Full Opinion

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF IDAHO Docket No. 53539 STATE OF IDAHO, ) ) Plaintiff-Appellant, ) Boise, May 2026 Term ) v. ) Opinion Filed: October 14, 2026 ) SHAWNA RAE PENDLETON, ) Melanie Gagnepain, Clerk ) Defendant-Respondent. ) ____________________________________) Appeal from the District Court of the Fourth Judicial District of the State of Idaho, Ada County. Jason D. Scott, District Judge. The district court’s order granting the motion to suppress is reversed and the case is remanded. Raúl R. Labrador, Idaho Attorney General, Boise, for Appellant. Kale D. Gans argued. Erik R. Lehtinen, Idaho State Appellate Public Defender, Boise, for Respondent. Sally J. Cooley argued. _________________________________ BEVAN, Justice. This case presents a novel question in Idaho’s continuing effort to define the constitutional boundaries of drug dog sniffs during traffic stops: Does a drug dog’s momentary contact with the exterior of a vehicle transform an otherwise lawful free-air sniff into a trespassory search under the Fourth Amendment? In October 2021, Shawna Rae Pendleton was stopped by police because her vehicle registration had expired. During the stop, Officer Tad Miller and his drug dog, Edo, were summoned to conduct a free-air sniff of Pendleton’s vehicle. As Edo worked around the vehicle, he closely sniffed the driver’s-side and passenger-side doors, briefly touching at least one door handle with the tip of his nose. Edo alerted to the odor of illegal drugs, and a subsequent search of the vehicle revealed methamphetamine, marijuana, alprazolam, and drug paraphernalia. Pendleton was subsequently arrested and charged with three counts of possession of a controlled substance and one count of possession of drug paraphernalia. Pendleton moved to suppress the evidence obtained from the stop, arguing that Edo’s brief contact with her vehicle constituted a trespass that transformed the free-air sniff into a search under 1 the Fourth Amendment. The district court, relying on State v. Dorff, 171 Idaho 818, 526 P.3d 988 (2023), agreed and granted Pendleton’s motion. The State appealed, contending that Edo’s momentary contact with the exterior of the vehicle was not a trespass because it did not amount to intermeddling as defined in Dorff, 171 Idaho at 826–27, 526 P.3d at 996–97. Alternatively, the State argues that Edo’s behavior prior to the contact constituted an alert, giving the State probable cause to search the vehicle regardless of any subsequent contact. The Court of Appeals heard this case initially and agreed with the State, reversing the district court. Pendleton filed a petition for review with this Court, which was granted. As set forth below, we reverse the decision of the district court. I. FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND This is the second time this case has come before this Court. Three years ago, we decided State v. Pendleton (Pendleton I), 172 Idaho 825, 537 P.3d 66 (2023). That appeal centered on Pendleton’s discovery requests related to Edo’s past performance. See id. at 831, 537 P.3d at 72. We ultimately held that the district court had not abused its discretion in compelling the State to produce the requested material. See id. at 837–38, 537 P.3d at 78–79. This appeal turns on a different issue: whether Edo transformed the free-air sniff into an unreasonable search by touching Pendleton’s vehicle with his nose. While there is some relation between the two appeals, this appeal focuses on facts that were not relevant in Pendleton I. As such, a brief factual background will highlight those differences. A. Factual Background On October 29, 2021, Officer Miller and Edo were asked to conduct a free-air sniff around Pendleton’s vehicle. Officer Miller and Edo arrived at the scene and exited the police vehicle after Officer Miller had attached a six-foot leash to Edo’s collar. Officer Miller then walked Edo to a spot a few feet in front of Pendleton’s car where he ordered Edo to sit. Once Edo was situated, Officer Miller ordered the dog to begin the free-air sniff. Edo began by rapidly approaching the vehicle’s driver side door, “making a huffing sound about three times along the way.” Officer Miller interpreted Edo’s behavior, “especially the huffing, a product of intense, closed-mouth sniffing—as a signal that Edo had detected a drug odor and was tracking the odor to its source.” Edo briefly paused near the exterior handle of the driver’s door and “nosed” it before turning his head sharply toward Officer Miller. This movement, which Officer Miller calls a “head snap,” is Edo’s “final alert” to the presence of drugs. 