Scent dog handler retires from Fort Bend County Sheriff's Office
Sheriff claims scent evidence lawsuits unrelated to decision
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CRITICAL CASES
Two Victoria area men have filed suit against Keith Pikett and other investigators.
The suits allege Pikett's methods were flawed and violated the plaintiffs' civil rights:
Calvin Lee Miller, 43, filed suit against Keith Pikett in federal ...
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CRITICAL CASES
Two Victoria area men have filed suit against Keith Pikett and other investigators.
The suits allege Pikett's methods were flawed and violated the plaintiffs' civil rights:
Calvin Lee Miller, 43, filed suit against Keith Pikett in federal court in Victoria on May 12. Yoakum police investigator Collin Lee Campbell also was named in the suit and filed a motion June 23 to dismiss the case against him. He was charged with attacking two elderly women in Yoakum based on the scent dog method, but charges were dismissed when DNA samples did not match.
Michael Buchanek, 55, originally filed suit against Keith Pikett on Jan. 29, 2008. An amended complaint was filed on April 8, 2008. On Feb. 27, 2009, federal judge John Rainey denied Pikett's motion to dismiss the charges against him. Buchanek was considered a person of interest in a murder investigation after a scent dog reportedly followed his scent from the scene to his home. Another man was eventually charged in the case and convicted. Both cases are pending in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas, Victoria Division.
DALLAS - A Texas sheriff's deputy facing lawsuits for claiming his bloodhounds can sniff out bad guys by matching their scents to crime scene evidence will retire at the end of the month, officials said Wednesday.
Fort Bend County Sheriff's Deputy Keith Pikett announced his resignation last week, saying he was ready to "hang it up," Sheriff Milton Wright said.
Pikett is the defendant in at least three pending lawsuits from men who say they were wrongly jailed after the deputy's dogs linked them to crimes. Authorities eventually dropped charges in the cases.
The sheriff and Pikett's attorney said the 63-year-old deputy's retirement is unrelated to the lawsuits. They did acknowledge, however, that new cases slowed to a trickle as law enforcement agencies stopped calling Pikett for help.
"The adverse publicity has certainly shut him down - at least out of county," Wright said.
Pikett did not respond to messages left by The Associated Press. Fort Bend County Attorney Randy Morse, who is defending Pikett in the lawsuits, said the deputy was at retirement age and will maintain an affiliation with the county as a reserve deputy.
Pikett has spent the last two decades training dogs named Clue, James Bond and Columbo to sniff out possible criminals in more than 2,000 scent identification lineups.
During a scent lineup, pieces of gauze or cloth are used to take scent samples from a suspect and others, and then placed in separate coffee cans. A dog is presented a piece of crime scene evidence and then led by Pikett to each can for a whiff. The dog is supposed to signal Pikett if it sniffs a match.
Pikett says his dogs are accurate, and Wright praised him as a "good deputy." Pikett consulted for the FBI; the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; the Texas Attorney General's Office and several Texas police and sheriff's departments.
But some in the legal community have derided Pikett's techniques as junk science with no place in police investigations or the courtroom.
Jeff Blackburn, the founder and chief counsel for the Innocence Project of Texas, said it was "no surprise" Pikett stepped down after being "exposed" in the lawsuits.
"The problem is not Pikett," said Blackburn, who represents three plaintiffs in a lawsuit against the deputy. "The problem is the system that allowed Keith Pikett to become a star witness for the state."
In two lawsuits filed in Victoria, the plaintiffs accuse Pikett of manufacturing evidence and say his scent lineups are merely an "elaborate performance."
One of the plaintiffs is a former captain in the sheriff's department who was accused of killing a state social worker. The other plaintiff spent two months in jail, wrongly accused of the robbery of one elderly woman and the sexual assault of another.
The third lawsuit was filed in Houston on behalf of three men, one of whom was charged with capital murder and held in jail without bond for 16 months. The other two plaintiffs spent nine months and eight months in jail, respectively.
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PE...I agree there are places where dogs excell, but THIS deputy and HIS dogs are the cause of untold grief for innocent peole. He should be gone and take his dogs with him -- good riddance! Now, let him pay every cent he has in punishment for putting people through what innocent people should not experience. I hope he's reduced to eating dog food to survive -- and I hope that's a long time.
January 21, 2010 at 9:53 a.m.Law enforcement will merely look for another excuse to turn their gut feeling into probable cause. Their feel for a case, their gut feeling, their experience in law enforcement, etc., they believe, gives them psychic power.
"The problem is not Pikett," said Blackburn, who represents three plaintiffs in a lawsuit against the deputy. "The problem is the system that allowed Keith Pikett to become a star witness for the state."
January 21, 2010 at 8:13 a.m.Well dog gone it.
January 21, 2010 at 7:52 a.m.