[TKDietz]

I understand what you are saying but the issue we were talking about is whether the dogs police use on the highway are there for sniffing out bombs and things like that as well as drugs. The answer is that in most all of the cases these dogs are drug dogs who only detect drugs. I suggest that the main reason why there are many more drug dogs than bomb dogs is that the money for law enforcement is in drugs.

Our local law enforcement seize incredible amounts of cash, vehicles, and other assets in their drug enforcement efforts. Most of this money is split between the prosecutors and the law enforcement agencies aiding in the arrests. Over a certain amount, a small portion goes to the state. The money law enforcement and prosecutors take in these efforts has become very important to them. At least here our prosecutors and law enforcement already have state and county budgets along with state and federal grants. The only stipulation with the forfeiture funds is that they spend it for law enforcement or prosecutorial purposes, and in real life this can mean a lot. I know all of our prosecutors drive "company cars" that were either seized or paid for by seized assets, their cell phones and memberships to the gym are paid for out of these funds, their lavish all expense paid continuing legal education trips are paid for out of these funds, and so on. It also pays for a lot of fancy equipment. It pays for expert witnesses and other witnesses to be flown in from all over the country and put up in hotels. It is used for bonuses and in a round about way for salary increases because the prosecutors can negotiate deals with the county where their people all get raises in exchange for not increasing their budget in some other area where they can just use the drug money to cover their needs. And in fact, the county employees at the prosecutors office where I live are paid more than the other county employees with similar jobs and time in service.

Overall these asset forfeiture funds are extremely important to them and the main way they keep the money rolling in is to stay out in numbers pulling people over from out of state and running drug dogs around their cars. The drug dogs make them a fortune. Bomb dogs wouldn't do that for them, so I wouldn't expect them to go out of their way purchasing, training, and keeping these dogs on hand. There's no money in it for them. Asset forfeiture is not the only reason for working so hard at drug enforcement, but in a place like where I live where small town police and prosecutors will generally do at least several hundred thousand or better than a million a year in asset forfeitures total, it's a huge incentive.

One thing I didn't point out before in explaining why the dogs aren't trained to smell explosives as well as drugs is that besides the fact that you can't expect a dog to learn to detect more than a few items well, you would also run into probable cause problems if the drug dogs would also alert to explosives. For instance, if the drug dog would alert to gun powder or gun powder residue, when the dog alerts the offer could assume there is a good chance there are either drugs or firearms in the car. Since it is not illegal to carry an unloaded firearm that may have burnt powder residue on it or even a loaded firearm while on a journey, at least in my state, I would think an officer would not then have probable cause search the vehicle for illegal contraband, because the dogs could have just as easily been alerting to something perfectly legal. They'd need separate dogs for those separate purposes.

[pageonetoo]

As the Maha Rushie says, "Follow the money..."

[Randy Papadoo]

TK, if I say I understand what you are getting at, since yours is a known point of view, I ask that you consider mine (not to agree with it.)

When I argue from the LE point of view, the real issues re drugs are focused on enforcement. (LE does other things, like talk to kids at school, etc.)

I hope you can agree, for discussion's sake, at least, that enforcement of drug laws is important, given the damage that is done to the country (don't argue with this, pls. It's already carved in stone. 8-) )

If police were given every possible tool and unrestricted ability to search for and seize drugs, they still wouldn't get them all. By far, far, far. But it is LE's responsibility to keep at the frustrating drug situation, and they just do their best with the resources they have.

The forfeiture side of drug enforcement is important. It enables LE agencies to acquire new and often expensive tools to fight the drug war, such as trained sniffer dogs.

Also, drug forfeiture money goes only to drug enforcement agencies, including local PDs, prosecutors, etc. Police Chiefs, for example, get nothing. His captain in charge of the drug squad gets the money, most of which is already committed to specified drug enforcement needs. It's carefully controlled, after lots of looseness at the beginning.

And the laws on forfeiture have changed over the years. Used to be that LE agencies could keep some seized cars, the ones they wanted, to be used as official vehicles. The head of Federal Bureau of Narcotics (before DEA) in SF drove a big pink Thunderbird, which was seized from a drug dealer. You report observing similar things in your area, but I kind of think that the forfeiture law now has tighter limits on forfeitures than in past years.

My point is that LE just folds the forfeiture money into the WoD. Seems logical that a prosecutor might have one of those forfeited cars, for official business.

But I think it's an error to conclude that LE's motive for concentrating on the WoD is closely tied to the desire to acquire funds. There is a very clear mandate to LE, in statute form, that sets out the mission. Forfeiture was instituted as a way to utilize the seized assets that resulted from the enforcement efforts. I feel like defining forfeiture as the reason behind the LE WoD is like the old "tail wagging the dog" idea.

Forfeiture certainly had nothing to do with the arrest which was the basis of this thread.

Most pro drug dealers use rental cars to conduct drug business. The gov't doesn't seize rental cars, because such a forfeiture has no impact on drug enforcement, only on the innocent rental agency. That only gives limited protection to the dealer, however, because when he's caught, his assets are analyzed for purposes of forfeiture, and anything he can't document as having been a legitimate purchase with clean money is subject to forfeiture anyway.

I don't think you can point your finger at LE for what you think is wrong in all this WoD stuff. (Not that you are.) The laws are on the books. That's where your focus should be if you want changes.

LE just keeps pluggin' along, working hard. LE can't change anything re its responsibilities to the WoD.

Lastly, you are right about dogs sniffing one or a related group of specific things. LE lost many dog cases in the beginning, for the very reason that they were often used for many purposes....drugs, tracking, etc. This caused the dogs to make many false hits, which resulted in cases that got tossed out of court on unreliability issues.

LE adapted by keeping records on dog performances, and found out that the dogs needed to be specialized to basically one area of sniffing expertise in order to validate the dog's capabilities to make accurate and reliable hits.

And that has happened, and a routine part of a dog-generated drug case trial is the court presentation showing the dog's hit reliability is sufficient to validate his discovery of the drugs.

I live in Hawaii, which has tight agricultural controls over fruit (and other things). Incoming passengers are notitified of the regulation against bringing in fruit, but some forget they have some, some try to slide it through, etc. There is a small beagle, wearing a knit vest, which sits at the bottom of the escalator leading to the baggage claim area. The dog just calmly walks around the passengers as they come off the escalator, and sits down when he smells fruit. An inspector meets the passenger and looks in the carry-on bag, and seizes the fruit. There's no other penalty (there could be, in aggravated circumstances). That dog is uncanny.