is not common for police officers to make a traffic stop based on prior information with the exception of certain drug investigations. However, a police officer may be permitted to stop a driver based on a tip from a concerned citizen.

A traffic stop is considered a seizure under the Constitution. This means that a police officer cannot conduct a traffic stop without specific, reliable evidence of criminal activity or at least a traffic violation. As indicated, normally that comes from a patrol officer's own alleged observations. Less often, police officers will follow up on information provided by a concerned citizen who has flagged down an officer or called 911. The question then is whether the police officer is permitted to stop a person based on such a tip.

In a recent case south of Jacksonville, Florida, a driver called 911 and said that a suspect was driving recklessly on the highway and almost went off the road a few times. The caller gave specific information about the suspect's vehicle and also provided her own name and contact information. A police officer responded and stopped the suspect. This ultimately led to a DUI arrest of the suspect.

The criminal defense attorney moved to suppress any evidence of the DUI based on the argument that the initial stop was not valid. The criminal defense lawyer argued that the police officer did not observe the suspect drive recklessly or violate any traffic laws so he could not stop the suspect based on an uncorroborated tip from a citizen. There was no way for the police officer to determine if the citizen's information was reliable or the citizen had some other motive to call the police on the suspect.

The court disagreed and determined the stop was lawful. The court held that there are times when an uncorroborated tip can be sufficient for a police officer to make a traffic stop. In this case, the information could indicate that the driver was driving while impaired from drugs or alcohol, i.e. DUI. Therefore, the police officer had a right to investigate both to see if a crime was being committed and also to determine if the suspect or other drivers might be in danger. As for the reliability of the information, if the citizen made an anonymous call, there is a good chance the stop would have been illegal. However, since the citizen provided her name and contact information, this lended more credibility to the caller's information under the law.

In just about all criminal cases in Florida, a person will be arrested by a member of law enforcement who is properly working in that jurisdiction. For instance, if a person is speeding in Duval County (which is in Jacksonville) Florida and a police officer plans to make a traffic stop and possibly conduct a DUI investigation, the driver will likely be stopped by a Jacksonville Sheriff's Office officer. If a person commits a theft in Orange Park, Florida, he/she will likely be arrested by a member of the Clay County Sheriff's Office. There are exceptions, of course. The Florida Highway Patrol has jurisdiction all over the state so an FHP officer might stop a person in any city or county in Florida. Additionally, if a Jacksonville Sheriff's Office officer sees a person commit a crime in Duval County/Jacksonville and there is a car chase that goes north into Nassau County, the JSO officer will not likely stop at the county line and let the suspect get away. Of course, Nassau County police officers will become involved once the suspect gets into Nassau County.

There are other examples where a police officer can make an arrest for a crime outside of his/her jurisdiction. There is something in Florida called a Mutual Assistance Agreement between police agencies whereby police agencies can have their officers assist the others by formal agreement. If there is a proper Mutual Assistance Agreement, a police officer can make an arrest for DUI or other crimes if the police officer is complying with the Agreement. After such an arrest, the state has the burden of proving that the arrest was in compliance with the Mutual Assistance Agreement. The state has to actually present the formal agreement in court, prove that the agreement was in effect at the time of the arrest and prove that the police officer strictly complied with the terms of the agreement. If the state does not prove each of those elements, the arrest and any evidence obtained as a result of the arrest by the out of jurisdiction officer will likely be inadmissible. However, if the state can prove these elements, the fact that the police officer was out of his/her jurisdiction would likely have no effect on the state's case.

In Florida, in order for the state to prove a drug possession case, it has to prove that the defendant either actually possessed the illegal drugs or constructively possessed the illegal drugs. Actual possession is fairly straightforward. if a person is holding drugs or has them in his/her pocket, that would be actual possession. Constructive possession of drugs can be more complicated and can be more difficult to prove. It does not mean the state cannot prove drug possession, but it can certainly make it harder for the state to prove its drug case. Constructive possession basically means the drugs are located in a place where the defendant knows they exist and the defendant has some control over them.

