Nov
04
2009
The New York Times ran a story today about IPOT’s dog scent lineup report and Fort Bend County Deputy Keith Pikett, whose work has sent several innocent men to jail. The article details the cases of Curvis Bickam and Ron Curtis, two men who spent months in jail after being identified by Deputy Pikett and his dogs. Both men were eventually released after evidence showed they were innocent. Deputy Pikett claims that his bloodhounds can identify the person who committed a crime by distinguishing between scents from different people and matching it to evidence at a crime scene.
The Times article interviews several individuals including Randy Morse, a county attorney in Fort Bend, who is defending Deputy Pikett. Regarding the reliability of dog scent lineups, he cites a capital murder case in which Deputy Pikett was used to get a conviction and states “We believe in this stuff.”
Also, see the follow up entry in the NY Times blog section.
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