John J. Ensminger


John J. Ensminger is an American attorney and a national consultant on legal issues involving skilled dogs and their handlers. He is author of the books: Service and Therapy Dogs in American Society: Science, Law and the Evolution of Canine Caregivers, and Police and Military Dogs: Criminal Detection, Forensic Evidence, and Judicial Admissibility. He is editor of The Complete Book of Dogs,
editor of and contributor to Canine Olfaction Science and Law: Advances in Forensic Science, Medicine, Conservation, and Environmental Remediation, former editor and co-author of Money Laundering, Terrorism and Financial Institutions, a treatise concerning the USA PATRIOT Act, a contributor to GPSolo Magazine, and Tax Notes as well as a contributing editor on canine legal issues which may be found on the website of the Animal Legal and Historical Center of Michigan State University College of Law. He is a specialist in tax law and anti-money laundering programs for financial institutions, is past president of Delta Hedge Publications and past president of Delta Hedge Consulting.
Ensminger graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, where as an honors student in Zoology, he engaged in research on the 19th voyage of the Stanford research vessel Te Vega, studying parasitic infestation of Pacific krill; he earned his JD and LLM degrees from Hastings College of the Law and New York University School of Law, respectively, practices law in New York and is a member of the bar of the United States Supreme Court. He was chair of the Banking and Savings Institutions Committee of the American Bar Association Tax Section and was on the adjunct faculty of the Peter J. Tobin College of Business at St. John's University, where he taught the taxation of complex structured finance transactions and derivatives. Ensminger reports on legal and scientific developments concerning dogs, service dogs, police dogs, and military dogs on his Dog Law Reporter blog.

Early years in law

While working in the Division of Mental Health Advocacy of New Jersey's Department of the Public Advocate, Ensminger became involved in civil commitment cases representing patients that various authorities wanted to institutionalize as being dangerous to themselves or others. Under the supervision of Stanley C. Van Ness and Michael Perlin, Ensminger wrote briefs for the Public Advocate in two Supreme Court cases: Jones v. United States, 454 U.S. 1141 and Mills v. Rogers, 457 U.S. 291. He also worked on class action right-to-treatment cases against New Jersey public mental hospitals. After meeting Joseph A. Califano, Jr., Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare in the Carter administration, Ensminger spoke to the Secretary about the need to consider using community mental health centers to treat individuals with psychiatric problems before their conditions became severe enough to require institutionalization. Society's tendency to put anyone with psychiatric problems in hospitals, rather than requiring outpatient treatment, was at that time a particular burden of many poor and urban neighborhoods in New Jersey. The Secretary suggested that Ensminger write a piece on the legal status of aftercare systems, which resulted in the article that appeared in 1977: John J. Ensminger and Patrick Reilly, The Legal and Social Significance of Aftercare Systems: A Review and Analysis. Journal of Psychiatry and Law. Those who wish to follow this thread may use the issn catalogue listing at that site or take a look at the Fully Searchable Digital Archive of Classic Psychoanalytic Texts Finding that many judges and hospitals tried to avoid having individuals present at hearings in which their freedom would be taken away, Ensminger considered that there was in fact a good deal of evidence, particularly in the psychiatric literature, that people facing Involuntary commitment could profit from hearing about why a law enforcement or other agency wanted them confined to a mental hospital. The hearing also gave the individual a chance to speak in his own behalf and thereby not feel that his or her perspective was being ignored. With this in mind, Ensminger wrote an article for The Journal of Psychiatry and Law that appeared in 1978 which for the first time argued that there could be therapeutic benefits to a civil commitment hearing. John J. Ensminger and Thomas D. Liguori The Therapeutic Significance of the Civil Commitment Hearing: An Unexplored Potential which looked deeper into the arguments presented in the 1977 article about law and psychiatric care which has grown to some significant importance in today's world in which we often read about persons with impaired mental health who may be dangerous to themselves or others. The law of mental patients' civil rights has been evolving since John was a class action litigator in the Office of Mental Health Advocacy in the New Jersey Department of the Public Advocate. One of the first references to the Ensminger and Liguori article was by M.L. Perlin and R.L. Sadoff, in Duke University's Law and Contemporary Problems, in their brief before the Supreme Court, argued against Chief Justice Burger's view that "commitment hearings for juveniles are meaningless" by quoting Ensminger and Liguori that the commitment process itself has "considerable potential for therapeutic effect" The entire Duke University School of Law article may be found online at:. Ensminger and Liguori's Journal of Psychiatry article is reprinted in David Wexler & Bruce Winick Today there are over 70 references to that article which have expanded on the original idea to become known as the area of therapeutic jurisprudence. Another book by Marilyn McMahon and David B. Wexler titled, Therapeutic Jurisprudence published in 2003, that quotes the Ensminger and Liguori article brings the reader up to date on the many ideas surrounding the legal
problems arising from the current laws regarding mental patients, and Fred Zacharias in the Journal of Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, A more recent cite of the Ensminger, Liguori article by Gary B. Melton in which the subject has expanded beyond Therapeutic Jurisprudence is the book Psychological Evaluations for the Courts. which places the concept into the subject of forensic psychology. To summarize. the point of all this work by so many involved professionals, is to locate and help people before they enter the criminal justice system and not after. Presently many large cities also
have established a Mental health court system to help reduce the population of our prisons and increase patient health but this requires mental health trained judges, lawyers, and counselors so that the cost is beyond the means of most counties in the United States.