As an example, I have some CD's in a case in my car. I am nowhere near my car, but the car is in my name, a lot of other things belonging to me are in the car and I have the keys to the car which is locked right now. There is a strong argument that I am in constructive possession of my CD's. Of course, this scenario also lends itself to some defenses to a possession charge. If other people also have keys to the car, I share the car with other people, other people's belongings are also in the car and/or someone else is using my car when the police find the CD's inside, there is an argument that those are not my CD's and there is no evidence I put them there or even know they are in my car.

In a recent case near Jacksonville, Florida, undercover police officers conducted a purchase of Oxycodone pills from the defendant. They arrested the defendant for sale of Oxycodone. They went back to his residence, where he came from prior to the drug sale, and searched it. Inside, they found more Oxycodone and marijuana. The defendant was also charged with possession of marijuana and trafficking in Oxycodone for the drugs found in the house.

The criminal defense attorney moved to dismiss the possession of marijuana and trafficking in Oxycodone charges stemming from the drugs in the house based on the argument that he was neither in actual or constructive possession of those drugs. Yes, he had been in that house, but he presented evidence that he did not live in the house. He owned it, but he had a tenant in there and merely collected rent at that house. The defendant presented evidence that he actually lived in another city at the time.

The state could not contest this evidence and was unable to present any evidence to suggest the drugs were his other than the fact that they were found in a house that he owned. This is not sufficient for a constructive possession of drugs case. The state was required to prove a greater connection between the drugs and the defendant. With this minimal evidence, any landlord could be charged with drug possession if he/she visits a house where a tenant has drugs inside. Because the state did not have any further evidence, the possession of marijuana and trafficking in Oxycodone charges were thrown out.

In Florida, it is a felony crime to abuse or neglect an elderly or disabled person. While such a crime sounds bad, it is also very vague as to what is required to actually commit the crime in Florida. Under Florida law, elder abuse or abuse of a disabled person includes inflicting psychological or physical injury upon an elderly or disabled person. Criminal neglect of an elderly or disabled person involves a failure to provide supervision, care or services to the elderly or disabled person to maintain his/her psychological and/or physical health. If a person commits abuse on an elderly or disabled person and that person is not seriously injured, it is a third degree felony in Florida. The same goes for neglect of an elderly or disabled person. If the victim is seriously injured or certain aggravating factors are present, the crime could be a second or first degree felony.

However, not all improper conduct, or omissions, involving the elderly or disabled that results in injury to the alleged victim qualifies as a crime in Florida. In a recent case south of Jacksonville, Florida, a caretaker was responsible for taking care of a 90 year old woman. The allegations against the defendant were that she would give the woman sleeping pills that were not prescribed for her to put her to sleep so she could have male friends over. This occurred over a six month period. As a result, the state charged her with neglect of an elderly and/or disabled person.

One issue with facing a charge like this is a jury will often overlook the details of the case and the specifics of the law and find a defendant guilty out of sympathy for the victim and/or disdain for the defendant. And that is what happened in this case. The problem was the state made an error by charging the woman with elder neglect. Neglect implies that the defendant failed to do something that was necessary to maintain the well being of the victim. In this case, the facts suggested that the defendant committed an act, or many acts, that placed the victim at risk of serious injury as it is dangerous to give someone, particuarlyl an elderly person, a drug that is not prescribed for her. While the defendant's conduct was wrong, and it was probably abuse, it was not neglect because it was not an omission but an act that created the risk to the victim.

As a result of the state's mistake in how they charged the defendant, the court reversed the conviction, and the defendant got away with the apparent elder abuse. This is an example of a case where the defendant was most likely guilty of committing a crime, however if the state does not understand the law and does not charge the crime properly, the state cannot proceed with a conviction.

