The article says: > In 2013, the Supreme Court made things worse in Florida v. Harris. In that case, the court unanimously ruled that mere certification of a d

The article says: > In 2013, the Supreme Court made things worse in Florida v. Harris. In that case, the court unanimously ruled that mere certification of a drug dog was enough to establish a presumption that a drug dog is reliable, regardless of the reputation of the certifying organization, regardless of whether that organization understands and appreciates the importance of training dogs to ignore their handlers’ suspicions, and regardless of the dog’s performance in the real world. But the decision in Florida v. Harris says: > A defendant, however, must have an opportunity to challenge such evidence of a dog's reliability, whether by cross-examining the testifying officer or by introducing his own fact or expert witnesses. The defendant, for example, may contest the adequacy of a certification or training program, perhaps asserting that its standards are too lax or its methods faulty. ... > In short, a probable-cause hearing focusing on a dog's alert should proceed much like any other. The court should allow the parties to make their best case, consistent with the usual rules of criminal procedure. And the court should then evaluate the proffered evidence to decide what all the circumstances demonstrate. If the State has produced proof from controlled [7] settings that a dog performs reliably in detecting drugs, and the defendant has not contested that showing, then the court should find probable cause. If, in contrast, the defendant has challenged the State's case (by disputing the reliability of the dog overall or of a particular alert), then the court should weigh the competing evidence. ... > Harris, as also noted above, declined to challenge in the trial court any aspect of Aldo's training. See supra, at 3. To be sure, Harris's briefs in this Court raise questions about that training's adequacy — for example, whether the programs simulated sufficiently diverse environments and whether they used enough blind testing (in which the handler does not know the location of drugs and so cannot cue the dog). See Brief for Respondent 57-58. Similarly, Harris here queries just how well Aldo performed in controlled testing. See id., at 58. But Harris never voiced those doubts in the trial court, and cannot do so for the first time here. So what that supreme court case actually* says is that the validity of a drug-sniffing dog as probable cause for a search can be challenged in court, but the challenge must be made in trial court rather than on appeal.