I've been looking at BOTH of these incidents trying to find probable cause for the vehicle searches in the first place. Probable cause requires the officer observe something in plain sight, that is readily discernible, Bringing in a "drug sniffing dog" is an extraordinary measure that would, to my mind, constitute a "search" of the vehicle. It certainly seeks to find something that is not obvious, or in plain view, or readily apparent to the officer. The plain view doctrine is quite explicit about this. . . and includes plain smell of the officer at the incident. If he can't see or smell it without moving something, including opening a vehicle door, it's not in plain view. This officer predicated everything on his observation of Eckart.
The officer claiming he saw a "clenching of the buttocks" when Eckart stepped out of his car certainly does not rise to such probable cause. Pardon me, but this simply doesn't pass the smell test. This was January, in New Mexico; it's cold there. Eckart's buttocks would be well covered by clothing, pants and likely a jacket. It is highly unlikely the officer could see anyone "clenching his buttocks" under his clothing. . . certainly not enough to justify initiating a vehicle search. If he did see such clenching, there are many more mundane explanations for the action—hemorrhoids, loose stools issues, fear of passing gas—than drugs hidden in the rectum. I assure you that I can clench my butt and no one would notice. To believe this officer did is beyond absurd.
The officer claimed "Leo" the dog "triggered positive on drugs on the truck's driver's seat." Yet, multiple dog trainers state that drug sniffing dogs can and are trained to signal false positives on a hidden signal from their handlers. The last time this canine's certification as being reliable in drug detection expired in April of 2011, almost two years before this incident. All of this based on the officer's observation of "clenched buttocks" as probable cause? No way! It stinks!
These brilliant cops did not ask themselves why a 63 year old middle income BUSINESSMAN coming out of Walmart in his own fairly new truck would be using a prisoner's drug smuggling technique when there were numerous more convenient places—not to mention sanitary places—in the truck to hide his stash. Nor did they bother to wonder why, if he was such a big drug user that he would know about the need for anal cavity stashing, this "druggy's" truck ONLY had a positive hit on the driver's seat surface—according to their wonder dog complete drug sniff search—and no where else? Nor did these geniuses bother to think exactly HOW Mr. Eckart would have been able to stick drugs so far up his rectum, or later conveniently retrieve them, that digital probing couldn't find them and that escalating to colonoscopy would be required to find them! Sheesh! This is industrial strength stupidity.
I sat for one year as the foreman of the San Joaquin County (California) Criminal Grand Jury twenty years ago and I will tell you that based on that experience, had this been brought before us, I would toss this out and bring a No-Bill. . . and have created indictments of the police officers for violation of the fourth amendment. . . and seriously considered assault and battery indictments on the doctors and anesthesiologist who performed the colonoscopy over Eckart's objections! As a grand jury we had that authority.
That's where they screwed up. There are certain kinds of people you do this to (and they've been doing it to them for a long time with no repercussions), and Mr. Eckert isn't one of them. "And then they came for me..." and all.