Recently in the news, there were several stories of a large number of people in the Jacksonvile area and throughout Florida who were arrested on RICO charges relating to internet cafes and the Allied Veterans of the World. RICO is not a charge that is filed very often by state prosecutors, but as criminal defense lawyers working in the Jacksonville, Florida area, we have handled several RICO cases.

RICO stands for Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization. RICO laws in the various states and in the federal system were designed to deal with organizations that allegedly commit crimes on an ongoing basis and to also make it easier to catch people who have a more supervisory or leadership role in an organization that commits crimes as opposed to lower level people who might have a more hands-on role. Over the years, prosecutors have used RICO laws to go after fairly loosely tied groups of people that are not in a discrete organization but have some connection in relation to the commission of alleged crimes. In most states, including Florida, the penalties for a RICO violation are very severe.

In Florida, to prove that one or more people committed a RICO violation, the state must prove the defendant participated in an enterprise through a pattern of racketeering. That, in and of itself, does not tell us much, and there is a lot of case law in the various states that explain what an enterprise is, what a pattern is and what racketeering means. In relatively simple terms, the state does not need to prove much to establish a pattern. Basically at least two criminal acts that are similar in some way may be enough to establish a pattern. A pattern of racketeering occurs when a defendant commits two or more specific crimes referenced in the RICO Act. Normally, a large number of crimes will qualify for a predicate act under the RICO laws, even where the criminal conduct is not very serious. The RICO Act is one way to turn less serious criminal conduct on an individual basis into very serious criminal conduct when done multiple times with other people involved. As for the participation part, the state would have to prove that the defendant participated in the enterprise while knowing the criminal objectives of the enterprise and agreeing to further that purpose.

The RICO laws are fairly complicated and include several general terms that have been interpreted in many ways. At its essence, the RICO laws are a wide ranging tool that the state can attempt to use to convict a lot of people loosely related in any number of criminal activities and get them much more severe penalties than they might get if the criminal acts were charged individually.

We wrote a previous entry about a case being decided by the United States Supreme Court regarding whether the police can have a drug dog walk onto someone's property and sniff for the odor of illegal drugs without a search warrant. In many cases, a police officer will call for a drug dog, or K-9, during a traffic stop when the police officer believes the person has illegal drugs in his/her vehicle. If the drug dog alerts to the odor of marijuana, cocaine or other illegal drugs as it walks around the vehicle, then the police will search the vehicle looking for the drugs. The traffic stop situation is different from the issue decided in the Supreme Court case because, among other reasons, in the case of a traffic stop, the police presumably had a legal basis to stop the vehicle- typically a violation of a traffic law. The police officer cannot keep a driver who violated a traffic law at the scene for too long, but the police officer would be able to hold the driver at the scene while he/she is writing the traffic ticket and for a reasonable period of time thereafter.

However, in the case of a person's house, if the police officer does not have sufficient information to obtain a search warrant, he/she would typically not have a legal basis to come onto a person's property to search it. The state would argue that a drug dog sniffing around the outside of a person's home is not really a search under the Constitution, but that was one of the issues the Supreme Court had to consider.

With its decision, the Supreme Court decided that a drug dog sniffing around a person's home is a search, as contemplated by the United States Constitution, so people have a right to privacy in the area around their homes when it comes to drug dogs and police. As a result, the police cannot just go onto a person's property with a drug dog and have it smell around for the odor of illegal drugs. In its decision, the Supreme Court correctly noted that there is a higher privacy interest when it comes to a person's home, as opposed to a vehicle during a traffic stop.

A police officer can walk onto any person's property (assuming it is not gated or otherwise restricted), knock on the door, ask questions and seek consent to search the home. Of course, the homeowner is permitted to refuse to answer the door, answer any questions and/or let the police officer search anything on his/her property. However, if the police officer wants to bring a drug dog onto the property to sniff around for illegal drugs, the police officer would need a search warrant or consent from an authorized person first.