Last weekend, we looked at the case of Bill Dillon, the Brevard County resident imprisoned for 27 years before DNA tests set him free…

At least two other men suffered the same fate — and another shared link: a dog.

Not just any dog. A wonder dog helped convict all three men: a German shepherd named Harass II, who wowed juries with his amazing ability to place suspects at the scenes of crimes.

Harass could supposedly do things no other dog could: tracking scents months later and even across water, according to his handler, John Preston.

After years of judges and juries falling for this crap….

Judge Gilbert Goshorn ultimately exposed Preston.

In the middle of a trial in which the dog was once again providing miraculous evidence — supposedly detecting tracks left by suspects six months prior — Goshorn ordered the dog to perform a much simpler test.

The dog failed miserably.

In an affidavit written after he retired, Goshorn said: “The dog simply could not track anything.”

Criminal justice activists in Florida say there may be up to 60 more people wrongly convicted thanks to Preston’s wonderdog.

false! that’s exactly the kind of cover story that best hides the fact that they’ve trained the dogs to sniff out cash just like it supposedly sniffs drugs. they admitted this particular dog went apeshit like it’s trained to do and all they found were a lot of bills. obviously that’s what the dog was hitting on – but is it more likely that many bills have cocaine? or more likely that every dept. has their dogs trained to sniff money so they can collect it and keep it just like they did here?

I bet those would be some fascinating numbers.

Here’s an idea. Dogs are trained to bark. On command. My dog is trained to bark. Any other human being can tell him to bark and he will do it.

Here’s another idea. Dogs bark. Sometimes randomly, sometimes at things they like or dislike. Some can restrain themselves better than others. But they still just bark sometimes. My dog barks. So do police dogs. No matter how well you train my dog, he’ll bark at a giant container full of peanuts. He likes peanuts. So do I.

Does a dog barking mean anything when there is a human around capable of commanding it to bark? No. Does a dog barking mean anything when even if there’s nobody around to command it to bark? No.

You cannot logically eliminate the possibility that the dog was not commanded to bark nor can you eliminate the possibility that the dog barked randomly. This should be inadmissable as evidence and not a contributing factor to probable cause.

But some people, somewhere, have invented the idea of a dog “alerting.” Ooooh that sounds much more officious now doesn’t it? Maybe if they call it “alerting,” the people whose job it is to produce evidence against other people will be able to make more evidence. Other people who determine whether something has or hasn’t happened might be open to the possibility of this “alerting” being something they’ve never encountered. Then, you can define “alerting” however you want. You can say “if a dog alerts, it means I have probable cause to search. If a dog alerts, I can introduce that as evidence of possession of something. Be that something a large quantity of drugs, money, demons, or evyl humours.”

Don’t fall into the trap. Don’t use a fictional construct with which you disargree. Don’t say “alerted” instead of “barked.” Don’t recognize something you very well know doesn’t exist.