U.S. News

Court Finds Dog's Sniff 'Up to Snuff'

Updated Feb. 19, 2013 6:30 p.m. ET

WASHINGTON—The Supreme Court stood up for police dogs Tuesday, throwing out a lower court's standards imposed on drug-sniffing canines before they could be trusted to justify a vehicle search.

The case came from Liberty County, Fla., where a police dog named Aldo "alerted"—which indicates that he detected contraband—on a truck during a traffic stop. A search of the truck turned up none of the drugs Aldo was trained to detect, but it did find a trove of ingredients needed to make methamphetamine. The officer...

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