Supremes Back Drug Dog Search

I mentioned last year, the Supreme Court was going to hear two cases regarding the validity of drug dog searches. They decided one of them yesterday ruling that, despite a dog alerting falsely on the same vehicle twice, the dog's alerts were still grounds for probable cause for a search.

The way I read it, the justices are saying it doesn't matter what the false alert rate of drug dogs are. That they were certified through an official drug dog training course, alone, validates their alerts as sufficient.

This is almost the exact opposite of the sort of ruling I thought would be proper. What this means is that anybody, drug user or not, can be searched on a whim if a drug dog decides for one reason to another to alert on your car or home.

The death of a thousand cuts continues, and I'm sure we'll see this case used as precedent by courts in the future to further eviscerate protections against illegal search and seizures.

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I've written about drug dogs before. Radley Balko had a great post on his blog last year that should have been titled All You Ever Needed To Know About Drug Dogs.

Update: Radley Balko opines this recent decision.