Skadden’s Supreme Court and Appellate Practice secured a precedent-setting victory in State v. Organ, a Fourth Amendment case before the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (CCA), the state’s high court for criminal cases. The CCA affirmed the suppression of evidence recovered from the client’s vehicle after a police drug dog stuck its nose into the car and alerted. In an opinion closely tracking Skadden’s arguments and joined by seven of the nine judges, the court held that law enforcement violated the Fourth Amendment. In reaching that conclusion, the Texas high court rejected the reasoning of the Iowa Supreme Court and several federal courts of appeals holding that a drug dog’s intrusion is not a Fourth Amendment search.
The Skadden team included Parker Rider-Longmaid, who argued the case, Shay Dvoretzky, Sylvia Tsakos, and Hanaa Khan, in collaboration with Looney Smith Conrad Hefti P.C.