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Justices Backs Off From Panhandle Drug Sniffing Dog Case
October 6, 2013
After being reversed by the U.S. Supreme Court, the Florida Supreme Court on Thursday backed away from a decision that would have suppressed evidence because of questions about the reliability of a drug-sniffing dog.
The case involved a traffic stop of Clayton Harris in Blountstown.
Aldo, the drug-sniffing dog, alerted on Harris’ door handle, and a police officer said that alert was the primary reason he had probable cause to search the vehicle. The officer found ingredients to cook methamphetamine, which Harris later admitted making at his house.
The Florida Supreme Court initially ruled the evidence should be suppressed and held that “the fact that a drug-detection dog has been trained and certified to detect narcotics, standing alone, is not sufficient to demonstrate the reliability of the dog.”
But the U.S. Supreme Court in February unanimously overturned that ruling, finding the Florida justices had applied guidelines that were too strict in determining the reliability of drug-sniffing dogs.
Florida justices went along Thursday, and Harris’ case was tossed back to a lower court.
by The News Service of Florida
Comments
9 Responses to “Justices Backs Off From Panhandle Drug Sniffing Dog Case”
Dogs are a great tool. BUT having handled dogs in the military, they can and in fact do at times make mistakes. All the training you can give does not guarantee their accuracy! An attack dog in some circumstances has bitten their handler, or a Bystander near the action. Drug and Bomb sniffers in the Military have given false alerts for various reasons unknown and known. A handler can be so close ta a dog (Companion wise) that the dog will pick up what it believes it supposed to do form the simplest of things, even tone of a voice. I have even seen dogs behave just because they know that is their job and they want the reward for doing it good… My attack dog would react to even the lifting of my eyebrows once he was put on alert… That was not the trained behavior, it was the dogs behavior based on working with me. So! bottom line is that there are to many variable’s in dogs to make the statement “they work great all the time and , They don’t mess up” A lot of times the handler senses what the Dog does not and can silently alert the dog to become active, when it would not have normally! the opposite is also true, the dog senses before we do most of the time! Bottom line is the Dog is only a tool and what and how we use the tool is by far of more importance than anything else.
NOW for me Dogs are in the wrong place on the rad sniffing cars,,, Why? well because you as a person could have shook hands with a person that had drugs in their hands. Now you are becoming involved in a possible crime where you should not have. Invasion of privacy, and at risk for a possible charge that should not have been. Add a bad cop with a throw down bag of white stuff and you are now in the legal system and may not get out of it!!!!!!
Grouchy,
Just because something CAN be done does not automatically mean it HAS been done.
David for good dogs
would it be out of the realm of possibilty that an admitted meth cooker had also smoked some pot recently- got the smoke on his body, hair, clothes- had the same clothes on and hadnt bathed- (just not the pot on him or in car) and thats what the dog alerted on?…sounds quite possible to me…wish dogs could talk.
The dogs alert just provided probable cause for the search. The fact that he had the chemicals and admitted to cooking it is what got him locked up, as well he should be. Mnon what are you cooking?
A drug dog can be trained to alert anytime, anywhere just by a subtle command from it handler. I am not saying this is the case here but it is a simple fact.
I do not get it, does not the U.S. Supreme court supercede the Florida Supreme Court?
Therefore their “going along” with the USSC ruling was pointless?
The dog alerted on the door handle. That could be for meth on the individuals hands transferred to the handle, not the precursors. If the dog had alerted on the trunk (again possibility of transfer) or other location of the precursors that could indicate unreliability.
@Jane, the dogs are trained to sniff out drugs… not household chemicals… This would be like the drug dog hitting on your car at a road stop because you have AJax in your trunk and then being hauled downtown and interrogated until you say you had nefarious purposes with the AJax.
Having household chemicals is not a crime and drug sniffing dogs should not even hit on that because its not in a narcotic state.
The dog is obviously reliable since the meth ingredients were found!