Taxation and Finance

In the early 1980s, after years of advocating for patient's rights and many pro bono hours, Ensminger turned more of his attention to financial institutions by joining Silverman & Weinraub, P.C. as a Tax Associate. He then became Executive Editor of Tax Journals and on to Managing Editor of Tax Books which led to his Joining Warren, Gorham & Lamont as Senior Managing Editor of their Tax Periodicals/Services. After that he became a department head of the RIA Research Institute of America which is now RIA checkpoint of Thomson Reuters, Tax Periodicals and International Tax Products from 1996 to 2000. From 2004 to 2007, he taught financial products and institutions, money laundering, and tax crimes as Adjunct Professor, Peter J. Tobin College of Business. He
was also Chair, Banking & Savings Institutions Committee of the American Bar Association Tax Section and Editor-in-Chief; 2000-2009, Journal of Taxation and Regulation of Financial Institutions. During this time he also founded Delta Hedge Consulting and wrote chapter 7 Derivatives in the Charitable World for Frank J. Fabozzi's book: The Use of Derivatives in Tax Planning. Before the 2008 financial crisis Kawaller and Ensminger wrote:
The Fallout from FAS 133 which is cited by Arewa, O.B. In his Risky Business: The Credit Crisis and Failure
As a member of the advisory board Ensminger attended the 2014 Indian Institute of Finance conference on Banking where he spoke about anti-money laundering and anti-terrorist responsibilities of financial institutions which can be viewed on YouTube at
One of Ensminger's early tax articles about hedges is cited by W. Gazur, An Arm's Length Solution to the Shareholder Loan Tax Puzzle, in The Seton Hall Law Review:. Another often cited article by Ensminger is in the Virginia Tax Review
The USA PATRIOT Act brought Ensminger's practice into the sphere of terrorism and financial institutions, and was the stimulus for him to join Raymond Banoun in writing the treatise, Money Laundering, Terrorism and Financial Institutions, He also wrote an
article on 9/11 for the Review of Business. He has contributed to several journals over the years with regard to the general area of derivatives two of which are: the Journal of Corporate Taxation. and Tax Notes. Combining his interest in taxation and his interest in service dogs he shows how to deduct the cost of service dogs for the mentally disabled.

