This recent post by Professor Orin Kerr reports on an emerging split of authority on what the state needs to show about the training and experience of a drug-sniffing dog before a dog’s alert will provide probable cause – to search a car, for example, or to support the issuance of a search warrant for a briefcase. Professor Kerr first cites United States v. Ludwig, __ F.3d __, 2011 WL 1533520 (10th Cir. Apr. 22, 2011), which says that it is not necessary to “mount a full-scale statistical inquisition into each dog’s history.” Rather “courts typically rely on the dog’s certification as proof of its reliability,” at least as long as the certifying authority is not a sham. He then cites Harris v. State, __ So. 3d __, 2011 WL 1496470 (Fla. Apr. 21, 2011), which holds that “evidence that the dog has been trained and certified to detect narcotics, standing alone, is not sufficient to establish the dog‘s reliability for purposes of determining probable cause— especially since training and certification in this state are not standardized and thus each training and certification program may differ with no meaningful way to assess them.” Therefore, according to the Harris court, the state must present “the training and certification records, an explanation of the meaning of the particular training and certification of that dog, field performance records, and evidence concerning the experience and training of the officer handling the dog, as well as any other objective evidence known to the officer about the [...]
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