Dog's bad nose prompts judge to toss drug case

[SomeGuy]

Very interesting story!!!! Seems the dogs cannot distinguish between drugs and places where drugs USED to be....

Florida Herald Tribune

MANATEE COUNTY — Another circuit judge threw out evidence in a drug possession case, ruling that a narcotics-sniffing dog’s nose was not reliable enough to justify searching a vehicle.

Matthew McNeal is the second Manatee County defendant to escape drug possession charges this year because Talon, a now-retired K-9 from the Palmetto Police Department, alerted to the odor of drugs in a car and officers used that to search it.

Defense attorneys have shown Talon alerted that there were drugs in almost every vehicle he checked, yet officers found drugs fewer than half the time.

That track record means Talon’s nose was not accurate enough to justify a search McNeal’s car, Circuit Judge Diana Moreland wrote in a ruling issued Nov. 12.

Prosecutors have no case without being able to show a jury the oxycodone and methadone that officers say they eventually found in McNeal’s glove compartment. They are appealing Moreland’s ruling.

McNeal’s attorney, Gregory Hagopian of Bradenton, said Talon is not trained to tell the difference between the actual odor of marijuana and the residual odor, which could hang around for months.

“You can’t be searching people for something that was in there four months ago,” Hagopian said. “This dog is going to hit on almost every car and every citizen could be yanked out of their car and have it searched.”

The sniffing abilities of dogs like Talon are becoming the focus of drug cases in Sarasota and Manatee counties. Defense attorneys say the dogs are not accurate enough at finding drug caches to justify police searches.

Challenging those searches is the best way to beat a drug possession or drug trafficking charge. If defense attorneys can show a dog has a spotty track record, they can have the evidence against their clients thrown out of court.

For more on this story read Thursday's Herald-Tribune.

 

[yamaha_1fan]

WOW. Something tells me it wouldnt only be this dog, that it would be all dogs. I wonder how many dogs would fail a test where you put some weed in a paper bag for 3 days, then took the empty bag in a car. I bet the dog would hit on the bag.


I never thought of this.

 

[ItsGrowTime]

Most people that get searched by dogs are just happy to get away so yeah that is a good angle. Could the PDs just respond by not keeping search records though? "That information is not available, Your Honor."

 

[inflorescence]

Well, TOOLS like breathalyzers must be calibrated and their records of calibration PRESUMABLY recorded so I like the fact that defense attorneys are finally holding dogs (tools) accountable.

They may be a living tool, as opposed to a machanical one but their records should be kept and available.

 

[hamstring]

I believe that the dogs would hit on a paper bag that held drugs at one time I have seen on TV where the dog finds one or two seeds in the vehicle.

I believe that most of the drug dogs would fail the paper bag test and that their service record does not reflect this because I am sure most of the times a dog smells drugs they are in the car because 9/10 times they probably are.

I would love to see this paper bag test pushed because this would force the police to stop using a positive hit from a dog as a legal reason to search a car. They would be relegated to first find another viable reason to search a car and then use the dog only to find any illegal substance.

 

[inflorescence]

They would be relegated to first find another viable reason to search a car and then use the dog only to find any illegal substance.

That's a great way of putting it.
Basically they are using the dog as PC (probable cause) but apprantly a dogs hit doesn't really equate to "probable".
I'd be interested in hearing how it ever did come about that a dog "hit" was just "assumed" probable when all it's really based on is dogs have better smell than humans and have had some training. I wouldn't call that "probable". I'd just call that 'reasonable suspicion" and a search should still always be held to probable, not reasonable.

 

[firsttimegrower]

hey guys i live within 10 miles of a major metro area and a city of 30k just got a drug dog about a year ago well the cops in this city think theyre big time. real tough guys you know your typical 5ft6in 150lb man with a crew cut. well anyways they made a bust by some guy selling heroin to undercovers in the city but instead of arresting the guy they let him drive into a school zone before pulling him over... well long story short they pulled out the police dog for (practice) and he hits well big surprise the cops search and find nothing! this was in the local paper sounds like these dogs may be pretty unreliable across the board...

 

[Classyathome]

hey guys i live within 10 miles of a major metro area and a city of 30k just got a drug dog about a year ago well the cops in this city think theyre big time. real tough guys you know your typical 5ft6in 150lb man with a crew cut. well anyways they made a bust by some guy selling heroin to undercovers in the city but instead of arresting the guy they let him drive into a school zone before pulling him over... well long story short they pulled out the police dog for (practice) and he hits well big surprise the cops search and find nothing! this was in the local paper sounds like these dogs may be pretty unreliable across the board...

Beautiful - I love it when leo reveal themselves to be incompetent dicks.

 

[MedResearcher]

I remember watching a Cop grab and shake his Canine dog until it started to bark.... so they then proceeded to rip the car apart because the dog hit/barked..... the car had nothing in it to.

Another time I got pulled over, I had a tiny amount of herb in my pocket, less then a gram, but it was some super smelly purple so the entire car reeked. The cop pulled me out of the vehicle, sat me on the curb, had to wait for the K9 unit to show up... it showed up and they searched the shit out of my car with the dog..... didnt find anything, because the only herb was in my pocket which they never checked and the dog never barked at me not once. Put me back in the car and I drove away and smoked the herb.

Point of my stories, those dogs are complete BS, I am glad and I hope soon they will not be able to use them at all.

MR^^

 

[Deft]

If you DL and watch the Barry cooper vids (guy sketches me out but info is info) he goes into detail about how they are trained and how you can make them hit on absolutly anything by egging them on.

 

[SomeGuy]

If you DL and watch the Barry cooper vids (guy sketches me out but info is info) he goes into detail about how they are trained and how you can make them hit on absolutly anything by egging them on.

I really hope more defense lawyers see this case and start questioning their own cases. Yes, a dogs nose is sensitive but it's brain is limited and it does what its trained to do, simply to be rewarded.

I live in a relatively small town (less than 10k) and we have TWO drug dogs?!?!? The crime rate is nothing compared to other cities, yet we have two dogs with the specific purpose of riding around with cops violating peoples rights.
Oh, the reason we have a pair of them? The feds were handing out cash to buy them so why not!!!!

It'd be hilarious to catch the off duty cars in a lot sometime and soak them with liquefied trim so the mutts hit on the very cars they will be riding in.

 

[ItsGrowTime]

One has to understand how police dogs are trained to understand how unreliable they can be and why they behave like they do and how cops can make them false alert. In short, the dogs aren't trained to find drugs (or bombs, etc). They are instead trained to find their favorite toy (usually a ball) that has been scented like various drugs since they were pups. So in reality, the dog thinks its "favorite toy" is in your car, not pot or coke or whatever. The cop can then get them to false alert by using sounds that the cop also makes when he is playing with the dog and the favorite toy. Pavlov's dog experiment but with real life consequences. You can do the same thing with your own dog. We all have things we say (or more importantly, how we say them) to our dogs that they automatically react to, especially play time or going for a walk, things they enjoy. Cops do the same things with their dogs and can use them to make them false alert. In the end, if the cop is playing by the book, it's only the scent of the "toy" that makes the dog react, not the physical presence of that "toy". When you remove the toy the scent is still there for a period of time. This is why the dogs false alert even if no drugs are present.

I really hope this gets pursued further in court. Starting a precendent that a simple dog alert is not reasonable suspicion would have a huge impact. But there's no way a district attorney would appeal the dismissal because it would then give the appeals court a chance to uphold the ruling, thus creating binding case law. That's too big of a risk for the state because then EVERY case past and present that relied on a dog alert for a search would then be thrown out and a lot of people released from prison.