Florida v. Harris

Amicus curiae brief of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, Florida Ass’n of Criminal Defense Lawyers, the American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU of Florida in support of the respondent.

Brief filed: 09/04/2012

Documents

Florida v. Harris

United States Supreme Court; Case No. 11-817

Prior Decision

Decision below 71 So.3d 756 (Fla. 2011).

Argument(s)

An alert by a “trained” or “certified” drug detection dog by itself is insufficient to establish probable cause; evidence of a dog’s reliability is but one factor in a totality-of-the-circumstances analysis recommended by the Florida Supreme Court. Real-world data demonstrate that even trained or certified dogs have a high rate of false alerts; brief lists a number of different factors relating to a drug dog’s reliability.

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Author(s)

Danielle Spinelli, Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Door LLP, Washington, DC, et al. (see brief cover for complete list of authors).

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