I don't have time to refute that statement, but I believe you arfe wrong, in many cases!
It doesn't matter, though, we have plenty of narcs to keep up the good work! Many are on this site... and we'll surely hear from them!
Posted on 02/16/2005 3:23:27 AM PST by Wolfie
Lawmaker Wants To Keep Drug Dogs on a Leash
"Reasonable belief" that drugs are in someone's car would be needed, not "ear-piercing or dreadlocks," for police in Illinois to use drug-sniffing dogs under a bill filed Monday by Rep. Monique Davis (D-Chicago). The measure is a response to a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision based on an Illinois case. Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan argued in favor of the dogs' use before the high court, which agreed with her in overruling an Illinois Supreme Court decision.
"In my opinion, this will lead to a police state," Davis said, subjecting "innocent motorists, college students and especially people of color to the harassing, frightening and embarrassing experience of a dog search."
Police need more evidence than "ear-piercing and dreadlocks" to pull a driver over and call in the dogs, she said. Davis cited protections in the U.S. and Illinois constitutions against searches and seizures that lack probable cause.
Driving with Pot
On Jan. 24, the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the conviction of Roy Caballes, who had 270 pounds of marijuana in his car when a state trooper stopped him on Interstate 80 driving 6 mph over the speed limit. A police dog detected drugs when it sniffed the outside of the car. Madigan argued, and the court agreed 6-2, that the sniffing produced probable cause for a search.
The trooper reportedly summoned a K-9 unit when Caballes, of Las Vegas, appeared nervous. But Daniel Coyne of the Chicago Council of Lawyers, who joined Davis at a news conference, said the real reason was that Caballes was "a Hispanic man wearing a suit."
Sniffer dogs aren't foolproof, Coyne added, noting that one study found 75 percent of all the currency in the United States is contaminated with drugs.
The Illinois State Police reported that of 3,720 dog-sniff tests of vehicles, 325 -- fewer than 1 in 10 -- detected drugs in 2000, said Ed Yohnka of the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois.
Maria Valdez of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund said racial profiling of motorists is a major problem, especially in the suburbs. "You can imagine the fear of people, especially with children in the car, when the dogs are brought in," she said. "Many of them come from countries where dogs are used to intimidate folks."
Madigan's office said troopers using K-9 units last year seized $134 million in drugs, including 3.34 million grams of marijuana and 998,000 grams of cocaine.
She said in a statement that drug-sniffing dogs play an "indispensable" role. "Although such units are used infrequently, their impact . . . has been extremely significant."
Wonder if the attitude would change had the dog found 270 pounds of explosives and the driver was headed for her offices?
The drug warrior cops here use that same technique. They ask for permisssion to search your vehicle and if you say "No, get a warrant", they immediately call the dog.
Why the Supreme Court allowed this to be legal is beyond me. The K-9 is considered to be "police" and they are trained to search with their nose.
If a dog goes sniffing around your vehicle, it is very easy to assume that "it" is a "cop" conducting a search.
Wonder if your attitde would change if your ___________ (son, daughter, nephew, brother. father, or whatever close relation) was busted with an ounce of MARIJUANA and sent to jail for three years?
Madigan's office said troopers using K-9 units last year seized $134 million in drugs, including 3.34 million grams of marijuana and 998,000 grams of cocaine.
Nobody goes to jail for three years for an ounce of pot on the first and only violation.
If it's a repeat performance then - duh?
I think the WOD was Reagan's biggest mistake. But that doesn't mean I get a free pass on the law.
3.34 megagrams would be more correct than 3,340 kilograms in terms of unit usage.
We will have to disagree on this. Taking a dog specifically trained to detect certain substances and walking it around your vehicle is "searching" plain and simple.
When you roll the window down and it looks like something out of a cheech and chong movie, that is entirely different.
Sorry, but I still disagree. Maybe because I know how the little nazis with bad haircuts operate down here.
Here in this area, deputies or drug warriors make an avg of $8.00 - $10.00 per hour, but if you drive by where any of them live, wow!!! big house, 4 wd pickup, bass boat, wife has new suburban and doesn't work.
Good money manager or perhaps might be stealing a little money during a bust.
I am not a druggie and never have been, I just hate the way these guys operate.
