Bulletin: Gary Bennett; Florida; Dog handler John Preston case: Petition posted for immediate hearing before Florida Parole Board. (Link provided);

FROM THE PETITION: "Gary is being represented by the Florida Innocence Project and Centurion Ministries of NJ whose seasoned lawyers all believe in his innocence and he is among a group of men who were all convicted on phony evidence from a doghandler who was proved to be a fraud as well as the testimony of jailhouse snitches who were given reduced sentences for their fraudulent testimony in Brevard County in order to maintain a high conviction rate. Gary is in poor health at the age of 55 and has been abused so severely by other inmates that he had to ask to be placed in protective custody several times. This led to his record showing he was in confinement but did not explain it was voluntary so when a parole examiner saw him recently arbitrarily decided this frail innocent man should spend another 20 yrs in prison on top of the 29 he has already spent which basically equates to a death sentence. We ask that Gary be seen immediately by the parole board and given a chance to spend time with his 83 year old mother who will not survive another 20 yrs while his case is being reviewed in appeals court as well as not being subjected to further abuse by younger gang affiliated inmates trying to extort money from his family.You can read about his case by googling Gary Bennett in the Florida Today newspaper and searching the Florida Innocent Project."

THE PETITION CAN BE FOUND AT:

http://www.change.org/petitions/florida-parole-board-parole-gary-bennett?utm_medium=facebook&utm_source=share_petition&utm_term=friends_wall

BACKGROUND: I have previously published the following "publisher's view" on cases involving the John Preston and Keith Pikett cases:

"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. A recent post to this Blog indicates that Bill Dillon, who was freed after 22 years behind bars (and put there after dog-handler John Preston manufactured evidence to "tie" him to the crime) can be considered case is a third person wrongly convicted on the basis of dog-scent so-called evidence - and the Innocence Project believes that Gary Bennett, who has been behind bars for 25 years, will likely prove to be proven by real science to be the fourth. But this Blog is also concerned about the fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth and who knows how many other innocent people were wrongly convicted on the evidence of John Preston and Keith Pikett. This failure of the criminal justice system to protect people from junk science and pseudo-experts such as Preston and Pikett raises several hugely important question: If state officials are unwilling to restore confidence in their justice systems by aggressively rooting out the wrongful convictions and redressing the individuals who have suffered from them, why haven't the FBI and other and other federal agencies plunged into the task. And why haven't the jurisdictions involved acted with haste to order independent public reviews to satisfy the public that the lapses of their judges and public servants are not being swept away from public view?"

PUBLISHER'S NOTE: The Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. The Star has a "topic" section which focuses on recent stories related to Dr. Charles Smith. It can be found at:

http://www.thestar.com/topic/charlessmith

Information on "The Charles Smith Blog Award"- and its nomination process - can be found at:

http://smithforensic.blogspot.com/2011/05/charles-smith-blog-award-nominations.html

Harold Levy: Publisher; The Charles Smith Blog; hlevy15@gmail.com;