Drug-sniffing dogs are a law enforcement hoax, signaling drug alerts even when no drugs are present
By: J. D. Heyes
NaturalNews.com
Saturday, August 29, 2015
A recent ruling by the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals has brought into question the ability and effectiveness of so-called “drug-sniffing dogs” after judges found that one animal in Illinois was not at all competent in the task he was supposedly trained to do.
The Free Thought Project and the Chicago Tribune, reported that Lex, a police dog from central Illinois, was at the center of a lawsuit filed by a St. Louis man who is currently serving 20 years in prison for drug possession. Larry Bentley Jr. claimed that the 20 kilos of cocaine Bloomington police found in his car during a traffic stop in 2010 was derived from an illegal search that was triggered by Lex.
Even though the 7th Circuit upheld Bentley’s conviction, the larger question before the court was how much police should rely on their K9 partners to justify such searches when the animal’s competence is in question, as was the case with Lex.
In a 15-page opinion, the court disparaged Lex and noted that if police had relied solely on Lex’s questionable abilities, the suit might have been successful.
“Lex is lucky the Canine Training Institute doesn’t calculate class rank,” the opinion said. “If it did, Lex would have been at the bottom of his class.”
“Not much better than a coin flip”
The Rest…HERE