2 After Edo gave this first “final alert,” Officer Miller instructed Edo to continue the free-air sniff. Edo then “exhibited substantially the same behavior” as he approached the front passenger side door. Edo “pressed his nose toward that door’s exterior handle, likely touching it as well, and exhibited substantially the same final-alert behavior” as before. The entire free air sniff only lasted about ten seconds. Based on Edo’s behavior, Officer Miller determined that Edo had alerted to the presence of drugs, giving the police probable cause to search the car. The police then searched the car and found some of the contraband at issue, leading to Pendleton’s arrest. The police found additional contraband on Pendleton’s person after conducting a search incident to arrest. The police did not have a search warrant before conducting either search. B. Procedural Background After this Court issued its decision in Pendleton I, Pendleton filed a motion to suppress the evidence gathered from the traffic stop. Pendleton raised two arguments in her motion to suppress. The first was that Edo had trespassed against her car by touching it with his nose, thereby converting the free-air sniff into an unlawful search. The second was that Edo was unreliable as a drug dog. The State opposed Pendleton’s motion to suppress, maintaining that Edo was a reliable drug-detection dog, and that the sniff did not constitute a trespass. Specifically, the State contended that Edo’s brief contact with the vehicle did not amount to intermeddling and was therefore not trespassory. Alternatively, the State asserted that Edo had already alerted to the presence of illegal drugs before making contact with the vehicle, thereby providing probable cause to conduct the search. The district court bifurcated its consideration of Pendleton’s motion, choosing to first focus on Pendleton’s argument that Edo had trespassed against her vehicle. It reserved consideration of Edo’s reliability for a later date, in the event it concluded Edo had not trespassed against the vehicle. At the hearing on the trespass issue, the State presented witness testimony from Officer Miller and Corporal Steve Bonas about the behaviors that Edo exhibited when alerting to drugs. Officer Miller also testified that he believed that Edo had started alerting to the presence of narcotics prior to touching Pendleton’s vehicle with his nose. Pendleton did not present any witnesses, though she did introduce a video exhibit of the sniff itself. Both parties also presented argument, reiterating their positions from their earlier filings. Following those arguments, the district court took the issue under advisement. 3 The district court issued an order granting Pendleton’s motion to suppress. While the district court found the State’s witnesses to be generally credible, the court ruled that the sniff had escalated to an unlawful search. The court determined that Edo had trespassed against Pendleton’s vehicle by touching it with his nose, and that the contact had been initiated in the pursuit of additional information. The district court also concluded that a reasonable person would not have discerned that Edo had tracked the drug odor to the vehicle before Edo touched the vehicle with his nose. The district court noted that the sniff was “very brief,” and that Edo had nosed the door handle only a few seconds after the sniff had started. The district court doubted that Officer Miller or a reasonable person could have identified the split second that Edo traced the odor to the door before Edo made contact because “Edo nosed the door handle almost immediately after the sniff began.” As such, the district court determined that fidelity to this Court’s precedent in State v. Dorff, 171 Idaho 818, 526 P.3d 988 (2023), required suppression. The State appealed the district court’s order, and the appeal was assigned to the Court of Appeals. That court reversed on both grounds, determining that the contact was not a trespass and that Edo’s behavior before contact gave the police probable cause to search the vehicle. See State v. Pendleton, No. 51881, 2025 WL 2485591 (Ct. App. Aug. 29, 2025). Pendleton timely filed a petition for review with this Court, which was granted. II. STANDARDS OF REVIEW “When reviewing a case on petition for review from the Court of Appeals this Court gives due consideration to the decision reached by the Court of Appeals . . . .” State v. Miramontes, 170 Idaho 920, 923, 517 P.3d 849, 852 (2022) (quoting State v. Gonzales, 165 Idaho 667, 671, 450 P.3d 315, 319 (2019)). However, we directly review the decision of the district court. Id. (citation omitted). “When this Court reviews a district court’s order granting or denying a motion to suppress, the standard of review is bifurcated.” Id. (citation modified). This