Opinion ID: 1826905
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 12

Heading: Failure to Impeach the Dog's Abilities

Text: Green claims that counsel was ineffective for failing to discover and use dog tracking evidence for impeachment purposes. However, counsel was not ineffective because the records do not contain substantive evidence with which to impeach the dog's abilities. Deputy Kiser testified at the evidentiary hearing that the reports note occasions that the dog refused to track, lost and regained a track, and missed turns but do not indicate that the dog erroneously followed a cross-track or indicated by his behavior that he was tracking a trail of several hundred yards when in fact he was off the trail and just acting like he was tracking. As Deputy Kiser and Bobby Mutter, the State's expert, testified, the dog's handler can tell by his behavior when the dog loses the scent. But there was no indication that Czar lost the scent in this case. Evidence was presented that the dog was tracking on a partly visible tennis shoe trail that led to the location of the victim Flynn's truck. The trial court determined that the visible tracks led from the area where Kiser started the dog (twenty yards off the road) to the area where the truck had been parked. Deputy Kiser scented the dog in a sandy open area where the visible tracks were remote from any other visible tracks and watched the dog follow those continuous tracks backwards until they could no longer be seen and on to the house where Green stayed. Because these records lack impeachment value, Green does not establish a reasonable probability that, but for counsel's failure to use them, the result of the proceeding would have been different. Accordingly, we affirm the trial court's finding that Green fails to show prejudice under Strickland.