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It's rarely a good end to a journey when you're met by troopers and a drug-sniffing dog
By adamg on Thu, 10/08/2015 - 3:36pm
A San Jose, CA, man spent the night at a State Police barracks after, State Police say, Zeva the Belgian Malinois drug dog sniffed what turned out to be roughly 100 pounds of marijuana in his luggage.
Acting on information they'd developed with Randolph police, state troopers and DEA agents were waiting for Trang Pham, 31, to get off a Delta flight from San Francisco.
Based in part of Zeva's reaction to his bags, State Police say, they obtained a warrant to search Pham's two suitcases, in which troopers and agents found "approximately 100 pounds of marijuana inside the suitcases, packaged in heat-sealed plastic wrap."
Pham was scheduled for arraignment in East Boston Municipal Court today on a charge of possession of marijuana with intent to distribute.
Innocent, etc.
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Comments
I wonder
what the bill was for that entire operation?
The state police have a troop
The state police have a troop permanently stationed at the airport. The DEA agents probably drove over from their offices in the JFK building in Government Center. The dog is owned by one or the other of the organizations.
So the most expensive part of the operation that wasn't part of anyone's routine salary, etc, was probably Trang Pham's plane ticket and suitcase of supplies, unless he came in on frequent flyer miles.
A hundred pounds of weed is a bit more than the MA decriminalized amount for personal consumption.
Take a bite out of crime
Grow your own.
Baggage check fees should reduce this
sort of trafficking.
The airline probably alerted the police, finding it suspicious when someone wasn't complaining about the fees and rifling through their bags in the checkin line pulling out stuff to leave behind.
Based on his behavior
They obtained a warrant.
Yeah, that seems reasonable, and will assuredly hold up in a court of law. I would bet his reaction was something along the lines of walking up to the carousel and taking them off.
Unreasonably heavy?
If the weed was densely packed and his suitcases were of moderate size, then that might be a tipoff.
No
the warrant was obtained based on the dog's reaction to the bags.
Dog is a 4th amendment loophole
Allowing a search based on a dog's reaction is pretty much the legal equivalent of allowing a search based on an officer's hunch.
For one thing, there's no way for a court to determine whether or not the dog actually reacted.
For another, dogs are extremely good at at reading what their handlers want. If the handler thinks you have drugs in your bag, a dog may react on that basis alone. The most interesting thing about this is that the handler may not even be aware that he's unconsciously cueing the dog.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clever_Hans
Curious:
I understand the rationale, but I have the impression case law does accept this in such circumstances - no?
Of Course It Does
Dogs are used to sniff out all kinds of things, from cadavers to bedbugs ... even things that no handler could or would cue them on. Courts everywhere recognize their abilities, which are so different from Clever Hans' cue-response that comparing the two is absurd.
This seems so moronic
What would ever have made him think he could transport 100 lbs. in his checked bags?! Had he or a friend ever done that successfully?
It just seems so harebrained.