Court accepts the trial court’s findings of fact “unless they are clearly erroneous,” but “freely review[s] the trial court’s application of constitutional principles in light of the facts found.” Id. (quoting Gonzales, 165 Idaho at 671, 450 P.3d at 319). III. ANALYSIS The State advanced two grounds for reversing the district court’s suppression order. Because we conclude that Edo’s contact with Pendleton’s vehicle did not constitute a search under 4 the Fourth Amendment, we need not address the State’s alternative argument that probable cause existed before Edo made contact with the vehicle. A. The district court erred by concluding that the drug dog’s minimal contact with the vehicle’s door constituted a search. The State concedes that Edo touched Pendleton’s car briefly with his nose, but the State argues that this contact did not transform the free-air sniff into an unreasonable search, asserting that Edo did not trespass against Pendleton’s vehicle because his contact with the vehicle’s door handles was “minimal” and “incidental.” We agree and hold that Edo did not trespass against Pendleton’s vehicle by briefly contacting the handle of the car with the tip of his nose. It is the well-established, fundamental right of all Americans “to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects[] against unreasonable searches and seizures . . . .” U.S. Const. amend. IV. And “[i]t is beyond dispute that a vehicle is an ‘effect’ as that term is used in the [Fourth] Amendment.” United States v. Jones, 565 U.S. 400, 404 (2012) (citation omitted). However, free- air sniffs by well-trained narcotic dogs are considered “sui generis” in that they are typically not treated as searches under the Fourth Amendment. Illinois v. Caballes, 543 U.S. 405, 408–09 (2005) (citations omitted); see also State v. Dorff, 171 Idaho 818, 828, 526 P.3d 988, 998 (2023) (recognizing that a “free-air” sniff is not a search under the Fourth Amendment because there is no privacy interest in the free-air that surrounds a vehicle). Nevertheless, there are instances in which drug dog sniffs can become unreasonable searches. See Florida v. Jardines, 569 U.S. 1, 11– 12 (2013) (holding that a drug dog sniff was an unreasonable search because it was conducted while standing on the curtilage of the defendant’s home). The U.S. Supreme Court has identified two different tests for determining if government action constitutes a search under the Fourth Amendment: the “reasonable-expectation-of-privacy test” and the “common-law trespassory test.” Jones, 565 U.S. at 409. Action that constitutes a search under either test may violate the Fourth Amendment if unreasonable. See id. In this case, the relevant test is the “common-law trespassory test,” also referred to as the “property-based test” in Dorff. See Dorff, 171 Idaho at 821, 823–24, 526 P.3d at 991, 993–94. The common-law trespassory test, which encompasses the “traditional property-based understanding of the Fourth Amendment,” considers whether “the Government obtain[ed] information by physically intruding” on constitutionally protected areas. Jardines, 569 U.S. at 5, 11 (citations omitted). If the government has trespassed against this “proprietary interest” for the purpose of obtaining information, then a Fourth Amendment search has occurred. See Dorff, 171 5 Idaho at 824, 526 P.3d at 994. See also Jardines, 569 U.S. at 5, 11. In the drug dog context, a sniff of a vehicle becomes a search for Fourth Amendment purposes when the dog has “(1) trespassed against [the defendant’s] vehicle (2) for the purpose of obtaining information about, or related to, the vehicle.” Dorff, 171 Idaho at 824, 526 P.3d at 994 (citation modified). In Idaho, a drug dog trespasses against a defendant’s vehicle when the dog “intermeddles” with the vehicle. See id. at 826–27, 526 P.3d at 996–97. Contact that does not rise to the level of intermeddling does not constitute a trespass for Fourth Amendment purposes. See id. at 827–28, 526 P.3d at 997–98. The disagreement over whether Edo trespassed boils down to the parties’ differing interpretations of the word “intermeddle.” This Court in Dorff stated that it “is often relatively straightforward” to determine if something constitutes intermeddling. Id. at 827, 526 P.3d at 997. This Court stated that intermeddling is “the difference between someone who brushes up against your purse while walking by—and someone who, without privilege or consent, rests their hand on your purse or puts their fingers into your purse . . . .” Id. “It is also the difference between a dog’s tail that brushes against the bumper of your vehicle as it walks by—and a dog that, without privilege or consent, approaches a vehicle to jump on its roof, sit on