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.'"
How many of "them" are there?
“They didn’t do that. Instead, they argued on appeal that a drug dog alerting on a smell doesn’t provide probable cause.”
The point is not whether the guy was guilty, the point is the law was expanded to give “probable cause” based on the presence or absence of a dog.
You may or may not have stuff you’d rather cops not find in your car. Now you have no presumption of innocence - they will search your car. Depending on the cop, they may or may not find something in your car when they search.
there will be more spending on police dogs now, because the police dogs give police more “flexibility” when dealing with citizens who may simply not wish to be searched.
There is all manner of mischief possible here - all because of a dog being there.
What does that have to do with the use of drug sniffing dogs?
Who is there to determine if the dog's behavior constitutes an "alert?" No one except the police officer. Unless you're in the habit of bringing an animal behavioral expert with you at all times to testify in court, the presence of a dog gives LEOs a legal loophole to search at will. Because cops lie. In fact, they take classes to learn how to lie, to facilitate interrogations.
I understand the implication. You are using an example to condemn an entire profession. That makes you little different from the "rotten apples".
RICO Lawsuit Against NHP About Drug Sniffing Dog Program
...The suit claims improperly trained dogs are taught to respond to handler cueing to alert for drugs, rather than actually sniffing for drugs. This type of training and the resulting dogs are referred to in the K-9 training industry as “Trick Ponies.” The dogs are trained to falsely alert to drugs by the cueing action of the handlers, resulting in improper and illegal searches of private citizens. This can result in illegal seizure of property and money, even when no drugs are discovered in the subsequent search...
Sorry, I wasn't aware that you were so fragile.
RICO Lawsuit Against NHP About Drug Sniffing Dog Program.......The suit claims
Claims aren't proof, are they?
That is the typical absurd abuse of language and concepts that leads to bad SCOTUS decisions. A dog IS a method. No different than jimmying open a car trunk.
Bottom line: the courts disagree with you. The Supreme Court disagrees 9-0. It isn’t close.
The Supreme Court makes lots of bad decisions. Roe. Kelo. Raich. This is another one.
So then, should these enablers of tyranny [the dogs] be preemptively killed? It would be an interesting, and ironic, twist if citizens started killing the police’s dogs.
That may depend on the court involved; NM, for example, considers the vehicle to be an extension of the domicile [home].
Well, what's this?
Bad Dog! Anger at Police Pooch named Bono who ALWAYS says there are Drugs in a Car
The same people your ilk claim never are truthful.
Bad Dog! Anger at Police Pooch named Bono who ALWAYS says there are Drugs in a Car
Too bad for the criminal and criminal apologists! the judge ruled that other factors, including the dog's training and flawless performance during re-certification sessions, were enough to overcome a challenge raised by Green's attorney.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2167170/Bad-dog-Anger-police-pooch-named-Bono-ALWAYS-says-drugs-car.html#ixzz2MFHM3MZG k
So do people who blatantly thumb their nose at the law. We have a process for overturning what some consider bad laws.
We also have something called the Constitution. Something SCOTUS has become quite fond of banging upon.
The very thing that gives power to the people to overturn what are considered bad laws.
Like Obamacare?
The Constitution is supposed to not allow bad laws. But too many people cheer on its demise as long as their pet agendas are being allowed.
The Constitution created the legislative branch of government. The legislative branch creates the laws. The people elect the legislators.
And the Constitution is supposed to limit their powers. It no longer does.
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