It was the first time a Florida appellate court ruled on the admissibility of cadaver dog evidence. Photo: Rolf Klebsattel/Shutterstock.

The Fourth District Court of Appeal Wednesday found that not all police dogs are created equal when it became the first appellate court in Florida to consider the admissibility of evidence from cadaver dogs — trained to detect the smell of human remains.

Weighing in on a second-degree murder conviction, the appellate panel ruled that courts must consider the reliability and work history of a dog on a case-by-case basis before admitting evidence of its sniffing assignments and related testimony into trial.

"Courts should not merely assume that any well-trained dog can detect specific odors, but instead should understand that a dog's abilities, whether innate or acquired, is a fact which may be proven by evidence like any other fact," the opinion said.

While cadaver dog evidence can help convict murder suspects, critics claim it could also be unreliable.

Wednesday's opinion stemmed from the case of Miramar man Cid Torrez, serving a life sentence for killing his estranged wife in 2012, though her body has still not been found.

Investigators brought in a cadaver dog called Canine Jewel after finding blood stains in Torrez's home, according to the opinion, which said the dog reacted to a grassy area near the front door several times and picked out the defendant's car from a line up months later. Jewel repeatedly alerted to the floor of the trunk and the back seat, while a black Labrador called Canine Piper reacted to the outside of the back door and the trunk in a separate search.

Before jurors found Torrez guilty, he had argued that evidence and related testimony didn't meet scientific admissibility standards, but Broward Circuit Judge Lisa Porter disagreed.

That was the right call, according to the Fourth DCA, which looked to the Daubert evidence standard governing the use of expert witness testimony, and to a U.S. Supreme Court case involving dogs trained to find drugs. In 2013, Florida v. Harris held that "[E]vidence of a dog's satisfactory performance in a certification or training program can itself provide sufficient reason to trust his alert."

In this case, the Fourth DCA found Jewel, Piper and their handlers had adequate work experience. Jewel and her handler became certified by the North American Police Working Dog Association in 2007 after completing between 400 and 500 hours of specialist training, and achieved recertification every year. The dog's handler said Jewel had only ever come to the wrong conclusion in one case.

Piper's handler also testified that in their nine years together, the dog had never failed to get certified.

Circumstantial evidence also corroborated the dogs' findings, according to the ruling.

West Palm Beach Public Defender Carey Haughwout and Assistant Public Defender Tatjana Ostapoff represent the defendant. Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody and Assistant Attorney General Rachael Kaiman in West Palm Beach represent the state. They did not respond to a request for comment by deadline.

Fourth DCA Judge Mark Klingensmith wrote the ruling, backed by Judges Robert Gross and Dorian Damoorgian.

Read the ruling:

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