My research in this context introduces a fresh interdisciplinary perspective into U.S. Criminal Procedure.

My article "Passing the Sniff Test: Police Dogs as Biotechnology." (Buffalo Law Review 61: 81-168. [SSRN]) explores the 2012 case of Florida v. Jardines, which revolves around the constitutionality of police canine Franky's sniff outside a private residence. The article presents a review of the often-contradictory case law that exists on this question to suggest that underlying the various cases is the Courts' assumption of a juxtaposed relationship between nature and technology. Where dog sniffs are perceived as a technology, the courts have been inclined to also define them as "searches," thereby triggering Fourth Amendment protections. Conversely, when perceived as extensions of the officer's natural sense of smell, dogs, like nature, are viewed with "superstitious awe" and spared constitutional scrutiny. Rather than use the dominant judicial classification of police dogs as either "natural entities" or "advancing technologies"-each of which triggering its own, usually opposite, chain of legal events-I rely on the scholarship of Science and Technology Studies (STS) to suggest treating police dogs as "biotechnologies": co-produced human-animal hybrids.

In "Rights of Passage: On Doors, Technology, and the Fourth Amendment" [SSRN] I trace the material and symbolic importance of the door for establishing Fourth Amendment protections, illuminating the importance of matter to law's everyday practices. In particular, this article highlights how various door configurations affect the level of constitutional protection granted to those situated on the inside of the door and the important role of vision and seeing for establishing legal expectations of privacy. Eventually, the article suggests that we might be witnessing the twilight of the "physical door" era and the beginning of a new "virtual door" era in Fourth Amendment jurisprudence. As the alterations of physical and technological matters present increasingly sophisticated challenges to the distinctions between inside and outside, private and public, and prohibited and accepted visions, the Supreme Court will need to carefully articulate what is worth protecting on the other side of the door.

Publications:

(2014). Rights of Passage: On Doors, Technology, and the Fourth Amendment. Journal of Law, Culture, and the Humanities [SSRN]

(2013). "Passing the Sniff Test: Police Dogs as Biotechnology." Buffalo Law Review 61: 81-168. [SSRN].