its hood, stand on its window or door—or enter into your vehicle.” Id. In this case, the district court took an expansive view of the term “intermeddle.” Relying on this Court’s statement in Dorff that “intentionally bringing about a physical contact with the chattel” constitutes intermeddling, 171 Idaho at 826, 526 P.3d at 996 (quoting Restatement (Second) of Torts § 217 cmt. e (1965)), the district court concluded that Edo’s contact with the door handle was sufficient to constitute a trespass to chattels. In reaching that conclusion, the district court analogized Edo’s conduct to a thief brushing the outside of a purse to discern its contents, reasoning that the contact was intentionally made to obtain information and therefore constituted intermeddling. The State stresses that intermeddling is a “heightened form of contact” that “violates the rights to possess, use, or exclude, or some combination of those rights.” (Quoting Dorff, 171 Idaho at 827–28, 526 P.3d at 997–98). Accordingly, the State argues that intermeddling requires intentional contact of such a character or degree that it meaningfully interferes with the owner’s possessory interest in the property. Because Edo only briefly touched the door handle with the tip of his nose, the State contends that the contact was neither intermeddling nor trespassory. We 6 agree. Intermeddling requires more than minimal physical contact; it requires a meaningful interference with the owner’s possessory interest in property. In Dorff, this Court noted the historical meaning of “intermeddling” as “‘[i]nterposing officiously’ or ‘intruding[.]’” 171 Idaho at 826–27, 526 P.3d at 996–97 (quoting Intermeddling, Webster’s Dictionary (1828), https://webstersdictionary1828.com/Dictionary/intermeddling). Historically, to “interpose” meant “[t]o place between or among; to thrust in; to intrude, as an obstruction, interruption or inconvenience.” Interpose, Webster’s Dictionary (1828), https://webstersdictionary1828.com/Dictionary/interpose. These concepts contemplate conduct that intrudes upon, obstructs, or interferes with another’s possessory interests; they do not encompass every physical contact with property. A fleeting, momentary contact with another’s property, standing alone, does not constitute an obstruction, interruption, or inconvenience and therefore does not amount to an interference with the owner’s possessory interest. See Dorff, 171 Idaho at 827, 526 P.3d at 997 (noting that persistent contact may amount to a continuing trespass because it interferes with the owner’s exclusive, sole right of possession). Indeed, this Court has described intermeddling as a “heightened form of contact” that violates the “dignitary or property interests in the inviolability of th[e] chattel . . . . ” Id. at 826– 27, 526 P.3d at 996–97. The adjective “heightened” modifies the nature of the contact itself, not merely the actor’s state of mind. To be sure, the accidental or unavoidable nature of the conduct may excuse contact that would otherwise be objectionable. But the converse does not follow. Contact does not become a heightened intrusion simply because it was intentional. Rather, the contact must itself be of such a character or degree that it meaningfully interferes with the owner’s possessory interest in the property. A person who briefly places a hand on another’s vehicle while walking through a crowded parking lot has intentionally touched the vehicle, but few would characterize that minimal contact as an intrusion upon the owner’s possessory rights. Intentional contact alone is therefore insufficient. Indeed, the Restatement language (as quoted in Dorff) relied upon by the district court reinforces this distinction. As noted above, the district court quoted Dorff as stating that “[i]ntentionally bringing about a physical contact with the chattel” constitutes intermeddling. (Quoting Dorff, 171 Idaho at 826, 526 P.3d at 996). However, that quotation was only part of the Restatement’s definition. In full, the Restatement, as quoted in Dorff, defines “intermeddling” as “intentionally bringing about a physical contact with the chattel[,] as when an actor beats 7 another’s horse or dog, or by intentionally directing an object or missile against it.” Id. at 826, 526 P.3d at 996 (emphasis added) (citation modified). The Restatement’s illustrations are significant. They do not describe mere intentional contact with another’s property. Instead, they describe the kind of intentional physical contact that intrudes upon or interferes with the owner’s possessory interest in the property. See Restatement (Second) of Torts § 217 cmt. e (1965). In Dorff, this Court was describing a “heightened” form of intentional contact, not just any kind