Science News

The sniff of an unreliable drug dog counts as probable cause, Cook County’s medical examiner resigns, DNA evidence and the Oakland PD Crime Lab struggles with a growing backlog. Here is the roundup of this week’s forensic news:

A Minnesota judge

ruled

that a drug dog’s “alert” amounted to probable cause to search a man’s vehicle even though the dog got it wrong roughly three out of four times. The judge’s ruling conceded that the dog in question “may not be a model of canine accuracy.”

Cook County’s medical examiner announced that she will resign next month, following

an investigation

that revealed nearly two dozen safety violations at the county morgue. These violations ranged from “falling bodies to exposure to hepatitis B.”

Evidence

in hundreds of unsolved homicides and sexual assaults remain untested as the Oakland Police Department Crime Lab struggles with understaffing and underfunding.