Polygraphs and Scent Dogs

Sometimes forensic science is like a good barber with bad scissors.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
If you're gonna place your left hand on the Bible
and raise your right hand, and please repeat after me
and I do solemnly swear theven titled action find the
defendant guilty of the crime. It makes no sense, it
doesn't fit. If it doesn't fit, you must equit. We
all took the same of office. We're all bound by

(00:23):
that common commitment to support and defend the Constitution. Do you
you bear true faith and allegiance to the same that
you faithfully discharge the duties of our office? Do you
solemnly swear or affirm that the testimony you're about to
give will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing
but the truth. From Tenderfoot TV and I Heart Radio,
this is Sworn. I'm your host, Philip Holloway. My name

(00:51):
is William Michael Dillon. I was arrested for murder in August,
for a crime I didn't commit. I'm released in November eighteen,
two thousand and eight. Thank you for the keepers of
justice took me away when I was a teen, not

(01:11):
really mar than the far justly sent to Hell's prison
to see my faith, only my will to survived. Let
me read that game. Let me read that again. We
read that a game dead said like roads and like justice.

(01:39):
Third it will be done like go to lock. Lady
just has lost its war. Song you heard at the

(02:06):
beginning of the episode is called Black Robes and Lawyers
by William Dillon. William is another innocent man who we
met through the California Innocence Project. He was convicted after
a series of mistakes and misconduct in the legal system.
His story caught my attention because of faulty forensic evidence.
I'll let him tell you about it. Before I went

(02:28):
to prisoner was very shy when I was released. Through
this journey got this voice to start talking about the journey.
As horrific as it was, it was also inspiring to
look back on, like walking through the fire and coming
out in shiny air. When I was wrongfully convicted, I

(02:49):
was sitting in Florida State Prison, total hellhole, and I
had been put in isolation for being assaulted. They didn't
allow me to have anything, so I started writing Robes
and Lawyers on the toilet paper with a little plastic
vendible pen that they gave me. It wasn't a song.
It was sort of like a testament to the fact
that nobody was listening to me, so I felt that

(03:12):
this was a way to speak it out. My journey
started in I was twenty years old, six days away
from me in one and I was arrested for murder
of a man on a beach. My brother part we
were checking out the waves. The detectives came up to

(03:34):
the car and told us they were investigating a murder.
A man had been beaten on a beach. I told
him that I didn't have anything to do with and
it didn't know anything about it other than the fact
that it happened over on over that side over there,
and to that point that they began to ask me
to get out of the car. I told him that

(03:56):
I had a prior engagements whatever that we needed to go,
and they said, okay, that's fine. Can you come back
tomorrow at the Sheriff's office. I said, sure, no problem,
And that was basically just to get out of there.
I wasn't involved and I didn't want to be involved
in it personally. Days past, I had forgotten all about
our interview, and next thing you know, seems that the

(04:20):
police had come down to a beach a few miles
north of that beach to where my brother was and
asked him if he had seen me. I show up
there a little while later, and he says, Bill, the
police were here. I called him and I told him
where I was, and within a matter of minutes they
were coming with sirens. Blaren came and all the exits

(04:43):
and says, we have to take you downtown. I was
a little a little scared about it, but I went
with him. They questioned me, of course I really didn't
know a lot of the answers answering questions of ten
days prior, and one of them, where were you? I
honestly did no, So I gave them a bunch of
places that I might have been. It just so happens

(05:05):
that I frequent in a bar that was across the
street of the place where the man was killed. I
see instances like this in my work all the time,
Innocent people who talk to the police because they've got
nothing to hide, at least in their mind, But unwittingly
they wind up giving authorities incriminating information anyway, even if

(05:25):
they had nothing at all to do with the case.
The advice I give to people is not to talk
to the police ever. Just don't do it. Hell, even
the police will tell you it's in your best interest
not to talk to them. It's counterintuitive. People think that
if they talk to the police, they can prove their innocence.

