Well It Is a "White Powdery Substance"
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A whimsical reminder of the dangerous fallacy (held by, among others, the Supreme Court) that sniff dogs are infallible and only sniff for illegal substances:
We are on a very slippery slope in our dog sniff jurisprudence. Perhaps anecdotes like this will help the push for putting some "bite" back into the Fourth Amendment.
When police sniffer dogs couldn't trace drugs, the Australian state police force soon discovered the reason: the cocaine sample used to train them was talcum powder.Seriously though, the dog sniff, qua technology, is hardly foolproof and is subject not only to incompetence such as this, but also to deliberate misuse by police.
Seven dogs that had worked on drug searches over the past three months will need to be retrained, Victoria Police Assistant Commissioner Paul Evans said Friday.
"I'm sure our dogs have got very soft, nice smelling noses at the moment, but they are in fact trained in detecting talcum powder so that means that they will have to be retrained in detecting cocaine," he told reporters.
We are on a very slippery slope in our dog sniff jurisprudence. Perhaps anecdotes like this will help the push for putting some "bite" back into the Fourth Amendment.
All Related Posts (on one page) | Some Related Posts:
- A Sad Addition to the Dictionary
- Court Finds Unlimited Police Power to Plant GPS on Vehicles
- A Man's Home is His Castle......
- Florida "DUI Plates" Would Eliminate Probable Cause
- Well It Is a "White Powdery Substance"
- Dog Sniffs Growing Moldy...
- Supreme Court Upholds "Quick" Dog Sniff of Vehicle
- Maryland's Idiot Judges: Police Dogs "Part of the Family"
- Hair-Shaving and the Fourth Amendment
Posted by KipEsquire on
20 May 2005
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