techdirt: Court To Cops: There’s No ‘Instinct Exception’ For Drug Dogs Handlers Refuse To Handle

techdirt: Court To Cops: There’s No ‘Instinct Exception’ For Drug Dogs Handlers Refuse To Handle by Tim Cushing (“Officers who handle drug dogs like to claim they’re so highly skilled at animal handling they can recognize otherwise imperceptible moves by their animals as the dog ‘alerting,’ giving them (and, more literally) their animals free rein to perform warrantless searches of vehicles. [¶] But when these arguments fail, and it’s apparent a K-9 cop just let their animal roam free, these same officers who pride themselves (at least when sworn in as witnesses) in controlling their animals claim these same animals can’t possibly be controlled. After all, the dogs operate on instinct, and who among us is capable of preventing an animal from acting on its urges?”) The case is here.