(05:46):
But I've seen over and over again people give away
information that just happens to connect them with a crime,
even one they didn't commit, things like in William's case,
going to a bar nearby knowing that the crime took
place at all, or even knowing someone distantly connected to
the case. If you give the police, or any government

(06:07):
authority for that matter, the kind of information that even
remotely connects you to a crime, or even the area
of a crime, then suddenly you were involved. There are
no consequences. However, if you refuse to talk to the police,
you have an absolute right to remain silent. It's a
constitutional right. It's one that our servicemen and women have

(06:27):
fought and died for for generations. The police know this,
judges know this, and juries are not ever even told
if someone exercises their right to remain silent. Next thing,
you know, she says, can you sign this piece of paper?
So I looked at the paper, make sure it wasn't
a confession of any kind, and it was some sort
of agreements to do something or whatever that didn't involve

(06:50):
me in my mind. So I signed the paper. She
told me, before you go, we don't need this paper.
Go ahead and waded up and throw it in the
trash can. So I took the paper and waded it
up through in the trash can. She says, no, waded
up real good. So I took both my hands and
bawled it up like a baseball. That night, the police
came back. They knocked on the door and my dad

(07:13):
answered the door. They said, we have some questions for
your son. If he passes these tests, we won't bother
him anymore. They took me down to a courthouse. Finally,
a man came out of another door. He says, come
with me. He doesn't say who he is or nothing,
he just says come with me. So I walked with him,

(07:33):
and just to my left as I go in the
door as another door with a big mirror on it.
It's one way glass and there's a chair to the right,
a big sofa chair. He takes that chair and turns
that chair towards is facing the door, and then he
tells me to sit in the chair, and he says,
hold up, before you do that, face that wall, which

(07:55):
is my left ear facing the door, and he says,
take your right hand and pull your hair all the
way over to the right. Now my hair is on
my shoulders. Description that they put out for the killer
is short haired with a dark, medium length mustache. I've
never had a mustache in my life. So what he
wanted me to do was look like I had short

(08:16):
hair to somebody was behind the glass. I did not
know this at the time, and it didn't occur to me.
I was just passing their test. Supposedly, the man that
had picked up the killer was behind the glass, and
he was supposed to be identifying whoever it was that
they had in the room. I was supposed to look

(08:37):
like I was a passenger in his vehicle, so if
he looks at me, he's looking at my left side.
He was legally blind, but of course he was driving
a car, and I've always asked that question, how can
somebody be legally blind and driving a truck. So what
they did is they made me come in and look
at the wall, pull my hair all the way over

(08:58):
to the right, so it looked like I had short
hair to a person that can't see that well. Eyewitness
testimony is questionable and dangerous to begin with, But when
William was telling me this story, I was shocked at
the links these investigators took to match him with the
description of the criminal. I have never in my career

(09:20):
heard of an instance where a suspect was asked to
alter his or her appearance to better fit an eyewitness description,
let alone from a man who is legally blind. There
have been huge advances in what we now know about
eyewitness testimony and the problems associated with it since this
case occurred, But I'm honestly shocked that this kind of

(09:41):
procedure happened in my lifetime. Facts be known as the
guy did not ide me, but they lied. They said
that he did, and then they started to tumble from
that point on. Within a matter of minutes, doors slam's
open and a big, huge, gentleman shepherd starts, I mean
into the room. The dog's name was harassed too. He

(10:04):
came over by me, sniffed all around me. It was
kind of frightening. The officer pulled him back and says,
how does it feel to be tracked by? Harassed too?
He walked out the room and never saw him again.
The dog Harassed Too was used to snip on the
paper that I watered up. Then they supposedly watered up

(10:26):
four other pieces of paper put it in the lineup,
and harass Too is supposed to have picked my piece
of paper off of a shirt that the killer left
in a truck. And that's really what made me the suspect.
Along with that salty eyewitness testimony, this aspect of William's case,

(10:46):
the use of a scent dog, struck me as an
important aspect of the legal system. What scientific processes are
police investigators using to find criminals and what happens when
that science is not used the right When I'm not
working on this podcast or working on my own cases
in court, sometimes I'm brought into our sister podcast Up

(11:07):
and vanished. Fans of that show might recognize the next
woman we spoke with, Tracy Sergeant, is a certified canine
search and rescue specialist. After hearing about how William's case
was led astray by a scent dog, I wanted to
speak with Tracy about how she uses her canines and
the ways in which they should and should not be used,

(11:29):
particularly in criminal cases. My name is Tracy Trace Sergeant.
I've been involved with canine operations for about twenty seven years,
currently involved in investigations and missing person cases as well
as production work. The question I get quite often is

(11:49):
that how do you make your dogs do this, Tracy?
And I'm like, oh, I do not. I'm really the
chauffeur so to speak, to transport the dogs to the
locations that we need them to serve, and then we
just let the magic happen. My dogs are specifically trained
to find missing persons, both dead and alive, and that's
all they do. They tell us two things every time

