An incident in Mississippi provides a window into a dystopian future where USPS workers and local cops can block people from accessing reproductive care.
When I read the headline I thought about the audacity Mississippi had to spend money training dogs to sniff out abortion pills. Then I read the article:
“An employee there had reported seeing someone in the lobby putting pills into hot pink envelopes.”
…and…
"Steed, a K-9 handler, arrived with Rip, his narcotics sniffer dog. Rip strode around and, when he got to the pink envelope, sat down. According to records obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request, Steed said this meant the dog had smelled narcotics. "
So no, the police dog can’t sniff out abortion pills, instead a dirty cop either signaled his dog to the behavior, or the copy is straight lying about what the dog did.
If anything any defense attorneys must love this. If the police indicate a dog is signaling drugs where there weren’t any, then any searches authorized by that dog’s actions should be thrown out including any evidence found in a followup human search.
Unfortunately they can just say there might have been residual traces of narcotics leading to a positive alert. It doesn’t matter that it leads to the search/seizure of an innocent person.
So no, the police dog can’t sniff out abortion pills, instead a dirty cop either signaled his dog to the behavior, or the copy is straight lying about what the dog did.
You’re not wrong, but that reality didn’t stop a warrant from being issued or those envelopes from being opened
And justice being served eventually also doesn’t help the person get the care they need in a timely manner. Abortions are safer when done earlier in the pregnancy, and often there are more legal hoops that have to be jumped through later in the pregnancy if they’re not barred altogether. A court case settled a year or more later doesn’t do much to help a woman who needs care now whether it’s for immediate physical safety or to prevent her body from being used for life support for another person without her consent.
My point of positivity was for any defendants that are currently serving time or holding a criminal record for any narcotics charges attached from that police dog’s (and his handler) prior actions.
You’re not wrong, but that reality didn’t stop a warrant from being issued or those envelopes from being opened
Nothing stops police from intervening in any way shape or form. The only thing a warrant does is make the actions or evidence legal for future legal proceedings .
Because judges usually need the support of the prosecutor and police to get re-elected. So the warrant will be issued, otherwise the judge is “soft on crime”. It’s never “the judge is strong on Constitutional rights.”
Those dogs all operate on signaling from the handling officer.
If there is a long pattern of dogs are signaling “drugs” (irrespective of why they’re signaling) when there are no drugs found, that sounds like a great angle defense attorneys can use to get any evidence found thrown out of court.
This real world effectiveness is far lower than lab controlled confirmation that yes, the dogs are able to smell drugs. That doesn’t mean they are a reliable reason for police action since they can be following the officer’s cues or smelling residual smells when the person doesn’t have drugs on them.
It’s a classic detection theory problem. In this case, pretty much every false alarm doesn’t make it to court since the dogs come out before you are ever arrested, and missed detections are also not recorded. So unless cops are actually keeping records on false alarms there’s really no way to prosecute this.
Why can’t the efficacy of these dogs be tested in a lab, just like a clinical drug trial? 100 dogs, 50 shown box containing drugs. 50 shown placebo, handler and lab tech don’t know which is which. Then see whether the drugs outperform placebo in getting the dogs to alert.
When I read the headline I thought about the audacity Mississippi had to spend money training dogs to sniff out abortion pills. Then I read the article:
“An employee there had reported seeing someone in the lobby putting pills into hot pink envelopes.”
…and…
"Steed, a K-9 handler, arrived with Rip, his narcotics sniffer dog. Rip strode around and, when he got to the pink envelope, sat down. According to records obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request, Steed said this meant the dog had smelled narcotics. "
So no, the police dog can’t sniff out abortion pills, instead a dirty cop either signaled his dog to the behavior, or the copy is straight lying about what the dog did.
If anything any defense attorneys must love this. If the police indicate a dog is signaling drugs where there weren’t any, then any searches authorized by that dog’s actions should be thrown out including any evidence found in a followup human search.
Unfortunately they can just say there might have been residual traces of narcotics leading to a positive alert. It doesn’t matter that it leads to the search/seizure of an innocent person.
You’re not wrong, but that reality didn’t stop a warrant from being issued or those envelopes from being opened
And justice being served eventually also doesn’t help the person get the care they need in a timely manner. Abortions are safer when done earlier in the pregnancy, and often there are more legal hoops that have to be jumped through later in the pregnancy if they’re not barred altogether. A court case settled a year or more later doesn’t do much to help a woman who needs care now whether it’s for immediate physical safety or to prevent her body from being used for life support for another person without her consent.
I don’t disagree with any of that.
My point of positivity was for any defendants that are currently serving time or holding a criminal record for any narcotics charges attached from that police dog’s (and his handler) prior actions.
Something about “justice deferred”…
Nothing stops police from intervening in any way shape or form. The only thing a warrant does is make the actions or evidence legal for future legal proceedings .
Because judges usually need the support of the prosecutor and police to get re-elected. So the warrant will be issued, otherwise the judge is “soft on crime”. It’s never “the judge is strong on Constitutional rights.”
Those dogs all operate on signaling from the handling officer.
If there is a long pattern of dogs are signaling “drugs” (irrespective of why they’re signaling) when there are no drugs found, that sounds like a great angle defense attorneys can use to get any evidence found thrown out of court.
Drug dogs being unreliable in the real world use by police is not a new topic so don’t get your hopes up.
https://www.livescience.com/9215-police-dogs-sniff-drugs.html
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-12-03/fact-check-are-drug-dogs-incorrect-75-pc-of-the-time/10568410
This real world effectiveness is far lower than lab controlled confirmation that yes, the dogs are able to smell drugs. That doesn’t mean they are a reliable reason for police action since they can be following the officer’s cues or smelling residual smells when the person doesn’t have drugs on them.
It’s a classic detection theory problem. In this case, pretty much every false alarm doesn’t make it to court since the dogs come out before you are ever arrested, and missed detections are also not recorded. So unless cops are actually keeping records on false alarms there’s really no way to prosecute this.
Why can’t the efficacy of these dogs be tested in a lab, just like a clinical drug trial? 100 dogs, 50 shown box containing drugs. 50 shown placebo, handler and lab tech don’t know which is which. Then see whether the drugs outperform placebo in getting the dogs to alert.
It’s not that it can’t, it’s that it won’t. Drug dogs are one of the tools of oppression used by the police.
And they’d never collect that date because it would show the low accuracy and they’d lose the pretext for further investigation or arrests.