## Facts

- An ATF agent monitoring a Federal Express facility in Bakersfield, California observed two people pay cash to ship a 37-pound package to “Sr. Angel Sanchez” at an address in Shillington, Pennsylvania.
- The return sender information (“Ceramics, Inc.” at a listed Bakersfield address and phone number) appeared fictitious based on directory and address checks.
- A Kern County Sheriff’s deputy conducted a canine sniff of the package in California; the dog alerted to narcotics.
- The package was forwarded to Pennsylvania while the ATF agent relayed the observations and canine alert to Berks County law enforcement.
- Pennsylvania authorities obtained a warrant to search the package; the search revealed marijuana.
- Police then obtained a second warrant to search the destination premises in Pennsylvania, producing additional evidence and leading to drug-related charges against Angel Sanchez and J.J. Briceno-Rodriguez.

## Issues

1. Whether Pennsylvania law (including Article I, Section 8 of the Pennsylvania Constitution) or California law governs the legality of a canine sniff conducted in California that supplied probable cause for Pennsylvania search warrants.
2. Whether evidence seized in Pennsylvania must be suppressed if the out-of-state canine sniff would have violated Pennsylvania constitutional standards.

## Decision

- The Pennsylvania Supreme Court affirmed the Superior Court’s order reversing suppression.
- The court held that the legality of the canine sniff conducted in California must be evaluated under California law.
- Because the canine sniff was lawful under California law, the resulting Pennsylvania warrants were not tainted, and suppression was unwarranted.

## Legal Principles

- The legality of an out-of-state search is generally assessed under the law of the jurisdiction where the search occurred, particularly when the search is conducted by officers acting under that jurisdiction’s authority in its territory.
- Pennsylvania courts lack authority to regulate or sanction investigative conduct occurring in another state and will not apply Pennsylvania constitutional search-and-seizure rules extraterritorially to invalidate such conduct.
- A Pennsylvania exclusionary remedy is not triggered solely because an investigative method lawful in the foreign state would have been unlawful under Pennsylvania’s more protective constitutional standards.

## Conclusion

Pennsylvania courts evaluate an out-of-state canine sniff under the law of the state where it occurred; when that sniff is lawful there, evidence later seized in Pennsylvania pursuant to warrants based on the sniff is not suppressed.


Commonwealth v. Sanchez, 716 A.2d 1221 (Pa. 1998)