(12:13):
that they are used, regardless of the case, whether it's
a life person or a deceased person. Those two things
are they'll tell us where something is, and they'll tell
us where something isn't. And it's interesting, Phil, When I
started this, I was really blindfolded and you know, focusing
on finding what we're looking for. Through the years and

(12:36):
my experience, I've discovered that knowing where somebody isn't it
is just as important and as helpful as whereas somebody is.
For a life sent dog, we all smell very unique
and different to that dog. But when we die, regardless
of our background, whether we're male or female, or demographics

(12:58):
where we live. It is a matter to the dog.
Death is life's perfect equalizer. Human remains scent is human
remains scent to the dogs, regardless of how long that
person has been deceased. I asked Tracy what made dogs
in particular a good resource for finding missing people. They

(13:19):
have to have that keen sense of smell just to survive. Also,
their body is actually designed in such a way that
makes them the perfect scent detecting machine, so to speak.
The way their brain is shaped and design their nose,
their ears, their drive to want to use that nose.

(13:43):
We live through our eyes. Dogs live through their nose.
When you look at it from that perspective, it really
is a different way of looking at the world. And
I would say the biggest difference between them and let's
say other animals that also have a very keen sense
of smell is that bond and relationship that dogs want

(14:06):
to have with us naturally, and that's what sets them apart.
They are truly the epitome of man's best friend. In
one part, it's a unique situation. They are a partner,
they are part of the investigative team, They are also
a very unique resource or tool in the toolbox the

(14:28):
investigators use. However, dogs should not be associated with That's
the only thing that this case is going to stand on.
We are a very small part of this investigative puzzle
that we're trying to put together. We meaning myself, other investigators,

(14:54):
law enforcement, the family, even the media. Whatever my dogs
do or don't do, it's not quote a smoking gun,
so to speak. It's simply part of the investigation. It
should be based on the strength of the evidence and

(15:14):
compounded by whatever additional evidence they have in addition to
what the dogs do or don't do. Can your dogs
identify someone in the lineup from evidence that's found at
a crime scene? In other words, can they match a
specific person with a specific item of evidence. I would say,

(15:37):
you can train a dog if it has the right
drives and temperament and personality, you can train them for
almost anything. So I would say, as a broad stroke answer, yes,
but it's not something that I do personally. My dogs
aren't trained to do that, nor would I train my
dogs to do that. Dog handlers and dogs themselves, everybody

(16:02):
is different. How they approach something might be a little
bit different. But nonetheless the same amount of professionalism, ethics,
and integrity and character and honesty, preparation, preparing yourself as
a handler, that means mentally physically in the training, preparing

(16:25):
the dog, and again that means physically mentally in training.
All of that is the important part of it. After

(16:52):
talking with Tracy, I feel like I had a better
handle on how canines can be used as just one
of many tools in an investigation. But I know from
the cases that I see all the time that some
science is junk science and it simply should not be
used at all, or at least not in the way
that it is commonly used in the criminal justice system.

(17:13):
Some of this so called science has become outdated, it's
become debunked. I wanted to speak with an expert on
the legal ramifications of debunk science, somebody who sees these
types of cases all the time. This is Amelia max Field.
I'm the forensic science specialist at the Pennsylvania Innocence Project.

(17:35):
To the bulk of our work is trying to rectify
a wrongful conviction. On the back end, my caseload is
primarily flawed forensic science cases, cases where a person was
convicted based on a science that either was invalid at
the time or was used improperly. It's so hard to
pick mistakes on the back end. If we can make

(17:55):
a difference on the front end and educating judges and
juries and lawyers about these issues, and in trying to
keep unreliable forensic sciences out of court in the first place,
we can make a bigger difference in ensuring that block
forensic sciences aren't being used in court. Forensic science developed
in the law enforcement community, save for DNA testing, which

(18:18):
was developed as an actual science, all other forensic sciences
were developed as front fighting tools, not as sciences. These
things were admitted in court for work decades without anyone
questioning whether or not they were valid. In two thousand nine,
the National Academies of Science issued kind of a landmark

(18:38):
report looking at forensic science, and they found that everything
except for nuclear DNA testing lacked scientific validity. Essentially, it
undermined every forensic science except for straightforward nuclear DNA testing,
so that even doesn't include things like DNA mixture analysis,
which has some limits as well. I asked Amelia which

(19:02):
forensic sciences are the most unreliable and just why some
of these common law enforcement tools can be considered more
subjective than scientific any discipline where as a human is
just looking at the futures of one item and then
looking at the features of another item and comparing them
to determine whether they match or not. Things like white
mark care comparison, tire shot analysis, old school arts and analysis,

