Re:Should a dog's sniff be enough to convict a person for mu...
by AlbertCory on Saturday October 30, 2021 @01:20PM
(#29050477)
After reading all the comments (a dirty job, but someone has to do it), I reach this conclusion, which doesn't require any massive changes to our justice system:
The constitutional right to "confront" a witness against you should be interpreted as the right to run your own unbiased tests on any dog whose results are used. This would mean a neutral handler whom the dog doesn't know conducts double-blind tests on the dog. If the dog is found to be unreliable by the judge, then the evidence is discarded, the same as if a warrantless search had been conducted.
The constitutional right to "confront" a witness against you should be interpreted as the right to run your own unbiased tests on any dog whose results are used. This would mean a neutral handler whom the dog doesn't know conducts double-blind tests on the dog. If the dog is found to be unreliable by the judge, then the evidence is discarded, the same as if a warrantless search had been conducted.