of intentional contact. Thus, the phrase “physical contact” cannot be read in isolation. After all, the Restatement did not define intermeddling as petting a dog without permission. See Restatement (Second) of Torts § 217 cmt. e (1965). Rather, the Restatement described intermeddling as beating a dog without permission. Id. That understanding sheds light on Dorff’s description of intermeddling as a “heightened form of contact.” See 171 Idaho at 827, 526 P.3d at 997. Applying the foregoing analysis, we conclude that Edo’s contact with the car did not rise to the level of intermeddling. The exhibit provided by Pendleton shows that Edo approached the door handle and briefly touched it with the tip of his nose. The contact lasted for less than one second and ended when Edo pulled away to give his final alert. Edo neither entered nor occupied any portion of the vehicle, and his momentary contact was not the type of contact that interfered with Pendleton’s possessory interest in the property. See id. (noting that it is a continuing trespass to make “persistent contact” with another’s effects, interfering with the owner’s exclusive, sole right of occupation). 1 In short, Edo’s contact with the door handle did not obstruct, interrupt, or inconvenience Pendleton’s possession of the vehicle. Nor did the contact meaningfully interfere with Pendleton’s right to possess, use, or exclude others from the vehicle. Accordingly, we hold that the contact did not constitute intermeddling and therefore was not trespassory. Edo’s contact with Pendleton’s vehicle did not constitute a trespass. Absent a trespass, the sniff did not become a search within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment, regardless of whether 1 Note that the duration of the contact is relevant only to the question of continuing trespass. See Dorff, 171 Idaho at 829, 526 P.3d at 999 (holding that the amount of time that the drug dog had his paws on the vehicle was “not dispositive” of whether the contact amounted to intermeddling, but “the seconds that d[id] pass” while the dog “occupied” the vehicle were sufficient to constitute intermeddling). 8 the contact was made for the purpose of obtaining information. The district court therefore erred in granting Pendleton’s motion to suppress on that basis. IV. CONCLUSION We hold that the district court erred by granting Pendleton’s motion to suppress. We reverse and remand for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. Chief Justice BRODY and Justice ZAHN CONCUR. MOELLER, J., concurring in the result. I concur in the majority’s holding that a drug dog’s brief contact with the exterior of a car does not constitute an unreasonable search under the Fourth Amendment. This outcome is logically and legally sound. However, I write separately because this case continues to raise the very concerns I expressed in my dissent in State v. Dorff, 171 Idaho 818, 526 P.3d 988 (2022) (Moeller, J., dissenting), and further steers our dog sniff jurisprudence deeper into the same “murky and uncertain legal waters” of which I warned. Unfortunately, the majority opinion follows the path of Dorff by scrutinizing the natural animal behavior of a drug detection dog, viewing it through the lens of human intent, and then deciding whether the dog “intermeddled.” While in this instance the majority correctly concluded that the dog’s brief touching of the exterior of the car with its nose was insufficient to establish that the dog had intermeddled, the majority has again tethered itself to the troubling common law trespass analysis established in Dorff. Thus, we will continue to require trial judges to ascertain whether a drug detection dog’s action violated a defendant’s rights by relying on principles grounded in tort law, not the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution. In Dorff, the Court held that a drug dog’s contact must amount to “intermeddling” to qualify as a “trespass” under its property-based test. The Court defined the term “intermeddling” as “[i]ntentionally bringing about a physical contact with the chattel[,] as when an actor beats another’s horse or dog, or by intentionally directing an object or missile against it.” Dorff, 171 Idaho at 826, 526 P.3d at 996 (quoting RESTATEMENT (SECOND) OF TORTS § 217 cmt. e (1965)). Thus, the dog’s intent was unavoidably made part of the analysis. Heeding this precedent, the district court in this case concluded that Edo’s brief contact with the car door’s handle was an intentional touch and constituted a trespass of chattels. In reversing that decision, the majority has clarified that the intermeddling described in Dorff refers to a heightened form of intentional 9 contact. However, by continuing to rely on