Innocence Project of Florida » John Preston

More About Snitch Testimony in Dillon

Seth — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 14:50:14 +0000

As we chronicled here on Tuesday, Roger Dale Chapman, who testified during William Dillon’s 1981 trial that Dillon made a jailhouse confession, attended Dillon’s compensation hearing on Monday to set the record straight. The news reports don’t really do this riveting moment justice. So I wanted to recount what occurred from my perspective at counsel’s table:

While Dillon was on the stand, he was asked about his time in the county jail. He noted that while he in jail after arrest, he was in a large cell with upwards of 20 inmates and a story about the Dvorak murder came on the TV. Many people asked him about it and Bill stated that he told them “I had nothing to do with that there.”
Dillon also stated that he did not know Roger Dale Chapman, and therefore didn’t know if he had ever spoken with him at the jail. The first time he found out about Chapman was when Chapman was on the stand testifying to the jailhouse confession at trial.
Then Dillon was dismissed and counsel called Roger Dale Chapman to the astonishment of the hearing officers and just about everyone in the room.
Chapman stated that he was in the county jail after being falsely accused of rape. A Sheriff’s Office Agent, Thom Fair, came to him in the jail and made him an agent of the State for the purposes of soliciting damaging admissions from Dillon. Fair threatened Chapman with jail time if he didn’t comply.
Chapman then stated that he went into the “bullpen” where Dillon was being held with many other inmates and, when the story of the murder came on the TV with a picture of Dillon, he asked Dillon whether he did it and Dillon protested his innocence vehemently.
Several days later, Fair came back to the jail to meet Chapman. At this point Fair already knew that medical testing came back which demonstrated that Chapman could not have committed rape. Yet, when Chapman stated that Dillon didn’t give him anything and maintained his innocence, Fair held out his hand and stated “I have your life in the palm of my hand and if you don’t give me something on Dillon, I can make that rape charge come back.”
Fair also told Chapman that they had Dillon as their “fall guy.”
Chapman then stated that he didn’t have anything to say so Fair decided to record a statement by Chapman which would implicate Dillon, only when Fair asked the questions about the specifics of the crime, another investigator held up the answers so Chapman could parrot them back for the recording and the eventual transcribed statement.
Dillon’s counsel also entered into evidence secret handwritten notes from Dean Moxley, the Chief Assistant State Attorney, indicating that Chapman may have been made an agent of the State and that they already gave him a bond reduction and they should probably enter into a deal with him.
Chapman then testified at trial that Dillon confessed to him in jail with detail about the crime. Chapman’s rape charge was dropped in exchange.
After this testimony, Chapman apologized to Dillon for contributing to his wrongful conviction.

Obviously, none of this was turned over to the defense before trial and at trial, the State insisted that there was no deal.

This is the most pernicious kind of misconduct. Law enforcement had their mind made up and then just needed to fabricate the evidence to fit that preconceived notion. We call this tunnel vision.

This misconduct seems to have been the norm in Brevard County in the 1980s and the John Preston+snitch formula worked for the State in Dedge and Dillon, and we’ll find out whether it worked in the case of Gary Bennett.

Either way, this is the beginning of the pulling back of the curtain of the muck that regularly served to cause wrongful convictions in Brevard. I suspect it won’t be the last we hear.

NY Times Article on Dog-scent Lineups

Scott — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 22:11:19 +0000

Yesterday the New York Times ran a good article on dog-scent lineups looking particularly at cases in Texas involving that state’s version of discredited dog handler John Preston (see previous coverage of Preston here, here, here, and here.

According to the Times, Deputy Keith A. Pikett of the Fort Bend County, Tex., Sheriff’s Department, serves as a consultant to law enforcement agencies around Texas using his home-trained bloodhounds (named Columbo, Quincy and Clue) and has performed thousands of scent lineups since the 1990s.

The controversy surrounding him and the cases on which he has worked is essentially a mirror of what’s gone on in this state with John Preston. Makes you wonder how widespread the use of dog-scent lineups is in other states around the country, and more importantly, how many innocent individuals are wrongfully incarcerated as a result

Gary Bennett article in Florida Today

Lenore — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 16:18:42 +0000

Last week I posted a blog about Gary Bennett, who has spent 25 years in jail due in part to John Preston and his scent dogs. Today an article runs in Florida Today outlining Gary Bennett’s case and his pursuit for DNA testing.

Bennett was convicted in the 1984 rape and murder of his neighbor, Helen Nardi, despite contradicting evidence such as alibis from several witnesses stating he was elsewhere, passing a polygraph, and no conclusive results tying him to the crime. The details of the crime and the circumstances surrounding the victim are quite revolting.

Nardi was 55 when she was stabbed to death with an ice pick, a pair of scissors and possibly a steak knife and a screwdriver.

