Blanket Bans on Service Animals Disallowed for Psych Wards, Dialysis Units

It has been just over 22 years since the Department of Justice first issued regulations detailing the rights of persons with disabilities who use service animals, yet many issues continue to be addressed and resolved by regulators and courts.  Some of this is due to the fact that there are now a number of types of service animals, such as autism service dogs, that did not exist in 1991, and some is due to the fact that there may be conflicting...

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Conviction Overturned for Excessive Redaction of Training Records and Performance Reviews: Vehicle Sniffs in a Post-Harris-Jardines World

In an opinion issued early this month, Ninth Circuit Judge Diarmuid F. O’Scannlain said that the case required the court “to explore emerging parameters for the constitutional use of drug-detection dogs.”  What is emerging is how courts will be interpreting Harris and Jardines, the two Supreme Court cases concerning narcotics-detection dogs decided last spring.   The Ninth Circuit clearly wants law enforcement to understand that Harris does not mean that courts will be rubber stamping drug dog reliability by accepting mere assertions...

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89-Year-Old Man Dies from Wounds Inflicted by Police Dog with History of Attacking Bystanders

A police dog bite case that ultimately resulted in the death of an 89-year-old man who was attacked in his own back yard is a lesson in what can go wrong when a dog is let loose beyond control of its handler.  The liability of the police handler is not particularly surprising, but the liability of other officers present is a cautionary tale about how mistakes of a handler can lead to liability for officers who are supporting the handler, or perhaps just do not stop him when they should realize that his actions are putting citizens at risk....

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Sight and Scent Identifications Collapse Eleven Years after Conviction

Gilbert Aguilar was convicted of first degree murder in 2002 in Los Angeles Superior Court (B164237, B174532, 2004 WL 2051385). An appeal of the conviction failed.  In 2009, he filed a habeas corpus petition with the federal district court for the Central District of California, which was denied (CV 06-00554, 2009 WL 509127). Both cases were summarized in an earlier blog.  He appealed the district court’s denial of his habeas corpus petition,...

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