the concept of intermeddling, an approach grounded in common law trespass, the Court has repeated its earlier constitutional misstep. This Court’s reasoning in Dorff relied heavily on the United States Supreme Court’s ruling in United States v. Jones, 565 U.S. 400 (2012). However, to understand the changes Jones wrought in Fourth Amendment law, we must first harken back to the status of the law before Jones was decided. In Silverman v. United States, 365 U.S. 505 (1961), the United States Supreme Court explicitly rejected a trespass-based analysis and adopted a physical intrusion test in evaluating searches under the Fourth Amendment. The Supreme Court then explained: “Fourth Amendment rights are not inevitably measurable in terms of ancient niceties of tort or real property law. . . . [The] decision here does not turn upon the technicality of a trespass upon a party wall as a matter of local law. It is based upon the reality of an actual intrusion into a constitutionally protected area.” Id. at 511–512. Later in Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 353 (1967), which concerned an electronic listening recording device attached to a public telephone booth, the Court clarified that an unconstitutional search can still occur even without a physical intrusion. The Court reasoned that, “once it is recognized that the Fourth Amendment protects people—and not simply areas—against unreasonable searches and seizures it becomes clear that the reach of the Amendment cannot turn upon the presence or absence of a physical intrusion into any given enclosure.” Katz, 389 U.S. at 353 (internal quotation marks omitted). Following Katz, the Supreme Court seemed to depart from its prior property-based test and began looking to the “reasonable-expectation-of-privacy test” as the only relevant search test. In Smith v. Maryland, 442 U.S. 735, 739 (1979), the Supreme Court explained that Katz is “our lodestar” in determining whether governmental activities constituted a search. The Fourth Amendment landscape suddenly changed again in 2012 with the United States Supreme Court’s decision in United States v. Jones, 565 U.S. 400, 406 (2012), which breathed new life into the “property-based approach” that preceded Katz. (citing Kyllo v. United States, 533 U.S. 27, 31 (2001). See Orin S. Kerr, The Two Tests of Search Law: What Is the Jones Test, and What Does That Say About Katz?, 103 Wash. U.L. Rev. 309, 325 (2025). The majority in Dorff quoted heavily from Jones in support of their holding. For example, it highlighted the following language: “Although neither test [property-based or reasonable expectation of privacy] is exclusive or necessary to determining whether a ‘search’ occurred within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment, . . . the traditional property-based test endures as a 10 ‘baseline’ of protection against governmental searches as it existed when the Fourth Amendment was adopted.” Dorff, 171 Idaho at 823, 526 P.3d at 993 (citing Jones, 565 U.S. at 411). The Dorff majority then opted to apply only a trespass-based analysis, holding: “Like our decisions in Randall, [169 Idaho 358, 370, 469 P.3d 844, 856 (2021)], and Howard, [169 Idaho 379, 382–83, 496 P.3d 865, 868–69 (2021)], this case is only concerned with the property-based test—not the “reasonable expectation of privacy” test under Katz.” Id. (emphasis in original). It is this statement in Dorff that clearly illuminates where its constitutional misstep occurred. The Idaho cases Dorff relied on, Howard and Randall, concerned significant intrusions into a constitutionally protected area (drug dogs entering the interior of a vehicle), as did Jones (affixing a GPS device to a car was deemed a “physical intrusion”). Jones, 565 U.S. at 404. However, Dorff was not an intrusion case—and neither is the case at hand. The drug dog in Dorff and in this case only made contact with the exterior of the vehicles. Thus, there was no “intrusion” into a constitutionally protected area. An examination of Fourth Amendment law after Jones helps clarify that Jones implemented an intrusion standard—not the trespass-based standard applied by the majority here and in Dorff. Two major Supreme Court cases following Jones, Florida v. Jardines, 569 U.S. 1 (2013), and Grady v. North Carolina, 575 U.S. 306 (2015), clarified that the pre-Katz test restored in Jones was actually the Silverman intrusion test—not a common law trespass test. Both cases described Jones as an intrusion case, and, more importantly, never once used the word “trespass” in their analysis. See Kerr, at 334. Accordingly, the Jones test is best understood as an intrusion standard applicable when there is an actual intrusion of the interior, or the government