(19:27):
and even where you are just looking at a pattern
and not even includes fingerprint analysis. Fingerprint analysis and ARSON
are the only ones since two thousand nine that have
gone back and tried to validy, But traditionally fingerprint analysis
is just a person comparing two pictures of fingerprints and
determining for themselves whether or not they matched. I think

(19:47):
if you pulled the average criminal defense layer an average prosecutor,
they wouldn't really know how a fingerprint is examined. They
would assume it's like C S I and someone puts
it into a fancily computer and then it spits out
a match. That's actually not how it works at all.
Working in a state lab is a grueling job. You
have an extremely high caseload, you are not paid extremely well,

(20:10):
and your access to continuing education into proper training is
pretty limited. Most people are expected to sort of learn
on the job, whereas we should be training experts in
a uniform and unbiased way. Most labs are in the
control of the state, so even though individual analysts don't

(20:31):
necessarily think of themselves as an arm of the prosecution,
they really are part of the prosecution team. They're funding
typically comes through the state and the district attorney's budget.
Sometimes we should have some sort of licensing body, something
similar to the f d A, to test out emerging
forensic sciences to be sure that they're valid before they're

(20:51):
admitted in court. Many of these unreliable forensic sciences were
first admitted in very high profile cases. The first time
bite marks were admitted in Florida was in the Ted
Bundy case. The prosecution really needs a conviction, so they
reach outside of the bounds of what the discipline can
actually say and admit an unvalid discipline, And in a

(21:16):
case like that, a judge is much less likely to
not admit evidence that could convict someone because the stakes
are higher. I think we need some sort of body
to validate these disciplines as they emerge. Science inherently evolved.
If you're going to be using evidence that changes and
developed to secure conviction, you have to be open to

(21:39):
revisiting that conviction as the science or the evidence changes
and evolved. Because so many of these wrongful conviction cases

(22:07):
include flawed forensic science. There's a lot more to cover here,
particularly as Amelia mentioned the problems with bite marks. But
a perfect storm of circumstances came together in William's case
that led to his wrongful conviction, and there's more to
his story. So they take me and put me in

(22:30):
a room with a bunch of police officers. It's not
like the television where they put you in a room
and there's two guys come in and talk to you.
And this is like five, six of them. They were
all different places, and they're all talking to me at
once about different things. And I kept admirably denying any
involvement in I didn't know any answers. I wasn't involved. Finally,

(22:52):
they said, will you take a lot of detector tests?
And I said, sure, I will. So they put me
in a jail cell, gave me this plastic mattress with
no sheets, no pellos, no nothing. I go up to
the lie detector, do everything he tells me to do.
The chief investigator, he says, we got you your lying.

(23:13):
I said, you got the wrong guys said, and I
don't have anything to do with it. Must be something
wrong with your machine. The results of polygraph tests or
lie detectors are not admissible in court. And there's a
good reason. I know from first hand personal experience that
it is possible to fail a lot of detector tests
on purpose. It is possible to pass a lot detector

(23:35):
tests when you have lied, and it is possible to
fail a lot of detector tests when you have told
the truth. Polygraphs and a lot of detectors are simply unreliable,
and the only people that I know who advocate for
their use these days are the polygraph examiners themselves, the
people who have an interest in the business surviving. Eventually,

(23:56):
they had gotten tired and they were ranting, and Raven
and I kept putting up to say a thing, and
finally I said, Okay, we'll offer you five years manslaughter.
Don't worry about it. You'll do the two years and
you'll be on your own. You'll beat free. I said,
I'm not taking any deals. I didn't have anything to
do with it. I'm not taking no kind of deal. Finally,
I said, okay, we're gonna put you in an electric chair.

(24:17):
You're gonna be arrested for first degree murder felony murder.
I said, you got the wrong guy. They locked me
up and sent me to the county jail. Another commonality
that we see among people who are wrongfully in prison
is the situation where the government comes along and they
offer an incredible deal if someone just pleads guilty. I

(24:39):
was arrested on August and I was convicted by November.
I saw my lawyer twice. He asked me to write
down what I remember about the night. The next time
I saw him was to get a haircut. When William
told me he only saw his lawyer twice before his trial,

(25:00):
I was horrified. That's just not enough time to get
the job done right now. I get the defense council,
particularly public defenders. They're often stretched thin, but it's like
going to a good barber with bad scissors. They may
have the best of intentions, but if they don't have
the tools or the time to get the job done,

(25:21):
you're going to get a bad result. My experience in
the trial was very aggravating for me, not factual in
any way. Most of the information came from people that
I had given the police, people I might have been
with on the night of the murder took place. Their

