Posted on 02/27/2013 5:08:50 PM PST by Kaslin
Imagine that a police officer, after taking it upon himself to search someone's car, is asked to explain why he thought he would find contraband there. "A little birdie told me," he replies.
Most judges would react with appropriate skepticism to such a claim. But substitute "a big dog" for "a little birdie," and you've got probable cause.
Or so says the U.S. Supreme Court, which last week unanimously ruled that "a court can presume" a search is valid if police say it was based on an alert by a dog trained to detect drugs. The court thereby encouraged judges to accept self-interested proclamations about a canine's capabilities, reinforcing the alarmingly common use of dogs to justify invasions of privacy. Drug-detecting dogs are much less reliable than widely believed, with false-positive error rates as high as 96 percent in the field. A 2006 Australian study found that the rate of unverified alerts by 17 police dogs used to sniff out drugs on people ranged from 44 percent to 93 percent.
Police and prosecutors commonly argue that when a dog alerts and no drugs are found, "the dog may not have made a mistake at all," as Justice Elena Kagan put it, writing for the Court. Instead, it "may have detected substances that were too well hidden or present in quantities too small for the officer to locate."
This excuse is very convenient -- and completely unfalsifiable. Furthermore, probable cause is supposed to hinge on whether there is a "fair probability" that a search will discover evidence of a crime. The possibility that dogs will react to traces of drugs that are no longer present makes them less reliable for that purpose.
So does the possibility that a dog will react to smell-alike odors from legal substances, distractions such as food or cues from their handlers. Given all the potential sources of error, it is hard to assess a dog's reliability without looking at its real-world track record. That is why the Florida Supreme Court, in the 2011 decision that the U.S. Supreme Court overturned, said police should provide information about a dog's hits and misses.
"The fact that the dog has been trained and certified," it said, "is simply not enough to establish probable cause," especially when, as in most states, there are no uniform standards for training or certification.
Kagan, by contrast, minimized the significance of a dog's success at finding drugs in the field. She said police testing in artificial conditions is a better measure of reliability, even though handlers typically know where the drugs are hidden and can therefore direct the animals to the right locations, either deliberately or subconsciously.
Instead of requiring police to demonstrate that a dog is reliable, this decision puts the burden on the defense to show the dog is not reliable through expert testimony and other evidence that casts doubt on the training and testing methods used by police. But experts are expensive, and police control all the relevant evidence.
Police even determine whether the evidence exists. Many departments simply do not keep track of how often dog alerts lead to unsuccessful searches, and this decision will only encourage such incuriosity.
The court previously has said that police may use drug-sniffing dogs at will during routine traffic stops and may search cars without a warrant, based on their own determination of probable cause. Now that it has said a dog's alert by itself suffices for probable cause, a cop with a dog has the practical power to search the car of anyone who strikes him as suspicious.
Even the question of whether a dog did in fact alert may be impossible to resolve if there is no video record of the encounter, which is often the case. As Florida defense attorney Jeff Weiner puts it, the justices "have given law enforcement a green light to do away with the Fourth Amendment merely by uttering the magic words, 'My dog alerted.'"
So instead of actually looking for something substantial, you believe most cops would fritter away their time on a shot in the dark? Is that what you believe?
There's probably a lot of regional variation. In an area where most cops are honest, there may be little tolerance for dishonest ones. If, however, a certain critical mass of dishonest cops is reached, however, they will be able to keep out anyone who would make life difficult.
One thing many people don't seem to appreciate about "isolated incidents" is that if people who behave a certain way get rewarded, people in future will be more likely to behave that way. If a cop who shoots a dog for no remotely-justifiable reason while conducting a search does not face any repercussions for doing so, cops conducting searches in the future will be more likely to shoot dogs. If it becomes apparent that someone who becomes a cop will be free to shoot dogs without reprisal, people with a disposition toward animal cruelty will be drawn to police work. Given that even cops who have been recorded on video going out of their way to shooting dogs that were tied up well away from the places they were searching have not been punished for their conduct, it would seem that some police departments feel that they have the right to deprive people of their canine property without due process of law, notwithstanding the fact that such conduct is expressly contrary to the Supreme Law of the Land, meaning that those who engage in it are robbers rather than legitimate government agents.
