STATE OF FLORIDA, APPELLANT,
v.
MATTHEW WILSON MCNEAL, APPELLEE
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Florida's Second District affirmed suppression of evidence from a dog sniff search, holding that a dog's training and certification alone are insufficient for probable cause without consideration of the dog's actual field performance, and certified conflict with other districts that reject this standard.
A dog's training and certification standing alone are insufficient to establish probable cause for a search; courts must consider the dog's past field performance and other factors.
[1] A dog's training and certification alone are insufficient to establish probable cause for a search; a trial court must consider the dog's past field performance and other…
Previewing 1 of 1 headnotes on this case. FLexlaw’s editorially structured points of law — every proposition, pinpointed — are reserved for members.
Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligence“the fact that a dog has been trained and certified, standing alone, is insufficient to give officers probable cause to search based on the dog's alert”
Court's holding on the inadequacy of training and certification without additional reliability factors
Matthew Wilson McNeal moved to suppress evidence obtained from a dog sniff search. The trial court granted the motion, and the State appealed.…
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The State appeals an order granting Matthew Wilson McNeal’s motion to suppress. We affirm based on this court’s holding in Matheson v. State, 870 So.2d 8, 14-15 (Fla. 2d DCA 2003), that “the fact that a dog has been trained and certified, standing alone, is insufficient to give officers probable cause to search based on the dog’s alert” and that when making a determination of a dog’s reliability, a trial court must consider several other factors with a particular emphasis placed on the dog’s past performance in the field. However, we previously recognized in both Tedder v. State, 18 So.3d 1052 (Fla. 2d DCA 2008), and Gibson v. State, 968 So.2d 631 (Fla. 2d DCA 2007), that this court’s reasoning in Matheson has been rejected by the Fifth District Court of Appeal in State v. Coleman, 911 So.2d 259 (Fla. 5th DCA 2005), and the Fourth District Court of Appeal in State v. Laveroni, 910 So.2d 333 (Fla. 4th DCA 2005).1 Therefore, as we did in Ted-der and Gibson, we certify direct conflict with Coleman and Laveroni.
Affirmed; conflict certified.
CASANUEVA, C.J., and CRENSHAW, J., Concur.
Cases With Similar Vibessemantic neighbors from the corpus
Citator
Authorities Cited
- Matheson v. State, 870 So. 2d 8 (Fla. 2d DCA 2003)
- State v. Laveroni, 910 So. 2d 333 (Fla. 4th DCA 2005)
- State v. Coleman, 911 So. 2d 259 (Fla. 5th DCA 2005)
- Gibson v. State, 968 So. 2d 631 (Fla. 2d DCA 2007)
- Harris v. State, 989 So. 2d 1214 (Fla. 1st DCA 2008)
- Gaynor Earl Tedder, Jr. v. State, 18 So. 3d 1052 (Fla. 2d DCA 2008)