(25:41):
statements initially were that I wasn't involved, but progressively their
statements got worse and worse as time went on. The
next thing, I knew my friends that I told him
I was either at their place or somewhere, have me
with blood on me in a shirt that was found
in the truck. And also I was saying that I

(26:02):
did something terrible. One of the most shocking things William
told us was that the state's main witness was a
woman William had been on a handful of dates with.
She testified that William was at the scene of the crime,
covered in blood, vocally admitting to the murder. It came
out only after his trial was over that this woman
was having a sexual affair with the chief investigator on

(26:25):
William's case. But for his friends to also turn on
him means that they were probably some other kinds of
deals being made behind the scenes. He was promising our
jobs and certain things, and they got the guys that
were involved that we're selling weed or doing this or
that there that they would look the other way or

(26:46):
they wouldn't bother him with this if they just saw
me in the shirt or just put me at a
certain place. It only lasted four days, I think, convicted
me within forty five minutes. My father chester five. My
sister testified. When I took the stand, I felt like,
now I was going to get the truth out. The

(27:08):
factually is that I actually don't remember the night as
far as it goes, you know, to put it down
to pin points, that I was right here at this point,
at this certain time. That didn't help the situation. But
at the same time, I didn't make me a murderer either.
I mean, I was being as truthful as I could.
I mean, I guess if I was a murderer, i'd
have an out by at least close to something. One
question I'll always remember prosecutor asking me, She says, Mr Dillon,

(27:31):
do you mean to tell me that all the people
here are lying and that you're the only one telling
the truth. And I said, yes, ma'am, not just the
way it seems to me. And it took twenty seven years,
but I proved it. I was sentenced life with the
mandatory quarter I had to serve at least twenty five
years before I was eligible for parole. I had served

(27:55):
every single day of maximum security, and I went up
for parole, I to my twenty six year and he
gave me a date. It was like thirty years off.
So I was never gonna see any freedom. They weren't
going to release me. William was exonerated in two thousand
and eight with the help of the Innocence Project of
Florida and DNA testing from the shirt found in the

(28:17):
witnesses truck. He has been cleared of all charges after
spending twenty seven years of his life locked away in
a prison. There's so much to talk about in the
area of forensic science, particularly junk science, so we're going
to spend next week's episode covering more stories. Next time

(28:41):
on sworn. Our system in California here is probably one
of the biggest prison systems in the world. We have
more people in prison here than most countries. I kind
of described it like being the bottom of a well.
You're looking up at this you know you're innocent only
with their sayings a lie, but you can't get any representation.

(29:03):
NET would stand up and present this. Let a description
be jumping out of airplane without a parachute. You know
you're gonna die, but you just keep lapping your ears anyway.
Sworn is a production of Tenderfoot TV and I Heart Radio.
Our lead producer is Christina Dana. Executive producers are Payne

(29:25):
Lindsay and Donald Albright for Tenderfoot TV, Matt Frederick and
Alex Williams for I Heart Radio, and myself Philip Holloway.
Additional production by Trevor Young, Mason Lindsay, Mike Rooney, Jamie Albright,
and Halle Beadall original music and sound designed by Makeup
and Vanity Set. Our theme song is Blood in the

(29:47):
Water by Layup. Show art and design is by Trevor Eisler,
editing by Christina Dana, Mixing and mastering by Mike Rooney
and Cooper Skinner. Special thanks to the team at I
Heart Radio from u t a or In Rosenbound and
Grace Royer, Ryan Nord and Matthew Papa from the Nord

(30:09):
Group back Media and Marketing, and Station sixteen. I'd also
like to extend a very personal and special thanks to
all of our contributors and guests who have helped to
make all of these episodes possible. You can find Sworn
on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram at sworn podcast and follow
me your host, Philip Holloway on Twitter at phil Holloway

(30:33):
e s Q. Our website is sworn podcast dot com
and you can check out other Tenderfoot TV podcasts at
www dot tenderfoot dot tv. If you have questions or comments,
you can email us at Sworn at tenderfoot dot tv
or leave us a voicemail at four zero four for

(30:55):
one zero zero four four one as always and I
for listening, Tell us what the Axono E Band is.
The Axonorey Band is a group of guys that have
all been wrongfully convicted for numbers of years, And myself,
Raymond Taler, Antoine Day, Eddie Lowry and uh Ted Bradford

(31:20):
and all of those people were wrongfully convicted, every one
of them. Wow.