CROSS EXAM OF DEPUTY FORGEY BY JB
He agreed the lot line of the A's back yard is not very large, but it's a personal perception.
He agreed there was less square footage of grass in the backyard than in the courtroom.
He was shown Exhibit 43 and asked to remark the area of the final trained alert. He did so. He agreed there was another shed on the south side of the house.
Agreed dog has been trained with residual odor. He gave 2 examples of that previously - one was after 10 hours and the other was after 10 days. He has had real world finds older than 30 days.
Residual odor - possibly something was there and is no longer there. It could be decomp fluid or scent or it could not be there at all.
There are false alert - dogs are not perfect.
Unless he visually sees the body or parts or a doctor finds something - he does not have confirmation that something was there.
Two training sessions were in 2005 and 2007 on residual odor.
When he first went to see the car, he was told it was "the vehicle in question". There were other items in the forensics bay when he got there. He is generally familiar with the bay. He did not know what trash was in the bay and that was why he asked to bring the car out. He swept another vehicle next to it that had nothing to do with the case.
He had a video of one of his finds. He did not video tape this find. He is sure there was a video available. If he could have predicted where they are today, they would have videotaped it, but it is not a common practice to video tape searches.
He is shown the handbook that he finds authoritative. It is written by Andy Redman, the person he trained under in Sarasota in 2005 and 2006.
He was asked if he was familiar with the section where the book recommends video taping so that it can be shown to the Jury.
He did not know if a body had been removed from the Sunfire, but knew there was no body in the car when he did the sweep.
Nothing in his policies and procedures said he had to video tape the sweep.
The training logs are done by him. He trains the dog a couple of times a month. It is just him and the dog other than the times when he is being observed. The dog is also evaluated quarterly. The logs are an indication of him and the dog's work as a team.
When he is training his dog, it is not blind testing which means that he knows where the target is. When he is evaluated quarterly, unless indicated they are not blind testing.
Part of the reward to the dog is handler praise and the dog wants to please him.
After his final alert in the yard, Sgt Brewer was called and then forensics CSI. He did not think they dug. It appeared they scraped the surface. They did not find anything.
They called him to come back the next day - at that time the dog did not give any alerts.
He issued a police report after searching the vehicle.
When he searched the backyard twice, he did not do a report.
The six searches in 2006 - he only did a report of the one find.
No police report in 2007 of the nine searches with no alerts.
In 2008 - he issued a report for the alert in the backyard, but not the other 70 searches. He documented two of them, 7/23/08 shallow grave - no alert - found animal remains. On 8/11/08 shallow grave - no alert - found animal remains.
In 12/08 he was deployed to Suburban Drive where the body had been found. He was called because a couple of small bones were still missing. The dog did not find them. He would not allow him to get to where he knew the body had been. He was trying to find other items. He was trying to get there and alerting and he was trying to get him away from that. He wanted to search away from that area.
Regarding his 11/29/10 depo, page 81 - lines 23
ICA whispering to DS
"He did not give any alerts at all" He recalled this and said that was what he testified to.
Objection by LDB - HHBP - Witness may finish his answer.
As he testified in his depo and today, the dog did try to alert at the source and he did not want him to give a final alert there. He did not give a final trained alert because he would not allow him to. They were looking for a few very small bones.
Objection by LDB - SUSTAINED.
He considered bones human remains. He did not find any. The dog did not give a final trained alert because he would not allow him to go to where the body was recovered.
He was told there were a couple of bones missing. He does not know exactly how many.
JB finished.
