Background: This Blog has been delving into the havoc caused by the late John Preston and his magical dog who could purportedly trace scents across water. The focus is also on Deputy Keith Pikett, another so-called dog-scent "specialist", a canine officer with the Fort Bend County Sheriff's Office, just southwest of Houston. Time Magazine has reported on two apparent miscarriages of Justice involving Pikett; The first case studied involves Calvin Lee Miller, who was charged with robbery and sexual assault after Pikett's bloodhounds alerted police to a scent on sheets that Pikett said matched a scent swipe from Miller's cheek. DNA evidence later cleared Miller, but only after he served 62 days in jail. In a second case, former Victoria County Sheriff's Department Captain Michael Buchanek was named as a "person of interest" in a murder case after Pikett's bloodhounds sped 5.5 miles from a crime scene, tracking a scent to Buchanek's home. Another man later confessed to the murder.
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Scott Maxwell's recent assessment is set out in a commentary which appeared in the Orlando Sentinel on November 10, 2009, under the heading, "Miscarriages of justice: Rotten dog cases getting more light."
"In the past few weeks, the cases of miscarried justice in Brevard County -- all connected to a fraudulent dog-handler -- have started getting more attention ... some of it international," the commentary begins.
"Two things have put this matter back in the spotlight," it continues.
"1) Bill Dillon, freed after 22 years behind bars (and put there after dog-handler John Preston manufactured evidence to "tie" him to the crime), is now seeking restitution for his wrongful imprisonment. And, as part of the process, one of the jailhouse snitches whose testimony also helped convict Dillon has admitted he lied -- and that investigators told him to do so. This very belatedly prompted the Brevard sheriff's office to re-open this decades-old case. (Let's hope Sheriff Jack Parker's motives are pure here ... and that he's truly looking for answers -- and not some sort of twisted way of justifying Brevard's history of fraudulent activity. Residents obviously have reason to be skeptical.) Florida Today praised Parker for looking at this -- but asked the question I have been asking for months: Where are the two men who supposedly care about justice and corruption in this state? Charlie Crist and Bill McCollum. They seem content to let miscarriages of justice continue and potentially innocent men to continue to sit in jail. (Inmates, after all, don't have very deep pockets when it comes to campaign contributions.)
2) The legal process to get DNA testing for Gary Bennett -- another man who has been behind bars for more than 25 years -- has begun. Both the Innocence Project and Centurion Ministries believe he will be the fourth man proven by science to have been wrongly convicted in connection with this dog-handler. (And the Centurion Ministries has prevailed in something like 80-90 percent of the cases it has pursued.)
Between these two stories, news of the mess in Brevard has gone international. I've seen it carried everywhere from Canada to Europe. Even the author of the syndicated "News of the Weird" (Churck Shepherd) has begun following the cases ... because it apparently strikes him as "weird" that things could get -- and remain -- this out of hand.
Among the few who apparently don't find any of this weird or troubling -- at least enough so to do anything serious about it -- are Crist, McCollum and State Attorney Norm Wolfinger."
The commentary can be found at:
http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/news_local_namesblog/2009/11/miscarriages-of-justice-rotten-dog-cases-getting-more-light.html
Harold levy...hlevy15@gmail.com;
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