Can you link me to those incidents?
If a cop searches a flea-market vendor's car and confiscates $10,000 cash is that "frittering away his time on a shot in the dark"?
I don't have a direct link, sorry. Randy Balko posts a lot on such topics on his blog The Agitator. I don't agree with all of his politics, but he links to a variety of sources, and seems generally credible. I haven't read his writings so much since he signed on at the Huffington Post. His old blog at TheAgitator.Com is still up, though all postings are at the new blog. I think the new blog has archives of the old one, but I haven't tried searching them.
Give me the statistical probability that any car searched by police will have $10,000 cash in it. Also the link to cops going out of their way to shooting dogs that were tied up well away from the places they were searching.
In other words, what you stated as fact, isn't. Randy Balko the cop hater?
The Cop Haters Up To Their Old Tricks | Flopping Aces
Not surprising that a avowed cop hater would leave out facts that would prove him wrong. How could he justify his allegations if he did that? Balko being a loony tune doesn't bother me so much, since there are plenty of them to go around, but the fact that Instapundit would link to him twice so far is sad.
floppingaces.net/2006/11/25/the-cop-haters-up-to-their-old/
Please point out where I said all cops are liars.
Ignored? I posted directly from the link about the UCD report.
And then you did your best to avoid discussion of the implications of the findings, preferring instead to blather about hunting dogs or harping on another poster's comment about all cops being liars.
No one is contesting a dog's keen sense of smell. What is being contested is first, using a dog without probable cause and second, that dogs can be conditioned, either intentionally or unintentionally, to react to handler queues to indicate a positive.
And, even more telling, you have refused to support the notion of limited government that the Founders instilled in the Constitution. You know why Republicans don't get traction any longer? Because too many of them, like you, don't give a rat's ass about limited government conservatism. And without such, Republicans are Dem light. Weak, watery beer with no appeal.
And BTW, I am not a knee-jerk cop-hater. However, when I read about dogs being conditioned to give false positives, that is pretty damning of the cops in question. But my real beef is with SCOTUS allowing dog searches without other probable cause which is, IMO, a direct violation of the Fourth Amendment.
If the police were stopping cars at random times and places, the probability would be pretty low. On the other hand, there are some places and times where the percentage of vehicles carrying significant amounts of cash would be much higher. If a cop wanted to target vehicles carrying cash, it would not be hard to identify likely candidates.
Further, even a cop who actually wanted to catch "criminals" could probably identify cars that were more likely than most (though by enough to constitute "probable cause") to contain something illegal, even if not something a dog would detect. For example, if a cop observes people visiting a store just outside Illinois which among other things sold cheap cigarettes, a search of all such people would probably find a number that were carrying an illegal quantity of cigarettes (I think the legal limit is one or two cases). Merely visiting the store and carrying a bag out of it wouldn't constitute probable cause (since someone could have bought other merchandise and/or a quantity of cigarettes that complies with the legal limit), and there's no way a dog could distinguish Illinois-taxed cigarettes from out-of-state cigarettes nor determine the exact quantity of out-of-state cigarettes, but a cop who used drug dogs as a pretext for searches could probably net quite a few "cigarette bootleggers".
Does he invent newspaper articles?
He is selective in what parts he posts. A typical LIEberTARDian slimeball.
Your LIEberTARDian comrades claimed 99.999% right on this thread. Do you agree?
preferring instead to blather about hunting dogs
I asked a question that was pertinent to the discussion, but evidently you were too stupid to make the connection. I also made mention of other highly trained dogs used for guide, service and search and rescue. If you need help in understanding, rather than remaining ignorant, ask.
dogs can be conditioned, either intentionally or unintentionally, to react to handler queues to indicate a positive.
Do you now, or have you ever used illicit drugs? Have you ever been detained by police, arrested or incarcerated? Have you ever been in the presence of a drug sniffing dog? Do you believe dogs should be used as bomb or explosive detectors?
you have refused to support the notion of limited government
Where is your proof? Your wild and unsubstantiated accusations bring into question your mental stability.
