Court Opinion

ID: 9748439
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-27 16:01:37.539455+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:25:35.139284
License: Public Domain

LEE ANN DAUPHINOT, Justice,
concurring and dissenting.
I agree with the majority that the seizure of the property was proper. I cannot agree, however, with the majority’s acceptance of Bosko’s amazing abilities and expertise.
Regarding the search of Savoldi’s house, the majority, in its thorough and otherwise scholarly opinion, treats Bosko’s “sniff search hit” on the front door of a drug runner’s house as evidence that Roberts’s marijuana, as opposed to all other drugs in the world, was inside the drug runner’s house. Of course, the record makes clear that the marijuana was not in the house, despite Bosko’s “hit.”
Regarding the search of Roberts’s parents’ house and the nexus between Roberts and the money found underneath his brother’s bed, Bosko conducted a sniff search and alerted at the bottom of the garage door. Somehow, that was evidence below and accepted as evidence by the majority that cash was located underneath a bed inside the house. The connection between a hit for drugs at the bottom of a garage door and money underneath a bed inside the house escapes me.
*123After the police seized the money from underneath the bed, it was taken, presumably, in a police unit that had transported drugs and drug users in the past — if police testimony of all the drugs found hidden behind the back seats of police units is to be believed — to the Carrollton police station, where Officer Sanchez put the money in one of three brand new paper bags. Again, one wonders how many drugs and drug users had been brought into the Car-rollton police station before the cash in question arrived and how thoroughly either the police station or the police car was cleaned between seizures.
Miraculously, the Amazing Bosko alerted on the sack containing the money. Apparently, Bosko had solved the case and provided Officer Sanchez the provenance of the money. Bosko “proved” to the police that Roberts owned the money and that it was contraband as proceeds from the sale of narcotics.
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has recently dealt with the issue of dog-sniff lineups in Winfrey v. State.6 In that case, a man named Burr was found murdered in his home. As the Winfrey court noted in the opinion,
Investigators collected a variety of forensic evidence from the crime scene including: a partial bloody fingerprint, a bloody shoe print, and several hair samples. Neither the prints nor the hair samples matched appellant. Investigators were able to obtain a DNA profile from evidence at the crime scene, however, the profile excluded appellant and his family members.7
The police, though, received a jailhouse tip that Winfrey had told his cellmate that he had heard some things about the murder, how it was committed, and what had been stolen. The Winfrey court then described the following procedure:
To assist in the investigation, Texas Ranger Grover Huff contacted Deputy Keith Pikett, a dog handler with the Fort Bend County Sheriffs office. Deputy Pikett testified about a “scent lineup” that he conducted nearly three years after the murder in August 2007. He used his three bloodhounds, Quincy, James Bond, and Clue. This involved obtaining scent samples from clothing that the victim was wearing at the time of his death and from six white males, including [Winfrey]. The dogs were “pre-scented” on the scent samples obtained from the victim’s clothing. The dogs then walked a line of paint cans containing the scent samples of the six white males. All three dogs alerted on the can containing [Winfrey’s] scent sample.
Based on this, Deputy Pikett concluded that [Winfrey’s] scent was on the victim’s clothing. Deputy Pikett testified on cross-examination that an alert only establishes some relationship between the scent and objects and that scent detection does not necessarily indicate person-to-person contact. Deputy Pikett also testified on cross-examination that his understanding of the law was that convicting a person solely on a dog scent is illegal.8
The Winfrey court then discussed the validity of the science of dog sniffing:
... [T]he science underlying canine-scent lineups has been questioned; thus, we think it proper to briefly address the issue. Law-enforcement personnel have long utilized canines in crime management. For example, dogs have been *124employed for detecting narcotics and explosives, for tracking trails, in search- and-rescue operations, for locating cadavers, and for discriminating between scents for identification purposes. In thousands of cases, canines and their handlers have performed with distinction. Despite this success, we acknowledge the invariable truth espoused by Justice Souter that “[t]he infallible dog, however, is a creature of legal fiction.”