physically attaches something to the surface of one’s person, house, paper, or effects. See Grady, 575 U.S. at 309. While physical attachment may not actually breach the exterior, the attachment is such a substantial interference that “the Government obtain[ed] information by physically intruding on a constitutionally protected area, such [that] a search [] undoubtedly occurred.” Grady, 575 U.S. at 309. In sum, Dorff went wrong when it utilized a tort-based trespass analysis, reserved for cases where there was an actual intrusion into a constitutionally protected area, and applied it to a case where there was no such intrusion. Unfortunately, such an approach is as improper in this case as it was in Dorff. The first question asked in both cases should have been: absent a physical intrusion into the vehicle, did the defendant in either case have a reasonable expectation of privacy in the 11 exterior portions of the vehicle touched by the drug dogs? Instead, the Court asked the wrong question in both cases: did the contact with the exterior of the vehicle amount to intermeddling, thereby rendering it a trespass of chattels? It is worth remembering that not so long ago, this Court cautioned against relying on trespass law to define Fourth Amendment rights: As the Supreme Court of the United States has explained, there is no constitutional nexus between criminal or civil trespass laws and Fourth Amendment jurisprudence: [I]t does not follow that the right to exclude conferred by trespass law embodies a privacy interest also protected by the Fourth Amendment. To the contrary, the common law of trespass furthers a range of interests that have nothing to do with privacy and that would not be served by applying the strictures of trespass law to public officers. Oliver v. United States, 466 U.S. 170, 184 n.15 (1984). In other words, trespass laws are not rooted in the same constitutional soil from whence the reasonable expectation of privacy standard has grown. See Kyllo v. United States, 533 U.S. 27, 34 (2001). State v. Albertson, 165 Idaho 126, 130–31, 443 P.3d 140, 144–45 (2019) (internal citations modified). Unfortunately, since Dorff, it appears that we may have retreated from this principle. Idaho is not alone in confronting troublesome dog-sniff cases. Following our opinion in Dorff, the Iowa Supreme Court addressed an almost identical issue in State v. Bauler, 8 N.W.3d 892, 894 (Iowa 2024), and reached the opposite conclusion. They held that “the legality of a dog sniff does not turn on the fine point of whether the handler or the dog briefly touched the outside of the vehicle, so long as there was no entry into the private space inside the vehicle.” Id. at 894– 95. 2 This is consistent with our pre-Dorff dog-sniff jurisprudence, which I continue to believe was the proper approach. See, Howard, 169 Idaho at 382–83, 496 P.3d at 868–69 (“[W]hen a law enforcement drug dog intrudes, to any degree, into the interior space of a car during a drug sniff, without express or implied consent to do so, a search has occurred under the Fourth Amendment.”); State v. Randall, 169 Idaho at 370, 469 P.3d at 856 (“[T]hough an exterior sniff of a car is not a search under Caballes, it becomes a search under Jones when a drug dog trespasses into the car’s interior.”). 2 Of note, the Iowa Supreme Court facetiously referred to its holding as “ruff justice.” Bauler, 8 N.W.3d at 894. 12 Moreover, the Iowa Supreme Court’s reasoning for treating a dog sniff differently from a search by a human actor was both constitutionally grounded and logically compelling. First, they cited United States v. Place, 462 U.S. 696, 707 (1983), for the longstanding principle that “a canine sniff is sui generis. We are aware of no other investigative procedure that is so limited both in the manner in which the information is obtained and in the content of the information revealed by the procedure.” Next, referencing our decision in Dorff, they considered the real-world implications of what they were deciding: Obviously, a dog is not the same as a human. No one cares if a dog examines their cell phone or follows them into the bathroom. So applying common law concepts derived from human interactions in an anthropomorphic manner to dog sniffs makes no sense. When a handler, in the course of an otherwise lawful exterior dog sniff, briefly touches and allows the dog to briefly touch the outside of the vehicle, that innocuous occurrence should be considered a nonevent. Would anyone complain if a dog sniffing parked cars for explosives outside our state capitol building briefly put its paws on one of those vehicles? If there's an issue, it’s the dog sniff itself, not the paws. A dog sniff that takes place in the open