Records in the case indicated that she was having regular sexual relations with her 65-year-old son-in-law, a man who married Nardi’s 16-year-old daughter when he was 53.

The state allowed the marriage to spare Nardi’s daughter from being put into the child welfare system because Nardi allegedly sold her for sexual favors to pay the rent.

The son-in-law, Kermit Parkins, was never considered a suspect in the case despite the unusual relationships. Later, police discovered that Parkins used to rent a trailer from the lead investigator in the case, Palm Bay police Detective Leroy Dunning.

The personal relationship with lead investigator Dunning explains why Parkins was exempt as a suspect, which he should have been from the moment they discovered his affair with Nardi. As the article points out, this situation is similar to that in Bill Dillon’s case where the lead investigator had sexual relations with a key witness.

Centurion Ministries alongside with the Innocence Project of Florida are helping Bennett to obtain the DNA testing that could prove his innocence and hopefully re-investigate the case, taking Parkins in as a key suspect.

Another Man Convicted by Preston’s Dogs

Lenore — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 13:26:08 +0000

Gary Bennett, who has spent 25 years in prison, may be the fourth person exonerated in Brevard County based on John Preston’s scent dogs. Since being convicted with rape and murder in 1984, Bennett has claimed his innocence. Now he has several innocence projects on his side – New Jersey’s Centurion Ministries and the Innocence Project of Florida. The request for DNA testing in Bennett’s case was filed last Friday.

Florida officials have been pushed for years to run an investigation on all the cases John Preston testified in too see if any others may have been wrongfully convicted, yet Governor Charlie Crist, Attorney General Bill McCollum and State Attorney Norm Wolfinger still refuse.

“It is simply nonsensical to say that this is the way that the system is supposed to work,” said the Innocence Project of Florida’s Seth Miller, who is serving as local counsel for the Centurion Ministries. “Waiting two-and-a-half decades for a chance at justice is not justice.”

Officials with the Centurion Ministries agree.

Centurion Ministries is a truly miraculous organization. They have exonerated more than 40 people since their founding in 1980. Undoubtedly one of the longest standing innocence projects, exonerating a large amount of people.

For more on John Preston, take a look at our previous blogs about him.

The FBI’s new scent technology

Lenore — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 14:59:51 +0000

According to an Indianapolis news station, the FBI has developed a new scent preservation technology that can “literally bottle up a person’s distinct odor.”

The STU 100 Portable Vacuum Collection Unit absorbs the scent into a sterile pad, which makes it possible for the scent to be accessed later when needed. Ideally, the uncontaminated scent pads will be taken to K-9 units for tracking.

It seems a rather inconvenient time for the FBI to put this technology to use with all the current uproar about the unreliability of scent dogs, especially with the growing number of exonerations due to dogs’ mistakes. Since our last mention of Keith Pikett, the Texas Deputy responsible for the bloodhounds that put innocents like Calvin Lee Miller and Michael Buchanek behind bars, there has been at least one more innocent person (Curvis Bickham) released from prison who was put there partly due to Pikett’s dogs. And of course, there were many more innocent people convicted because of John Preston’s dogs. Perhaps we should come to terms with the fact that scent is another junk science and we should put it aside.

If you’d like to learn more about the unreliability of scent dogs, here is an interesting report from the Innocence Project of Texas entitled “Dog Scent Lineups: A Junk Science Injustice,” released last Monday.

Bill Dillon on the Radio

Seth — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 21:25:10 +0000

Bill Dillon appeared on Deminski and Doyle on 94.7 WCSX, Detroit’s Rock Station to talk about his case. The segment lasted roughly 13 minutes and is a really great conversation on Bill’s case and the corruption that is systemic in Brevard County.

It is exciting that Bill’s case and the infamous John Preston is becoming a national story, and this should be a lesson to folks in power who think that they can avoid this issue because the public doesn’t care.

You can listen to the segment here.

Well Said: Florida Today Questions Legitimacy of Wolfinger Investigation

Seth — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 12:50:10 +0000

Yesterday, Florida Today’s editorial board asserted that the proposed Brevard State Attorney investigation into the John Preston cases does not go far enough as it is narrowly tailored to rape and murder cases where the defendant is still in prison.

We argued pretty much the same thing last week stating that the investigation should include any case that Preston even sneezed at and we wondered whether Wolfinger and his people can even be trusted to perform such an investigation considering that they have performed two such investigations in the past, one of which they approved of Preston’s work and the other they never found Bill Dillon’s case who was later exonerated.

A week has gone by and we still think that this investigation is more likely an attempt to make this whole mess go away now so it will not be politically inconvenient for Wolfinger as he begins another run for State Attorney.

Dillon CNN piece from the other night

Seth — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 22:10:38 +0000

In case you missed it, here is the piece on Bill Dillon and fraudulent dog handler John Preston, as shown on Anderson Cooper 360:

We’ll try and get a hold of the really great commentary by Anderson Cooper and Jeffrey Toobin on junk science. As soon as we do, we will post it.