Dog laws

Service and therapy dogs

Ensminger was at last able to return to his roots and publish in the area of his greatest interest, with books and articles about dogs.
Typical of Ensminger's involvement in the health field is his article as guest columnist for the Herald-Tribune, in which he describes the legal difficulties faced by a blind person whose service dog was attacked and killed by another dog. This sort of event, which may happen with any type of service dog, is both emotionally and financially draining : "And it's not just a letter that turns a dog into a psychiatric service dog. There's a rigorous training procedure, and the whole process can cost as much as $38,000..." was his response during a CNN interview. As guest columnist for the Palm Beach Post, he discusses the problem of the use of fake dog identification by owners wishing to pass their dogs as real therapy animals. Ensminger's book about service and therapy dogs is reviewed by Amy Fernandez in Dog World and by Altina Wickstrom, DVM, CCRT in The Canadian Veterinary Journal, "This groundbreaking book begins with a fascinating discussion of the domestication of dogs." The laws regarding criminal interference with service animals vary from state to state, county to county and fines and ranges of imprisonment vary from misdemeanor to felony. Generally, the damage done to a service dog results from dog attacks and dog bites from other dogs and the service dog owner must be compensated. The main focus of his book on service and therapy dogs is the increasing need for service dogs of all types for both the general public and disabled military veterans. Jan Shubert, LCSW cites Ensminger's definition of Therapy Dog,...mostly therapy dogs in the United States today visit facilities..., in the Army Medical Department Journal see full text from AMEDD in external links. The definition of service dog is of interest to public institutions so that Ensminger is cited by the NASN : "Service animal... is a term that distinguishes those animals that serve individuals with physical or mental disabilities, usually on a one-on-one basis, from pets or other types of skilled animals, such as police dogs ". The definition and use of service animals is also of interest to the court system because service animals can be found nearly everywhere including within the courtroom itself. Exactly when, how and by whom a service animal may be used in the courtroom is part of our evolving legal system. Recently the Connecticut Appellate Court cited Ensminger's article in the MSU ALHC animal law online magazine,
in the case: State of Connecticut v. Devon D.
"A facility dog can interact with people in courthouse public areas, child advocacy centers, and drug courts; play with office staff; participate in forensic interviews; calm victims and witnesses; and accompany witnesses to the stand in a courtroom." John DeSantos of the New York Times subsidiary in Terrebonne Parish, Louisiana interviewed Ensminger in November, 2014. The purpose of the interview was to get Ensminger's views on the use of dogs in court because such use is becoming more common nationwide and because the Parish Attorney's dog had recently been used in a case. Certainly from the prosecutors perspective the use of a dog in court may facilitate the proceedings but the defense attorney could make the argument that "There could be a feeling among jurors that the dog is assuring truth, as well as allowing the child to speak, and that is not necessarily the case." J. Bergal; in a 2017 article for Stateline
quotes Ensminger: "Nobody knows how juries will be influenced by this," he said. "It may be that if you get enough 'dog people' on a jury, you're going to increase your chances of conviction."
In the Suffolk Journal of Trial & Appellate Advocacy he presents a lawyer's perspective on dogs in the courtroom with over 400 references.
The access to public facilities has become a serious issue for people with service dogs which has generated legal decisions in the courts which are discussed by Ensminger and Breitkopf in the Journal of Animal Law which is archived in the Yale Law School Legal Scholarship Repository. Ensminger and J. Lawrence Thomas PhD, article in the Journal of Forensic Psychology Practice describe some of the ways in which a service animal owner can
meet public accommodation access requirements with a letter from a doctor describing the service animal which is cited by Alli Spotts-De Lazzer, MA: when legal disputes over ESA's erupt, the letter generally becomes evidence. Further analysis by Ensminger indicates the problem has extended to doctors willing to sign such letters without investigation which has produced
large numbers of falsely documented service dogs. Naturally, in response to this, courts have begun to request training records for the dog with the doctor's records containing analysis of the patient's need for a service dog and doctors are being advised that falsifying a patient's need for such an animal can adversely affect their practice and may result in criminal charges. This situation has been analyzed by Burnett and Poliakov in their Nova Law Review article of 2012, which cites Ensminger and Breitkopf: "Until recently, many associations believed that challenging a request for a reasonable accommodation involving an emotional support or companion animal was a losing battle". available at

