S.D.Fla.: No dog alert shown on video

Defendant’s stop in front of his house on the curtilage was a valid stop. A dog sniff was based on reasonable suspicion but the court finds no valid alert. The search of the car came after an ambiguous statement from the dog handler, and the video shows no alert. United States v. Burgess, 2026 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 37539 (S.D. Fla. Feb. 13, 2026):

The constitutional problem arises from the lack of evidence to establish that the K-9 reliably alerted in a manner sufficient to create probable cause. As discussed above, a warrantless vehicle search based on a K-9 sniff is lawful only if the government proves that a trained dog gave a reliable alert. Here, the only testimony suggesting an alert came not from the K-9 handler, but from the searching officer, who testified that he overheard the handler say, “you’re good,” and interpreted that phrase to mean he could search the vehicle. The ambiguous statement, without more, is not a description of a trained final response, nor does it establish that the dog alerted.

While the Government provided the body-worn camera footage of the K-9 officer, a review of that footage depicts a brief sniff around Defendant’s car lasting less than thirty seconds preceded by the handler’s comment “let’s go find dope” and ending with the handler commenting “you’re good.” See Govt. Ex. 5 at 2:00-2:19. “You’re good” is ambiguous phrasing that could have several different meanings. For example, it could mean no drugs or weapons found, that the dog was good, or go ahead and search. The footage does not clearly show any objective alert behavior, other than the dog jumping up on the front and back windows, and the Government offered no testimony from the handler identifying this behavior to be the dog’s trained final response; whether such response was tied to drugs, firearms, or both; or otherwise confirming that a positive alert occurred. Under the totality of the circumstances, the Government has not met its burden to show that a reliable alert provided probable cause to search the vehicle. See Harris, 568 U.S. at 246-47. This case stands in contrast to others like it where the Government has introduced relevant evidence to demonstrate the reliability of a K-9 alert. See, e.g., United States v. Acevedo, 2024 WL 3694470, at *5 (S.D. Fla. June 28, 2024), report and recommendation adopted, 2024 WL 3424720 (S.D. Fla. July 16, 2024) (finding K-9 Loki’s alert for drugs reliably indicated the presence of drugs within a car and justified a warrantless search based on the testimony of K-9 officer and documents establishing Loki’s completion of law enforcement training and certification). Where video evidence fails to sufficiently demonstrate a positive alert and the only supporting testimony is an officer’s interpretation of an ambiguous phrase, the search cannot be justified.

Accordingly, although the K-9 sniff itself did not unlawfully prolong the stop, there was no proven alert and so the subsequent warrantless search of the vehicle was unsupported by probable cause. Any evidence recovered from the search of the car should thus be suppressed.