Junette Reyes/ Staff Writer
Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences Kenneth G. Furton’s research with Scientific Working Group on Dog and Orthogonal Detector Guidelines was cited by the United States Supreme Court in the case of Florida v. Harris on Feb. 19, 2013.
“I have actually been doing research now for about almost 20 years on the chemicals that dogs use to locate forensic specimens, including drugs,” said Furton.
Furton’s work with SWGDOG deals with guidelines for the proper training, maintenance and certification of detector dogs.
The general guidelines for all canine disciplines cover the initial training of the dog, canine team assessments, canine team certification, maintenance training, and the keeping and management of records and documents.
The work cited by the U.S. Supreme Court suggested that a dog’s reliability should be determined and based on certification and proficiency assessments but in controlled testing environments. It also suggested that it would be easier to differentiate “false positives” from a positive dog alert, unlike in the field.
The dog’s reliability is established by the results of certification, given that the dog achieved a 90% positive alert rate, and the results of proficiency assessments, such as the canine team assessments in which the way a search is conducted by the dog and handler is evaluated.
The U.S. Supreme Court cited the research in the context of Florida v. Harris, stating that a dog’s certification and proficiency assessment should be the basis of its reliability, in turn satisfactorily providing probable cause for a search if its reliability has been properly established.
“Most of the time, when you’re doing scientific research, you don’t get to see a practical application of it until it’s not even in your lifetime,” said Furton.
“It’s very satisfying to know that the many years of hard work of my students, colleagues and I have paid off in terms of supporting the reliability of dogs in an investigation.”
In the case of Florida v. Harris, Clayton Harris was pulled over by K-9 Officer William Wheetley on June 24, 2006 for having a suspended license plate.
After observing that Harris was “visibly nervous” and shaken, Wheetley proceeded with a “free air sniff” search with a German shepherd by the name of Aldo. Harris had previously refused to consent to a search of his truck, which led Wheetley to walk around the truck with Aldo.
Aldo had been trained to detect narcotics such as methamphetamine, cocaine, ecstasy, heroin and marijuana. Aldo eventually signaled by the driver’s side for the presence of drugs, which Wheetley took as probable cause for searching Harris’ truck.
“They found indications of materials that would be used to make methamphetamine but they did not actually find methamphetamine,” said Furton.
The materials found, as indicated by Associate Justice Elena Kagan of the U.S. Supreme Court through the Opinion of the Court, were “…200 loose pseudoephedrine pills, 8,000 matches, a bottle of hydrochloric acid, two containers of antifreeze, and a coffee filter full of iodine crystals.”
Harris was arrested and charged for possessing pseudoephedrine pills used to create methamphetamine.
Harris’ motion to suppress the evidence found in his truck was denied by the trial court, concluding that Wheetley had probable cause to conduct the search.
The case was then presented to the Florida Supreme Court, who reversed the trial court’s ruling.
The Court’s general consensus was that neither the training nor certification of the dog is adequate in establishing reliability as well as probable cause for the search of a vehicle.
The case then went to the U.S. Supreme Court, who granted certiorari; in other words, review of the case.
“The Court actually unanimously reversed the ruling of the Florida Supreme Court in that a dog alert is sufficient to provide probable cause for the police to search the vehicle,” said Furton.
“The Supreme Court, in their unanimous decision, basically upheld the use of dogs as a tool for finding narcotic odors, and in this case, actually using them for searching a vehicle.”
junette.reyes@fiusm.com
