Care to cite that?
Because that means that in a neighborhood where 51% of the houses contain narcotics, the police have probable cause to search every single house.
>We do not know exactly what the phrase “probable cause” means, in strict numerical terms. We do, however, know what it does not mean: “probably.” That is, probable cause does not—in the context of Fourth Amendment law—mean that the police must have evidence sufficient to conclude that a suspect is probably guilty or that she probably has evidence of a crime hidden inside her home.
I didn't read the whole paper, but the gist of it seems to being exploring the difference between 'concrete' and 'statistical' and evidence of effects (with a non-conclusive, but general indication that the supreme court leans towards 'concrete' over 'statistical')
Basically if you have a 3 people in a car that contains drugs and thus know 1 of them is guilty, you have probable cause to arrest all of them. (Concrete)
However, if you know that 1/3 of the black people in a certain neighborhood posses drugs, that does not mean you have probably cause to arrest all of them. (Statistical)
Thus my argument is that the low accuracy rate of the dog vs. the baseline of the searched people (which in this case is only known because of the high alert rate) should not allow it to constitute 'concrete' evidence of probable cause.
Additionally, the overall success rate of the dog/officer combination vs. the general population baseline constitutes 'statistical' evidence which is also not sufficient for probable cause.
Generally, my argument would be that allowing the dogs to serve as a final determination of probable cause without requiring high accuracy rates leads to unnecessary harm to the general populace in the form of the unwarranted searched that could be prevented by encouraging effective training and usage.
The problem is innocent people who get searched illegally. Being sent to jail is not the only bad thing which can happen to people; being searched without probable cause is inherently unacceptable without regards to the results of the search.
Therefore the standard of evidence for sending people to jail is higher than the standard of evidence to search people.
Therefore the standard of evidence for probable cause is lower than the standard of evidence for a criminal conviction.
So we'll need to agree to disagree on this one. I suspect we're coming from two very different places.
My point here has nothing to do with the war on drugs. The same standard applies if law enforcement is searching for drugs or guns or stolen property.
You should ponder this some and then consider changing your point of view so that you can be correct more often in the future.
Not from a Constitutional law standpoint. They are both violations of the subject's civil rights, when the search is based on a pretense, a pretext, or a coin flip.
He is however missing the point in that he is bringing up a separate standard of evidence that has no bearing on the issue being discussed. Being searched isn't bad just because it can lead to you going to jail.
Perhaps, but my point is that neither standard is being met. If the officer didn't have PC before calling in a dog with the performance history described in the article, then he doesn't have PC afterwards either.
It is not OK to violate one aspect of the Fourth Amendment just because it appears (in someone's opinion) to call for less stringent adherence than other aspects.