When the U.S. Supreme Court hears arguments in Harris v. Florida (Docket No. 11-817) this fall, it is likely to determine whether training and certification are sufficient to establish a drug dog’s reliability for a search of a vehicle. The Florida Supreme Court determined that the prosecution had to produce the dog’s field records and had the burden of establishing probable cause. In a recent California case, the tracking and alert of an uncertified tracking dog that would probably not have met the reliability standard required of...
Monday, April 30, 2012
Monday, April 23, 2012
Scent ID Dogs Found More Accurate in Scent Lineups of Women than of Men
Research in which I participated appears in the May 2012 issue of the Journal of Forensic Sciences. The lead researcher was Tadeusz Jezierski of the Polish Academy of Sciences, Department of Animal Behavior, who is a co-author of two chapters in Police and Military Dogs which deal with scent identification and scent lineups. I am constrained by contract from covering this development at the level I probably would had I not been a co-author, but a brief reference is appropriate. The research concluded that dogs in controlled trials more accurately...
Thursday, April 19, 2012
Bed Bug Beagle Dispute Lands in Federal Court
Dixie is a beagle trained to detect bed bugs. Dixie is owned by Western Industries-North, LLP, which provides pest detection and removal services in the mid-Atlantic region. Western got into the canine bed bug detection business in 2009 by acquiring Dixie, who was purchased from trainers in Florida for $10,400. After getting Dixie, Western expanded its bed bug business by buying new dogs and hiring new handlers. by January 2012, Western owned four scent dogs and employed four handlers. Lessard Hired as Handler A month after acquiring...
Sunday, April 8, 2012
Base Commanders Begin Implementing Restrictive Army Policy on Service Animals
The U.S. Army policy on service animals, which I described in a prior blog as a poorly considered adaptation of the VA’s poorly considered, though somewhat harmless, service animal policy, is now rippling down the command and across military bases in the United States. I have been able to review the policies of Fort Campbell and Fort Bliss. Fort CampbellOn February 21, the Commanding Officer of Fort Campbell, Kentucky, issued a memorandum...
Monday, April 2, 2012
Training Cadaver Dogs on Pig Remains May Lead to Evidentiary Challenges
Perhaps the most important research being conducted on cadaver dogs is that of Mary Cablk of the Desert Research Institute in Reno and her colleagues at the University of Nevada-Reno. In June 2011, we discussed an important study in which she tested the ability of dogs to find teeth in a natural environment. In a paper appearing in Forensic Science International, Dr. Cablk, Erin Szelagowski, and John Sagabiel analyzed the volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in the headspace above partially decomposed animal tissue samples and compared...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
