ID: Challenge to drug dog adequacy failed without expert testimony

Defendant’s challenge to the drug dog under Florida v. Harris was not sufficient to make the use of the dog violate the Fourth Amendment. He had no expert or other testimony, and he just relied on parts of the cross-examination of the officer that didn’t really question much of anything. State v. Buck, 2014 Ida. App. LEXIS 3 (January 10, 2014):

Here, Buck challenged the adequacy of the method used to train the drug dog, but failed to present any documentary or expert witness evidence indicating that the training method was actually flawed or inadequate. Instead, he relied entirely on the statements of the handling officer indicating that the positive reinforcement method used to train his dog may not be universally preferred. The officer testified that, for the entire six years that he had worked with his dog, he had used a training method of giving a reward as soon as the dog gave a hard alert, where the dog sits down and looks up adamantly, refusing to move until the alert is acknowledged with a reward. The officer admitted that there was a “big debate” over whether a dog should be rewarded when making a hard alert before or after drugs are found. He also testified during cross-examination that it had been suggested at a recent training that the latter was preferred to avoid the possibility of the dog alerting when no drugs are present solely to get a reward. However, at no point did the handling officer or anyone else testify that the training method was flawed, outdated, or otherwise inadequate.