| Scott's Attorney Attacks Dog Tracking Feb 26, 2004 - Pre-Trial Hearing The dogs that tracked Laci Peterson's scent and found it on the pier at the Berkeley Marina were guided by volunteers with limited training and used techniques with little scientific basis, according to questions from one of Scott Peterson's lawyers today. Defense attorney Pat Harris spent much of the day sharply questioning Christopher Boyer, a dog handler supervisor with the Contra Costa County Sheriff's Department reserves. Boyer supervised handlers Cindee Valentin and Eloise Anderson when they performed searches with their dogs the days after Laci Peterson disappeared. 'This is not a science, is it?' Harris asked. 'No sir, it's an art,' Boyer said. Boyer testified that he and most of the dog handlers are volunteers who do not perform searches full-time. Harris attacked the accuracy of dog searching because it is based on the handlers' interpretations of a dog's actions. 'It's based on one person -- a volunteer's belief on what's going on,' Harris said. 'The only thing you're doing is speculating on what the dog's thinking.' Harris also said that a dog search was conducted on a Northern California lake, possibly Lake Tulloch, and the dogs made a positive identification of Laci's scent. Boyer did not have any information about that search. Peterson's lawyers are seeking to have all of the evidence from the dog searches ruled inadmissible at trial. Most of the testimony this week has revolved around the searches that a bloodhound named Merlin and two black Labrador retrievers, Trimble and Twist, conducted on Dec. 26-28, 2002 and on January 4, 2003 in Modesto and Berkeley. Anderson, Boyer and Valentin were all prosecution witnesses. A defense dog expert from Seattle is scheduled to testify on Tuesday. HOME INDEX LACI SCOTT TRIAL NEWS DOG INDEX EVIDENCE-NEWS ALIBI-WITNESS LIST |
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