I am not a knee-jerk cop-hater.
So your hate is accumulated. Maybe if you answer truthfully the questions posed to you earlier it would shed some light on your emotional tirades.
LIke what, 10%, 5%, 2% or .000001?
I'm not a Libertarian. But I also am not an authoritarian freak like you. I don't think all cops are liars, like all professions, there are good ones and bad ones.
I asked a question that was pertinent to the discussion, but evidently you were too stupid to make the connection. I also made mention of other highly trained dogs used for guide, service and search and rescue. If you need help in understanding, rather than remaining ignorant, ask.
Bullcrap. You spent the entire thread trying to derail the discussion.
Do you now, or have you ever used illicit drugs? Have you ever been detained by police, arrested or incarcerated? Have you ever been in the presence of a drug sniffing dog? Do you believe dogs should be used as bomb or explosive detectors?
There you go again. Trying to deflect legitimate criticism of rogue cops. What does my answer to any of those questions have to do with my comment that you led in with - about rogue cops deliberately training dogs for false positives? Nothing, nada, zip.
Where is your proof? Your wild and unsubstantiated accusations bring into question your mental stability.
Please point out ONE INSTANCE on this thread where you have supported the notion of limited government. It shouldn't be that hard if I am as wrong as your asinine response implies.
So your hate is accumulated. Maybe if you answer truthfully the questions posed to you earlier it would shed some light on your emotional tirades.
I don't hate cops. But jackasses like you stink up FR like a old diaper.
Then why do you make mindless, unsubstantiated accusations? You fail to address relevant questions and you emote like a little girl. That is indeed freaky!
I'm not a Libertarian.
You're a LIEberTARDian.
I heartily endorse and support ferreting out bad cops. Just as I support ferreting out bad journalists, teachers, clergy, electricians, politicians, etc. I can't help it if you are too emotional and overwrought to see it. The stinky diaper is the one you're wearing and soiling.
Once again, please feel free to show a post you have made on this thread supportive of limited government. My allegations are hardly baseless.
You fail to address relevant questions
Your claiming questions are relevant does not make them so. Once again, please tell me why my opinion on explosives-sniffing dogs has anything to do with crooked cops training dogs to give false positives.
And I am not a Libertarian. I am a registered Republican. But I also am a Constitutional conservative. I guess to an authoritarian like you, anyone who thinks the 4th Amendment should have actual meaning must be a libertine.
Oh, and maybe you could come up with your own putdowns instead of constantly recycling mine.
Probably somewhere between 0.001% and 1%, if the police were stopping people at random times and places. But who other than you has suggested that police are doing that? I would guess that there are some places where, if some cops with binoculars were to stop all of the cars which entered the state after the occupant emerged from a store that was within sight of the border carrying a decent-sized bag, 5% or more of the cars stopped would be found to have some form of contraband (most likely an unlawful number of out-of-state cigarettes). The fact that someone was seen leaving a store where they could just as likely have bought legal goods as illegal ones should not be considered sufficient probable cause to justify searching that person's car, but contraband would be found in enough cars to make such efforts worthwhile (at least from the point of view of the cops).
And you know what is really funny? You take umbrage at being called an authoritarian - saying such is unsubstantiated - yet have no problem calling me a LIEberTARDian.
It’s called a double standard, bucko. I guess in your worldview, you are the only one allowed to pass judgement on the posts of others. If we do it to you, it’s unsubstantiated.
But I doubt you care. People with underlying agendas seldom do.
Your bullsquat, liberal tactics aren't working. You make the accusations and allegations, you provide the proof, substantiation and documentation.
And I am not a Libertarian. I am a registered Republican
You post like an overwrought, emotional LIEberTARDian.
Explain to me exactly how a dog can be trained to make false positive IDs. The handlers can claim the dog has made a drug identification at will, can't they?
Get a grip and stop acting and posting like a liberal, if you aren't as you claim.
Isn't that exactly what you are criticizing the cops of doing?
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