AC 360 Take 10

Seth — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 13:22:44 +0000

Here at Plain Error, we have chronicled the drawn out saga of Bill Dillon’s appearance on AC360 on CNN. Anderson Cooper’s folks came down to Brevard County about six weeks ago to film a great segment with Bill and Melissa Montle from IPF.

The first time it was to appear, we got bumped at the last minute when SC Guv Mark Sanford decided, unbeknown to his staff or family, to take a weeklong hiking trip on the Appalachian Trail (code for secretly flying to another continent to rendezvous with his Argentinian mistress). We understood that this was big political news, as far as sex scandals go.

Then it was supposed to be on the next day. But at 5:00 we got the news of Jacko’s death. We have two wars in the middle east, a nuclear North Korea, a big legislative fight over carbon taxes and universal healthcare, and our story gets bumped for the better part of five weeks for Wacko Jacko.

Then we get the call yesterday that the segment will finally air after weeks of MJ mania had finally died down. At the last minute, however, we find out that police searched MJ’s doctor’s home, which reignited the Michael Jackson furor. That and a rabbit that walks upright bumped us again!!!

So here we are, with word from CNN that the Dillon segment will finally run tonight on AC360, 10 PM on CNN. Clear out all the false alarm AC360s from your Tivos and DVRs, and tune into CNN for news about IPF or maybe just another trivial development involving Michael Jackson that no one really cares about.

Preston and the Magical Dog: Prosecutor relents and candidates weigh in

Seth — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 20:57:40 +0000

We had a big weekend on the Brevard County/John Preston front. We we have noted here, here, and here, that there has been mounting pressure on Brevard prosecutor, Norman Wolfinger, to do the simply task of looking through his own files to determine any cases that may have involved John Preston.

Wolfinger continually said that he wouldn’t do that, instead arguing that it was up to individual inmates to challenge their convictions that may have been tainted by John Preston and his magic dogs. Meanwhile, Florida Today and the local public defender commenced their own investigations into identifying the universe of John Preston cases.

Now, the state attorney’s office has finally realized that it may be wise to get out in front of this issue before it gets out of control. from Florida Today’s Saturday edition, Wolfinger said:

I asked my staff to re-review the cases we can identify as involving John Preston. To the best of my knowledge, there are four people in prison today who had cases in which Preston and one of his dogs were used.

Wolfinger also explained that his office did an examination of the Preston cases in 2004 after Wilton Dedge’s exoneration and that they believed then, and they believe now that three of the four people still in prison, possible because of Preston’s fraud, are in fact guilty. He also noted that this re-review would be limited to sexual battery and murder cases

One way to look at this is that it is better late than never. But there are a so many problems with these statements. First, as I stated int he article, this proposed state attorney reinvestigation is too narrow. It only looks at those cases where Preston was involved and the subject is still in prison. But the offending acts took place over twenty-five years ago. Those affected may have been released or maybe even are deceased. Or maybe they pled when they were confronted with Preston’s conclusions. And what about the cases that are not rape and murders? So this proposed investigatio is clearly not adequate.

Second, and probably most disturbing, is that when they reviewed the cases in 2004, after Dedge, they apparently didn’t even turn up Bill Dillon’s case. As we all know, Bill was an IPF client who was exonerated last fall. So how thorough could they have been and how thorough can we expect them to be this time around.

Third, can we trust them? The reason folks of all stripes have been urging an outside investigation is that no one really believes that an internal investigation will be anything more than a CYA mission. Despite all the highminded rhetoric about justice and innocence, when Wolfinger’s office did a review of Preston’s work in the 1980s, his office determined that it was sound and admissible and that critiques about the Preston’s veracity or reliability were mere complaints by guilty litigants. The same people who came to that conclusion then, are still with the state attorney’s office and will likely be the one’s who perform the proposed re-review.

This is a classic example of the ox guarding the henhouse. Luckily, as the Orlando Sentinel noted on Sunday, candidates for Florida’s highest office are weighing in on the side of accountability:

At that moment in 1984, every one of the cases in which Preston testified should’ve been reviewed.

So says State Sen. Dan Gelber, a former prosecutor and one of two Democrats hoping to face the Republican Kottkamp in the attorney general’s race next fall. “The nightmare of any prosecutor is to put an innocent person in jail,” Gelber said. “It’s an abomination of the system.”

His Democratic opponent, Dave Aronberg, agreed. “The attorney general has an obligation to do justice, no matter what. And justice is not just convictions,” he said. “I will look at this. I will not ignore it.”

So there is hope, I guess. Lots of rhetoric, we’ll see about the action and whether it is honest, or a self-serving attempt to make this issue go away.