While I won't go into the individual liberty and freedom aspects here, long term, decisions like this are bad for the image of the GSD in the eyes of the public. Atleast here in America, when people see GSD's they usually have a warm fuzzy feeling about them, call it the rin-tin-tin effect if you will. Eventually, as the breed gets more exposed to the general public in a police state manner, I think the public will start to see GSD's in a different light.

Thomas,
I usually agree with you, and you put a lot of thought into your posts, but I'm going to disagree with you here.
This is a *WORKING* dog forum. Notice that everyone who has commented in this thread is a LEO ( law enforcement officer ). Would you rather that LEO deployment of K9's would be discussed on a closed forum? That to me would smack of much more of "a police state manner" than an exchange with well thought out replies out in the open for the public to see them.

Back to discussing dogs, ok? <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

And sorry, that vast majority of poster's here don't really care about the public's view of the GSD, or any other breed for that matter. Most of us just want to have our dogs judged on their merits, versus the breed that they belong to. Breed specific legislation is a lot more of the path towards a police state versus the removal of drugs and felons from the street.

Will,
Let me reword my concerns, in a way that might make it a bit clearer.
Kevin pointed out a good reason why a K-9 should not sniff without some articuable suspicion, what I am trying to do is point out another.

I have yet to hear of a K9 unit in this country that was not concerned about its image with the public. In a lot of ways that does make policemen good-will ambassadors for the GSD, and that is good for the breed. Now some may argue that it may not make a whit of difference what the public thinks about working dogs, but in this case (at least in a free society) the public IS the end consumer/customer of police services and the traffic stop is probably the number one way the police officer will interact with that customer. If you make your customer UNJUSTLY unhappy don't expect his tax funds or community support to come your way. Just imagine if one of our founding fathers were taken aside from their travels and searched, or 'sniffed', simply to satisfy the curiosity of law enforcement. When departments start doing that to the general public, without first establishing "articuable supsicion", I think it becomes obvious why that would be a bad thing for the breed and those who train working dogs. But don’t con your self in to thinking that working dogs, the breeders, and/or trainers are immune to public opinion, it may have flown in the DDR, but the USA is currently still a much different place.

As stated, I was cautiously optomistic. I'm glad to see my cautious optomism was reinforced. As a pipeline/convoy instructor, we've always taught, the stop must be valid and the stop can be no longer than the purpose for which it was made, absent additional suspicion. This decision did not change anything. I think had Judge Rhenquist been on the panel the vote would have been 7 -2. What in the world was Souter and Ginsberg thinking in thier diatribe aboutprobably ok for explosives but not for drugs. Geez, I think they've been in thier little protected cocoon for too long and have forgotten a real world exists. But that, personally I feel it is that way with much of acedemia.

Reviewing the original post in this thread and the subsequent responses, I'm really curious as to why Mr Mincher is concerned about the GSD and any damage law enforcement can have on thier reputation. We burnt that bridge in the 60's for crying out loud, and have worked extraordiarily hard over the past few decades to rectify that preception.

Mr Beyer, I don't know how I missed your (much) earlier post relative the length of a stop in Tennessee, but it is now, and has been for the many years I've taught criminal interdiction, the length of the stop is in direct proportion to the articulable suspicion an officer has. Sorry I missed it earlier. As stated in the opinion rendered by the court, the use of the dog is consistent with a stop as long as it is not the sole consequence of prolonging the stop.

Score one for our side, follow the rules, and there won't be a problem. As we do often, those officers that don't follow the rules will, eventually make it tougher on all of us in the enforcement business.

Since I'm not part of the mutual admiration society in this forum, there is a risk of this thread being closed, now that I've commented. Be that as it may, it was a good thread.

DFrost

David,
I too am very glad this decision went our way. i wasn't as optomistic as you. Becoming too much of a pessimist I guess.
Ginsberg's ansd Souter's opinion??? I could have gone for al or none I guess but dependent on what your looking for?? Illicit narcotics I dare say have ruined more lives, killed more people than any terrorist bombing ever has by magnitudes.
I still preach the get articulable suspicion in the courses I teach. It is still the safest approach to a stop and the argument that it was unnecessarily prolongued. But, boy is it nice to a buffer there.

What will be interesting is the unintended consequences of this decision. I can already picture the DUI, ID, registration and dog sniffing traffic check points that will come out of this ruling. It will be interesting to see how the dogs measure up and what the lawyers do with that info.