Police and military dogs

Ensminger's book: Police and Military Dogs; Criminal Detection, Forensic Evidence, and Judicial Admissibility provides both an analysis of the biology and training of such dogs with a detailed, 42 page, well annotated appendix of case histories and legal restrictions concerning the use of police dogs and military dogs. Cited in Library of the Marine Corps IED/CIED Research Guide: "canine biology and behavior...including...sniffs of transportation facilities, explosives, cadavers...". Another citation from this book "The admissibility of canine evidence is not solely determined by the quality of the forensics work involved. Some states regard the possible prejudice of tracking and scent identification as so great that they decline to admit this evidence at all." is found in the online Journal of the Seattle Kennel Club. Gene Papet notes on his K9 Resources web site that it is often legal issues which confound dog owners and he recommends Ensminger's books: "John Ensminger is not only an articulate, well respected author on police canine legal cases, he is without doubt the most knowledgeable subject matter expert on police k9 legal issues, PERIOD". Sherri Minhinnik recommends Ensminger's books: When it comes to working dogs, an excellent source is John Ensminger. He is the authority when it comes to legal and scientific issues of working and service dogs and what they encounter on a daily basis. Both of his books, "Police and Military Dogs: Criminal Detection, Forensic Evidence and Judicial Admissibility" and "Service and Therapy Dogs in American Society: Science, Law and the Evolution of Canine Caregivers" are included in our training curriculum." The lawyer and educator, Professor Andrew E. Taslitz, referred to Ensminger from a purely legal
perspective, in the American Bar Association's Criminal Justice Magazine, as "Perhaps the most sophisticated modern legal commentator on the topic, John Ensminger…" in a discussion on the subject of scent lineups. Marchal, S. Et al., cite Ensminger's review of the history of scent lineups in the introduction to their article, "Rigorous Training of Dogs Leads to High Accuracy in Human Scent Matching-To-Sample Performance".
The area of scent lineup protocol is more complicated than just how effective a dog may be in a research setting. This problem is pursued in Ferry et al. which studies scent lineup protocols in eleven countries. In this study Ensminger's legal perspective askes the question: what issues should be addressed in order to assure that the scent lineup will have a future as a forensic technique? There is the more technical side to his work such as is found in the Journal of Forensic Sciences where some of the legal problems associated with forensic law are discussed. Ensminger writes that the importance of the exact training of a police dog has reached the U.S. Supreme court in Florida v. Jardines when the specifics of some of that training related to admissible evidence is decided. The brief before the Supreme Court of the United States cites Ensminger's book: "These and other factors can cause a dog's skills to vary at times, and a dog can succeed at a task on one day and fail at the same task on another." The supreme court's ruling on Florida v. Harris is discussed by Ensminger and Papet in their article Walking Search Warrants: Canine Forensics and Police Culture After Florida v. Harris An article by Jezierski and Ensminger in Forensic Science International describes the continuing quest for data about the efficacy of trained drug detection dogs. One of the unexpected results of the training of scent identification dogs is that they may prove useful in Canine cancer detection before detection is possible by any other known method. Ensminger teamed up with Tadeusz Jezierski of the Polish Academy of Sciences and Michael McCulloch of the Pine Street Foundation to write the paper Scent Identification in Criminal Investigations and Prosecutions: New Protocol Designs Improve Forensic Reliability. The Pine Street Foundation has been conducting research on cancer detection with scent identification dogs for nearly a decade and is now conducting research and training dogs to detect ovarian cancer in women.
Ensminger's latest book, co-edited with Jezierski, and Papet : Canine Olfaction Science and Law, Advances in Forensic Science, Medicine, Conservation, and Environmental Remediation, provides an in depth continuation of these lines of inquiry.

Doglawreporter

The Doglawreporter blog was started in 2009, though Ensminger now only adds updates occasionally. It reports information concerning dogs not only with respect to various legal aspects but also information about the relationship between dogs and humans throughout history.

Other publications

Ensminger has written several articles concerning the early history of western civilization around the time of Christ.

Current positions and affiliations