But in my experience, most anything in the back of a truck the dog would be able to smell within reason. Their noses are just amazing.
I agree their noses are amazing. Nothing is more satisfying than watching my bird dog work. However, he points animals other than roosters too. FWIW, read this piece...
False alerts in the field[edit]
In
Harris, one of the major points raised by a number of the
amici curiae is that a dog's training or certification does not necessarily reflect that dog's reliability in the field. They point to what they say are "the most comprehensive data available on the rate of false alerts in real-world settings"
[4] – several years' of studies undertaken by an independent government agency in
Sydney,
Australia, under the Police Powers (Drug Detection Dogs) Act 2001.
[25][26] Police dogs went through an initial 6 weeks of training to detect cannabis, ecstasy, methamphetamine, cocaine and heroin, received additional training weekly, and were tested and re-certified every three months. The police dogs would randomly sniff individuals at train stations, licensed premises, on streets and sidewalks, at nightclub strips, shopping centers, concerts, and other public locations – the dog would sit next to a person if it alerted.
In the first 9 months of 2011, dogs alerted (and police searched) 14,102 times, and drugs were found only 2,854 times—a false alert rate of 80%. Those results, they say, are surprisingly consistent – in 2010, the false alert rate was 74%.[3] Further still, the study found that individual dog's performance varied wildly, with accuracy rates ranging from a high of 56% to a low of 7%, with two-thirds of the dogs performing below the average. The
New South Wales'
Ombudsman summarized his report by saying:
Despite the best efforts of police officers, the use of drug detection dogs has proven to be an ineffective tool for detecting drug dealers. Overwhelmingly, the use of drug detection dogs has led to public searches of individuals in which no drugs were found, or to the detection of (mostly young) adults in possession of very small amounts of cannabis for personal use. These findings have led us to question whether the Drug Dogs Act will ever provide a fair, efficacious and cost effective tool to target drug supply. Given this, we have recommended that the starting point, when considering this report, is to review whether the Drug Dogs Act should be retained at all."
[27]
Prosecutors, on the other hand, say that does not prove anything. They point to "residual odors", meaning that the individuals may have in fact been in contact with drugs earlier and the drugs were no longer present, or the drugs may have been extremely well-hidden. In a reply brief, P.J. Bondi, Attorney General of Florida, wrote:
When you enter the kitchen and smell popcorn, the fact that someone has already eaten all the popcorn and put the bag outside in the trash takes nothing away from the fact that you accurately smelled popcorn in the kitchen."
[28]
Decision[edit]
The United States Supreme Court returned a unanimous decision on February 19, 2013, ruling against Harris and overturning the ruling of the Florida Supreme Court.
[29] In the unanimous opinion, Justice Elena Kagan stated that the dog's certification and continued training are adequate indication of his reliability, and thus is sufficient to presume the dog's alert provides probable cause to search, using the "totality-of-the-circumstances" test per
Illinois v. Gates. She wrote that the Florida Supreme Court instead established "a strict evidentiary checklist", where "an alert cannot establish probable cause ... unless the State introduces comprehensive documentation of the dog's prior 'hits' and 'misses' in the field ... No matter how much other proof the State offers of the dog's reliability, the absent field performance records will preclude a finding of probable cause."
[30]
The Court did not, however, rule out the questioning of reliability where specific grounds are present.
[29] Kagan also stated that "a defendant must have an opportunity to challenge such evidence of a dog's reliability, whether by cross-examining the testifying officer or by introducing his own fact or expert witnesses. The defendant may contest training or testing standards as flawed, or too lax, or raise an issue regarding the particular alert."
[31]