This case pertains to canines used to discriminate among human scents in order to identify a specific person in a lineup. This process is often referred to as human-scent discrimination. Some courts, including the Fourteenth Court of Appeals, have determined that for purposes of admissibility, “there is little distinction between a scent lineup and a situation where a dog is required to track an individual’s scent over an area traversed by multiple persons.” Other courts, such as the Supreme Court of Florida, have distinguished scent lineups from dog tracking.
Cases involving the use of dogs, usually bloodhounds, to track humans are abundant and the law is well settled in regards to admissibility of such evidence with only a minority of courts outright rejecting bloodhound evidence. Fewer courts have addressed the question of whether dog evidence is sufficient to sustain a conviction when it is the only evidence. However, as early as 1913, our colleagues at the Supreme Court of Mississippi held ... dog tracking evidence, alone and unsupported, to be insufficient to affirm a conviction. And as recently as 1983, the Supreme Court of Washington agreed. In fact, our research suggests the courts that have passed on this issue have concluded that dog-scent evidence, when admissible, is insufficient, standing alone, to sustain a conviction.
Like our sister courts across the country, we now hold ... scent-discrimination lineups, whether conducted with individuals or inanimate objects, to be separate and distinct from dog-scent tracking evidence. “Even the briefest review of the scientific principles underlying dog scenting reveals that, contrary to the conclusions of many courts, there are significant scientific differences among the various uses of scenting: tracking, narcotics detection, and scent lineups.” The FBI ágrees, noting that tracking canines use human scent and environmental cues to locate the track of an individual. Accordingly, we conclude that scent-discrimination lineups, when used alone or as primary evidence, are legally insufficient to support a conviction. Like the Supreme Court of Washington, we believe that “[t]he dangers inherent in the use of dog tracking evidence can only be alleviated by the presence of corroborating evidence.” To the extent that lower-court opinions suggest otherwise, we overrule them and expressly hold that when inculpato-ry evidence is obtained from a dog-scent lineup, its role in the court room is merely supportive.9
As I understand the Winfrey court, a dog may be able to detect a scent, but not how or when the scent was placed on a person or on an inanimate object. With all appropriate respect to Bosko, the fact that he hit on a drug runner’s front door proves nothing, other than that at some time drugs or an object that had contacted drugs or a person or animal using drugs was at the front door. The hit does nothing to connect Roberts with the drugs not found in the house. Similarly, the fact *125that Bosko hit on the garage door of Roberts’s parents’ house proves nothing, other than that at some time drugs, even prescription drugs, or a person or animal using drugs was at the garage door. The fact that Bosko hit on the cash found under Roberts’s brother’s bed means only that at some time, before or after the cash left the mint, somebody smoked a drug or controlled substance in the vicinity of the cash, or used one or more of the bills to sniff a drug or a controlled substance or to package a drug or controlled substance, or had the cash in the vicinity of a drug lab, or in some other manner caused at least one bill to come close enough to a drug or a controlled substance to pick up the scent. Scientists report that as much as ninety percent of our paper money contains traces of cocaine.10 Even Bosko could not tell his handlers whether the areas he alerted on “contained an odor of marijuana” or whether they contained an odor of “some other illegal substance which Bosko is trained to detect.”
I also agree that the trial court did not abuse its discretion by overruling Roberts’s objection to Officer Sanchez’s testimony on the ground that he was not disclosed as an expert. My reason for agreeing, however, is that I cannot agree that Officer Sanchez is an expert. Had Roberts objected on the basis that any attempt to use Bosko to connect the cash or the physical locations to Roberts was junk science, we would have a different question before us.
The testimony regarding Bosko’s hits is no evidence of Roberts’s guilt, and I would so hold. I would also hold that none of Bosko’s hits justified any of the searches. And were the testimony regarding Bosko’s hits the only evidence of Roberts’s guilt, I would not concur in the result. But if we exclude testimony regarding Bosko’s hits, the evidence remains sufficient to support the trial court’s determination under the appropriate standard of proof.
For these reasons, I respectfully dissent from the majority’s deference to the explanation of Bosko’s actions and the imputation of Bosko’s conclusions but concur in the disposition of this appeal.

. 323 S.W.3d 875 (Tex.Crim.App.2010).

. Id. at 876.

.Id. át 877-78 (citations omitted).

. Id., at 882-84 (citations omitted).

. Madison Park, 90 Percent of U.S. Bills Carry Traces of Cocaine (Aug. 14, 2009), http//articles.cnn.com/2009-08-14/health/ cocaine.traces. money_l_cocaine-dollar-biIls-paper-bills?_s=PM:HEALTH (last visited December 21, 2010).