Supreme Court Hearing Case On Drug-Sniffing Dog "Fishing Expeditions" 451
sgunhouse writes "Wired is running an article on a Supreme Court challenge (well, actually two of them) to the use of drug-sniffing dogs. The first case discussed involved Florida police using a drug-sniffing dog as a basis for searching a suspected drug dealer's home. The court in Florida excluded the evidence obtained from the search, saying a warrant should be required for that sort of use of a dog. Personally, I agree — police have no right to parade a dog around on private property on a 'fishing expedition', same as they need a warrant to use a thermal imaging device to search for grow houses. I have no use for recreational drugs, but they had better have a warrant if they want to bring a dog onto my property."
Re:Did the cop got fired? (Score:4, Informative)
The Supreme Court on Wednesday is set to hold oral arguments concerning the novel question of whether judges may issue search warrants for private residences when a drug-sniffing dog outside the home reacts as if it smells drugs inside.
Re:Better have a a warrent or what? (Score:2, Informative)
Police in mainland Britain do not carry firearms by default. The police do have access to lethal weaponry, but it's only carried in airports or in response to reports of armed crime.
Wikipedia has a list of people killed by police in the UK. If you discount the ones that happened in Northern Ireland during The Troubles, it has a grand total of 15 people killed by police since 1920.
I do not feel scared by that number.
Re:Did the cop got fired? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:police should be reactive (Score:3, Informative)
The organized crime will do far more damage then any pot smoker anyway.
If the criminals are organized enough we call it a Government. Considering the average Politician's behavior, your statement is still correct.
Re:Did the cop got fired? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:As good as lie detectors? (Score:5, Informative)
A similar test often used is when a luggage band at an airport, where the dog must mark the specific bags containing explosives or narcotics. So the dogs and handlers certainly have to prove that they are able both to identify the substance and and that they know when it's not there.
That's all well and good in a training situation, but in the real world dogs learn how to please their handlers. Dogs are smart enough to fake a tell when their master really wants a search. We can see that this is true, because drug dog accuracy varies as a function of the suspect's race [chicagotribune.com].
So take your "ignorant" comment and shove it up your ass, bootlicker. In actual practice, a K9 unit is a blank warrant to search anyone.
Re:USA Land of Crime (Score:4, Informative)
Actually a trial can easily collapse if evidence was not properly obtained in the UK as well. Most countries do not allow illegally obtained evidence to be used in trials because it would encourage people to illegally obtain evidence.
Re:USA Land of Crime (Score:5, Informative)
In the USA, the rights of the individual are protected unlike anywhere else in the world. Your attitude indicates you have never lived under a free system, because if you had, your own opinion would be repugnant to you.
And yet, the US imprisons more people than any other country in the world. That holds if you measure per capita, or even count the total. The US as a land of freedom and opportunity is a complete and utter myth today, if it was ever true.
I would rather see 100 guilty men go free than see one innocent person convicted, and that is precisely the way our system is designed - to place the importance of preserving an innocent man's freedom above the importance of taking away a guilty man's freedom.
Except that well over 90% of people charged with federal crimes ever see a trial. Is it because they are just that accurate? No, it's because they punish people for exercising their right to a trial, by cutting them breaks if they forfeit that right.
Face it, the US is an authoritarian hell hole with very little to recommend it above other authoritarian hell holes. The idea that the US is exceptional in any way when it somes to freedom, liberty, justice, the voice of the people, is all baseless jingoistic nonsense.
Re:USA Land of Crime (Score:4, Informative)
There have been a number of cases over the years where U.S. cops were caught planting narcotics and arresting innocent people--usually non-natives who speak little or no English. I think it's fairly safe to assume that not every such occurrence was discovered and aired on the media, so who knows whether this is a rare anomaly or if it's pervasive? Our culture tends to assume people in prison are guilty and we're unlikely to ever hear from or about "those monsters" again--well unless someone is exonerated after serving 20 years of a life sentence for a crime they didn't commit.
Our present legal system does not favor the acquittal of 100 guilty over the conviction of one innocent. It's a lofty and noble idea, but it is pure fiction. Unless you are essentially indigent or are charged with a capital crime, you most likely are going to have to pay for your own legal counsel. So say you are charged with possession, with intent to distribute, narcotics. Whether you're guilty or not, once you've taken out a 2nd or 3rd mortgage to post bond; you'll have to retain an attorney who will be racking up the billable hours long before you ever get your day in court. There'll be the discovery process and pretrial hearings. If you still have a dime to your name after that, then will be the jury selection process which will add the cost of those jury consultants to your tab. Then you get to trial and you add the cost of all those expert witnesses on your behalf to your tab. Hopefully this results in your acquittal, in which case you hopefully still have a job after all that time off trying to clear your name. You still have that arrest record though, probably going to have a few more billable hours trying to get that expunged. Or were you convicted? Well you can appeal, but you no longer have the "presumption of innocence". and thus you can't simply have the case retried, rather you can argue that the evidence and/or testimony presented wasn't valid; so good luck with that one!
Now that you see it may cost a few hundred thousand or more to try to clear your name without guarantee of success, your attorney will suggest accepting a plea bargain--simple possession perhaps? You can serve 4-6 months in minimum security prison, drug rehab program, 3 years probation, and then you can try to rebuild your life again trying to land a job, flat broke, but hopefully not too deeply in debt, with the drug conviction on your record. This is how over 2/3rd of indictments are settled! Innocent or guilty, doesn't matter. This is the legal system we have today, and the only real hope of keeping your livelihood intact with minimal damage is to have a huge bankroll to work with--something that's probably easier to do if you actually happen to be a drug kingpin.
So the perverse reality is: one guilty person walks for every 100 innocent/guilty who go to jail.
Re:Did the cop got fired? (Score:4, Informative)
If you aren't doing anything illegal, you have EVERYTHING to worry about!
Cops don't 'interview' legal people. Just ask them!
When you are in the presence of an officer, you are the only person in that situation that has any liability. The BEST case scenario is that nothing happens. Everything else will cost you. Inconvenience at a minimum. Torture at the worst. And death somewhere in between.
To be in the presence of someone who has no liability, who immediately demands that you be responsible for their emotional state by lethal force, is one of the most dangerous situations you could be in. Especially if you are legal.
DO NOT TALK TO COPS!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wXkI4t7nuc [youtube.com]
B-(
Re:Did the cop got fired? (Score:4, Informative)
"You mean the "Clever Hans" effect where the handler provides the cues instead of the smell? It's a know issue, both handlers and dogs are trained to try and avoid it."
No, they are usually not, and even when they are, they are still notoriously, and ridiculously, unreliable [ucdavis.edu].
Study after study [smh.com.au] and analysis after analysis [chicagotribune.com] prove you wrong.
Drug-sniffing dogs are TERRIBLE at their jobs. In the Chicago review of actual police statistics, the average reliability of drug-sniffing dogs was only 44% true positives (vastly too small a number to qualify as probable cause), and in the case of one minority (can you say "Handler bias?" Sure, I knew you could) it was only 27%. That's not theory, those are actual historical figures.
Unless some vastly better method of training comes up, drug-sniffing dogs need to be taken out of the picture. They are responsible for a huge amount of injustice in this country.