The real kicker is ....
the dogs are trained to alert on command.
I would like to know how many of those thousands of searches produced an alert ... but no drugs.
My guess... a heck of a lot.
All of that is a different issue...
That's what lawyers are for.
Keeping them honest that is.
JUDGE REFUSES TO REVISE RULING ON DRUG DOG
In May Jordan ruled there was no probable cause for officers to search the motor home because Falco was wrong more than he was right. The K-9 alerted, indicating the presence of narcotics, 225 times between 1998 and 2000, but officers found drugs only 80 times.
If that's not random, I don't know what is.
"Wonder if your attitde would change"
If it's illegal....No, it wouldn't.
That is one unit they would never use.
I don't have time to refute that statement, but I believe you arfe wrong, in many cases!
It doesn't matter, though, we have plenty of narcs to keep up the good work! Many are on this site... and we'll surely hear from them!
How long am I going to have to sit on the side of the road while the officer waits for the drug dog to show up and sniff around my vehicle? Every traffic stop is going to take an hour while the K-9 unit finishes their lunch break and drives out to where the highway cop has you pulled over.
Simple. Since the dog can detect nothing but illegal drugs, and since there's no legitimate right to hide illegal drugs from authorities, then no legitimate privacy right is violated by a warrantless dog sniff search around a residence. Thus, no Fourth Amendment violation, unless of course the Court wants to backpedal already, which is doubtful. Should be interesting. I hope the Court takes takes the case.Drug-sniffing dogs: a Fourth Amendment sequel?
Posted by Lyle Denniston at 07:22 PM February 13, 2005
The Supreme Court spent little effort on a recent decision allowing police, who have stopped a car for a traffic violation, to walk a drug-detection dog around the vehicle to check for illegal narcotics. It took less than five full pages to decide the case of Illinois v. Caballes on January 24. But that 6-2 ruling raised deeper questions under the Fourth Amendment about using a drug-sniffing canine when the scene switched from a roadside traffic encounter to a similar search of a private home, from the outside. The Court is already showing some interest in that question--presumably because of a conflict in the lower courts.
A week after the Caballes decision, the state of Texas was asked to file a response to the petition in Smith v. Texas (04-874). In that case, and another arising out of the same canine search (Stauffer v. Texas, 04-825), the state had waived its right to oppose the petitions. The Court is expected to act on the Smith case sometime in March, after the state's brief is in.
In the Caballes decision, Justice John Paul Stevens contrasted the sniff search of a car's trunk with the use of a heat-sensing device to detect marijuana growing inside a home--the situation that the Court found a violation of the Fourth Amendment in the 2001 decision in Kyllo v. U.S. "Critical to that decision [in Kyllo]," Stevens wrote, "was the fact that the device was capable of detecting lawful activity... The legitimate expectation that information about perfectly lawful activity will remain private is categorically distinguishable from [Caballes'] hopes or expectations concerning the nondetection of contraband in the trunk of his car."
The new petitions in the Smith and Stauffer cases from Texas--filed before the Court decided the Caballes case--rely heavily upon the Kyllo decision, arguing that the sanctity of the home is entitled to greater protection against a sniffing dog being used by police to find out what is going on inside. A Texas Court of Appeals found the canine search in the Smith and Stauffer cases was not a search under the Fourth Amendment--a direct conflict with, among other rulings, a decision by the Nebraska Supreme Court in October 1999 in State v. Ortiz. That case involved a canine search outside an apartment door.
The new petitions in the Texas cases grew out of a use of a drug-detection dog at a private home in Houston on October 4, 2000. A local police officer recruited a sheriff's deputy, who specialized as a narcotics dog handler, to take a dog named Rocky for a walk around the exterior of the home of David Gregory Smith. There was no warrant for that search. As Rocky sniffed at the door of a garage that was a part of the residence, the dog gave a positive alert that there were drugs inside. Based on that indication, police obtained a search warrant, and found some 660 grams of methamphetamine. The drugs were found in a rear corner bedroom, well away from the garage. Smith and Kristian Lehr Stauffer, who was in the home when the search was carried out, were charged with and convicted of possession of methamphetamine with intent to distribute. They petitioned the Supreme Court for review after the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals refused to hear their appeals.
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