If you only send a dog out to “sniff” when you have a reasonable suspicion; then the dog’s false positive rate should be skewed to the low side (assuming of that the officer has good gut instincts). A better measure of the dog is the wholesale testing/sniffing of innocent citizens at check points. It certainly gives the dog a MUCH greater opportunity to be wrong than when the officers own intuition stacks the deck in the dog's favor. If the patrol officers are keeping accurate records of the dog’s false positive rates, they may discover that statistically their dog’s noses are no longer competent enough to meet the level of probable cause. Its probably not the type of thing that is going to keep the run of the mill low life out of jail, but any bigger fish are going to have the lawyers all over that possibility. But who knows, maybe SCOTUS will completely eliminate the need for probable cause at some future date.

Originally posted by Thomas Mincher:
If you only send a dog out to “sniff” when you have a reasonable suspicion; then the dog’s false positive rate should be skewed to the low side (assuming of that the officer has good gut instincts). A better measure of the dog is the wholesale testing/sniffing of innocent citizens at check points. It certainly gives the dog a MUCH greater opportunity to be wrong than when the officers own intuition stacks the deck in the dog's favor. If the patrol officers are keeping accurate records of the dog’s false positive rates, they may discover that statistically their dog’s noses are no longer competent enough to meet the level of probable cause. I would disagree with you. As a Military Working Dog handler, we do exactly what you mention; we search vehicles coming on to the installation as part of security without probable cause. I have never had a false postive on a traffic stop but I have had two instances where I could not produce drugs after a dog response during installation entry point checks. As a kennel master, responsible for supervising other teams, my observations are the same.

Kevin, I'm right there with ya. I originally read David's post after I posted about the supes taking the case; I immediately wondered if he had read the same transcript I had. While I commend him on his optimism, I really, really thought that the IL attorney general blew it. She didn't stick to the plan or the issues as I saw them. Some of that is monday-morning QB talk, I know.

With all due respect to Ms. Madigan, she's less than 6 years out of law school, never been a trial lawyer, never argued cases in appellate forums, and didn't have the "true believer" sense about the case that others of us who had worked on that case, and its companion case People v. Cox, had felt about it from the get-go. Having said that, I'll also say she did pretty darn good for a rookie. Most folks have absolutely no appreciation for how tough a crowd the S. Ct. really is.

Mr. Mincher, in order to placate your concerns, I will tell you that there was extensive discussion as to whether there would be pushback if officers were permitted to walk K9's without RS. After all, that which is permissible is not always prudent. But it really comes down to two things: 1) the job of the AG is to enforce the law, and 2) to argue ethically and responsibly in pursuit of that aim. The bare fact of it is that our position was directly in keeping with case precedents in the federal courts, and in the vast majority of states. The case was argued in an effort to prohibit dealers from keeping a good tool at arm's length.

As for your concerns regarding checkpoints: you are mistaken in law and fact. There are several other cases which have already decided that a LEO can set up a checkpoint for DUI; can set up a checkpoint to catch fugutives; can set up a checkpoint to screen for witnesses or suspects in a crime; and at any of these, the use of a K9 was already permitted. This current case won't change that in any way.

Finally, I'll note that other LEO's on this thread have also stated that, even if no RS standard is imposed, they are ticking off that list of articulable facts anyway, because they'll be factors that indicate a strong case when he's on the stand. I don't see any responsible handlers out there just sweeping any ol' stop because they got a burr under their saddle. Kevin and others who teach in the same vein are doing exactly the right thing; now they just have a little more breathing room.

Hokey pete; I gotta do something about the length of my posts. This is getting ridiculous...

LT Peddan, Excellant post. Allow me to clarify one thing however. I've never stated that it is our policy to conduct a sniff of a vehicle absent any articulable suspicion. I did in fact say, the duration of a traffic stop is in direct proportion to the amount of articuable suspicion an officer has. This opinion merely confirms the objectives taught in pipeline/convoy and every other criminal interdiction class I've taught or attended. As for the use of a dog on DUI/License checkpoints etc, it is our policy the dog is not used absent reasonable suspicion. That policy is loosly based on decisions by the 6th Circuit. They are very wary of checkpoints being used as a ruse, therefore we take the cautious approach in that venue. This opinion did however give, perhaps not a bright line, but at least some guidelines in the use of a dog concurrent with a stop absent any suspicion. Having said that, they were very clear about not prolonging the stop, merely to run the dog.

Mr Mincher, I don't think you have a full understanding of how a dog is trained or utilitzed. A properly trained dog's "false positive" rate will not be affected regardless of the number of opportunities the dog has. We keep extensive records, every response is documented. The results of that response are documented. The proficiency of an individual dog is computed and stated in a percentage based on the number of responses vs. "finds". Properly trained, a conditioned response in contingent on one thing; the stimulus the dog was conditioned to attend to. If there is a training problem fix it. If there is a handler problem fix it. But just to say the dog will have a higher percentage of "false positives" because he is used more is without basis.

DFrost