SNIFF SEARCH

If Drug-sniffing Dogs Can Provide Probable Cause For
Police To Search Private Vehicles, They Should Be Properly Trained And
Their Skills Documented.

In an important ruling earlier this month, Florida's 2nd District
Court of Appeals said that police dogs used to sniff out illicit
narcotics must be properly trained and evaluated, with thorough
records kept, before their responses may be deemed reliable. According
to the court, the Sheriff's Office in Hillsborough County was not
doing enough to ensure that its drug-detecting dogs were conditioned
to "alert" to contraband alone, as opposed to some other trigger. The
ruling laid down a set of guidelines the department will have to
follow if it wants to use evidence obtained through the use of the
dogs.

The unanimous ruling by a three-judge panel would seem to be just a
matter of common sense, but it is sure to be appealed. The Sheriff's
Office, like nearly all other law enforcement agencies, uses
drug-detecting dogs as a way to circumvent the Constitution's warrant
requirement, and it apparently doesn't want this convenient tool
scrutinized too closely. But this is precisely the role the courts
should play. Rather than being appealed, the court's ruling should be
a model for the rest of the state.

In the field, drug-sniffing dogs are often used when a driver, pulled
over for a traffic infraction, refuses to give police consent for his
vehicle to be searched. The deputy or officer handling the dog will
direct it around the perimeter of the car. If the dog alerts to the
presence of narcotics, police are deemed to have probable cause and
may conduct a legal search of the car's interior.

Why should a driver pulled over for speeding be subject to this
intrusive process? If police have no cause to believe the driver is a
drug runner, why should dogs be used at all? In truth, they shouldn't
be, but the U.S. Supreme Court has said the use of drug-sniffing dogs
doesn't constitute a search under the Fourth Amendment, and that means
police may deploy them with relative impunity.

There is still a role for the courts, however, in ensuring that dogs
are the precision tools for finding drugs that law enforcement claims.

In the current case, a Hillsborough County Sheriff's drug-detecting
dog, Razor, was used in May 1999 to smell a car driven by Gary Alan
Matheson. He had been stopped for a traffic infraction. After the dog
alerted to the presence of drugs, the car was searched and illegal
drugs were found. The trial court refused to suppress the evidence,
and Matheson, who then pleaded guilty, was given probation.

In reversing the conviction, the state appeals court found that
Razor's alert was not reliable, due to the poor training and
record-keeping done by the Sheriff's Office. Among many deficiencies,
Razor's success and failure rate was not documented, the dog had not
been subject to controlled negative testing (where he searches and
there are no drugs present), and he had not been given training to
ignore residual smells of drugs. While the Customs Service puts its
drug-detecting dogs through a 12-week course, Razor's training lasted
only five weeks. The court found that this lack of rigor meant his
alert on Matheson's car was not reliable and could not justify a search.

Drug-sniffing dogs give police the power to invade our private
vehicles - bypassing the need to persuade a judge to issue a warrant.
This exception to the Constitution is based entirely on the
dependability of the dog's skills. All the court did was to require
those skills to be real and documented. That should not be too much to
ask.