Picked From a Lineup, on a Whiff of Evidence - NYT

[Bozita]

Source: NY Times

November 4, 2009
Picked From a Lineup, on a Whiff of Evidence

By JOHN SCHWARTZ


HOUSTON — A dog’s sniff helped put Curvis Bickham in jail for eight months. Now that the case against him has been dropped, he wants to tell the world that the investigative technique that justified his arrest smells to high heaven.

The police told Mr. Bickham they had tied him to a triple homicide through a dog-scent lineup, in which dogs choose a suspect’s smell out of a group. The dogs are exposed to the scent from items found at crime scene, and are then walked by a series of containers with samples swabbed from a suspect and from others not involved in the crime. If the dog finds a can with a matching scent, it signals — stiffening, barking or giving some other alert its handler recognizes.

Dogs’ noses have long proved useful to track people, and the police rely on them to detect drugs and explosives, and to find the bodies of victims of crime and disaster. A 2004 report by the F.B.I. states that use of scent dogs, properly conducted, “has become a proven tool that can establish a connection to the crime.”

Scent lineups, however, are different. Critics say that the possibilities of cross-contamination of scent are great, and that the procedures are rarely well controlled. Nonetheless, although some courts have rejected evidence from them, the technique has been used in many states, including Alaska, Florida, New York and Texas, said Lawrence J. Myers, an associate professor of animal behavior at the Auburn University College of Veterinary Medicine.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/04/us/04scent.html?_r=1&hp

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From the front page of today's NYT.

[Uben]

1. Lie detectors are just as bad....

I had a friend who was stopped in town and put in jail for a robbery he did not commit. Here's how it happened-

He pulls into a convenience store to buy some smokes. Once inside, there is no one at the counter, so he waits a couple of minutes and leaves. As he is leaving the parking lot, he squeals the tires, just like he does every time (we were teenagers). As the employee, who had just been robbed prior to my friend walking in, and was told at gunpoint to stay in the back for five minutes before coming out, was emerging from the rear of the store, he saw my friend leaving the lot with squealing tires. He gave the description of his car to the cops, and he was stopped within minutes, in the middle of town!

Although he was not wearing any of the clothing described by the store employee and had no bag with money in it, the cops arrest him anyway. The employee could not identify him because the robber was wearing a ski mask.

My friend was booked for robbery and given a lie detector test. Due to his extreme nervousness at all this happening to him, he supposedly failed the test. He spent 4 months in jail because he could not afford the bail.

The robber was caught in a town about 50 miles away about a 2 months after the incident, and he confessed to the robbery in my town after being caught red-handed robbing a store.

My friend was released shortly afterwards. He was lucky the guy confessed, or he might still be sittin in that jail!

It was all circumstantial evidence, but was enough to keep him in jail. I will never submit myself to a lie detector test for any reason. They are not reliable enough to decide the fate of a mans life.

[WriteDown]

2. Many will say that your friend should have served even more time....

for the heinous crime of.....smoking.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=6906311&mesg_id=6906311

[Jackpine Radical]

4. Not to mention

the tire-squealing.

[Uben]

14. Nah.....

...back in them days, we made non-smokers stand outside!

[Poll_Blind]

3. Have you ever seen the incredible movie/documentary "The Thin Blue Line"?

It's about a guy who had the murder of a Texas state trooper pinned on him. The documentary was so good it actually got the "convicted" man out of jail. It is an incredible story- beyond incredible. Anyway, the story of your friend is quite different but there were elements of it that reminded me of that movie/documentary. If you haven't checked it out, you should. It's an eye-opener. Also, fantastic score for the movie by composer Philip Glass.

[eppur_se_muova]

11. Seconded. If you only watch one documentary in your life ...

well, your life sucks, but at least watch this one.

[MineralMan]

5. Your friend made a mistake.

He should have called 911 and stayed right there.

That happened to me, once. I went to my bank to make a deposit on a day I forgot was a holiday. As usual, I walked up to the door and walked in. Trouble was, there was nobody in there, and the door wasn't locked.

I walked over to the bank manager's desk and called 911, reported the open door, then went outside and waited for the cops to show up. They called the bank manager after they got there and he came to lock up. Just a mistake on their part.

At a convenience store, I'd be really worried that whoever worked there was sick or hurt and would call 911 and call out to see if there was anyone in there. Then, I'd wait for the cops.

[Lautremont]

7. I don't think you're supposed to call 911 in circumstances like that.

Just call the operator and have them connect you with the regular police - 911 is for emergencies.

[Uben]

13. Hey, people have to go to the bathroom

How was he to know the clerk wasn't just taking the opportunity of an empty store to go take a squat in the rear. I'm sure this happens a thousand times a day in stores where only one employee is present.
Other than the fact that there was no employee in sight, there was nothing out of the ordinary.

This is a small Texas town, in the early seventies, and my friend had long hair....and we know the attitude towards that in the early seventies. You couldn't beat the hate outta these right-wing fundies with a sledge hammer back then!

[bertman]

6. Why is using "fake, pseudo-scientific methods" to imprison someone any different

from kidnapping them and holding them in jail?

Why is using coerced confessions of witnesses or suppressing evidence that proves someone's innocence considered less heinous than kidnapping a person and imprisoning them?

Why are prosecutors and police officers who use illegal methods to convict innocent people not put in prison for THEIR wrongdoing?

If we wanted to cut down on the incidence of wrongly-convicted and -imprisoned Americans, all we would have to do is make it a felony punishable by significant jail time to do any of the above.

Of course, getting the DA's and cops' fellow lawyers and officers to actually prosecute them might be a bit problematic. But it's worth a try.

[sofa king]

12. I'll bet phrenologists were tight with prosecutors in their day, too.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phrenology

[sofa king]

15. And I'll say something else, too.

I'm sure this has been tried, but if this ever happened to me, I'd simply subpoena the damned dog, try to swear it in, and then declare the dog's testimony inadmissible because it can't give an oath.

That's why dogs will never provide solid evidence as they currently communicate, because they require the interpretation of their highly biased masters.

[juno jones]

8. I'm sure heavily scented things like

common soaps, colonges and shaving items would have no part in confusing a dog's scent. I mean, police and their dogs are always right...:sarcasm:

[Hassin Bin Sober]

9. A friend of mine was awakened by a burglar in his bedroom and chased the thief out of the house.

When they arrested the suspect at a bar around the corner, they called my friend in to do a line up.

My friend never got a good look at the thief's face but he could identify his shirt AND his SMELL. The DA wouldn't press charges based on clothing and smell.

[jmm]

10. Even finger print evidence can be questionable

A friend of mine in high school had her finger prints on file for immigration reasons. One Sunday while she was at church with her family a liquor store was robbed by a man with a light complexion who was about six feet tall but the finger prints from a bottle the robber left on the counter were matched to my short Haitian friend. Even after the cashier said she was in no way involved and many witnesses said she was at church she still got treated like a suspect because they didn't want to believe the prints weren't hers.