air, and does not go beyond the normal scope of a dog sniff, is as valid under article I, section 8 as it is under the Fourth Amendment. This is the very point made by the dissenters in Dorff. Bauler, 8 N.W.3d at 906. Here, in addition to its Fourth Amendment infirmities, the majority’s ruling continues to improvidently sail in Dorff’s wake by ignoring the very nature of dogs. The unavoidable truth that no one has confronted is that Edo, as the district court found, most likely did intend to contact Pendleton’s car with his nose. He did so because dogs instinctively use their entire body when picking up a scent—not because they are attempting to intermeddle with someone’s personal chattels. See Dorff, 171 Idaho at 831, 526 P.3d at 1001 (Moeller, J., dissenting). Put simply, a dog is not capable of formulating the requisite intent to intermeddle. 3 Thus, an instinctive act by a dog is not the equivalent of an intent to intermeddle even if we were to apply the tort-based trespass analysis from Dorff. Again, as the Iowa Supreme Court aptly observed: “applying common law concepts derived from human interactions in an anthropomorphic manner to dog sniffs makes no sense.” Bauler, 8 N.W.3d Id. at 906. Returning to the facts of this case, whether Edo “intermeddled” is irrelevant because his actions (sniffing a car door’s handle and briefly contacting it with his nose) did not touch upon the 3 However, as most feline owners can attest, the jury may still be out on cats. 13 core purpose of the Fourth Amendment—protecting the privacy and security of individuals against unreasonable government intrusions. See State v. Rebo, 168 Idaho 234, 238, 482 P.3d 569, 573 (2021) (quoting Carpenter v. United States, 585 U.S. 296, 303 (2018)). Simply put, a dog’s brief, minimal, and noninjurious contact with the exterior of a vehicle should not be considered a constitutional violation when it threatens neither the privacy nor security of citizens—it is “just a dog behaving like a dog.” Dorff, 171 Idaho at 831, 526 P.3d at 1001 (Moeller, J., dissenting). If a car is somehow damaged by the dog’s contact, this can be resolved through a civil proceeding— which is precisely where a common law trespass of chattels analysis belongs. Moreover, police remain “responsible for training and controlling drug dogs as tools of enforcement” to ensure that they follow proper procedures. Id. (citing Randall, 169 Idaho at 369, 496 P.3d at 855). However, this does not mean the Court should regulate such a tool into inefficacy by imposing unrealistic requirements that go against a drug dog’s very nature and create arbitrary distinctions unrelated to the purposes of the Fourth Amendment. My colleagues who have separately concurred deem my disagreement with Dorff’s rationale as “purely academic.” It is not. The rule the Court leaves in place has a concrete and unfortunate consequence: Idaho’s trial courts must continue to parse a drug dog’s intent through Dorff’s tort-based intermeddling analysis, when a far simpler—and more constitutionally sustainable—inquiry is available to them. The Fourth Amendment question is not what the dog meant to do; it is what the dog did. In other words, our constitutional query should be whether the drug dog actually intruded upon a constitutionally protected area or violated a reasonable expectation of privacy, not what it intended to do. Ultimately, this approach would allow our trial courts to fulfill the core purposes of the Fourth Amendment without requiring judges to borrow from tort law and undertake the absurd task of divining a drug dog’s intentions. Justice MEYER CONCURS. BRODY, C.J., concurring. I concur with the majority’s holding, consistent with State v. Dorff, 171 Idaho 818, 526 P.3d 988 (2023), that Edo’s incidental contact with Pendleton’s car does not rise to the level of intermeddling sufficient to violate the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition against unreasonable searches. I write separately to address the concurrence’s unfounded assertion that common-law trespass doctrine should have no place in the Court’s Fourth Amendment jurisprudence. 14 I begin by surveying the unresolved questions in the United States Supreme Court’s Fourth Amendment “search” caselaw, which, contrary to the concurrence’s portrayal, accounts for the “murky and uncertain legal waters” in this area. See Dorff, 171 Idaho at 829, 526 P.3d at 999 (Moeller, J., dissenting). I then explain why the use of common-law trespass principles to identify a Fourth Amendment “search,” as embraced by a majority of this Court in Dorff, better accords with the text and history of the Fourth Amendment than the physical intrusion standard the concurrence urges this Court to adopt. The bo