Florida Supreme Court Reinstates Drug-Sniffing Dog Conviction

The high court reinstated the conviction of Clayton Harris.

The Florida Supreme Court is reinstating a conviction against a Panhandle man who had challenged the use of a drug-sniffing police dog in his case.

The high court was forced to readdress the case of Clayton Harris. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in February police do not have to extensively document the work of drug-sniffing dogs to be able to use the results.

The Florida Supreme Court in 2011 threw out evidence turned up by Aldo, a drug-sniffing police dog used by the Liberty County sheriff.

Aldo was trained to detect methamphetamine and other drugs and alerted his officer to the scent of drugs during a 2006 traffic stop. A search of Harris' truck turned up the ingredients needed to create methamphetamine.

Harris served a two year prison sentence.

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