All dogs may go to heaven, but Kenneth Furton likely won’t.

Dean’s research helps train detector dogs: FIUSM

Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences Kenneth G. Furton’s research with Scientific Working Group on Dog and Orthogonal Detector Guidelines was cited by the United States Supreme Court in the case of Florida v. Harris on Feb. 19, 2013.

“I have actually been doing research now for about almost 20 years on the chemicals that dogs use to locate forensic specimens, including drugs,” said Furton.

Furton’s work with SWGDOG deals with guidelines for the proper training, maintenance and certification of detector dogs.

via Dean’s research helps train detector dogs : FIUSM.

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In Richard Zagrzecki’s April 30, 2010 Houston Chronicle article, “Defense wants dog scent evidence tossed,” Zagrzecki wrote:

“In most cases, (Pikett) is following what is considered best practices,” Furton said.

Pikett meaning Keith Pikett, perhaps the most prolific phony dog handler to come down the pike since John Preston.

I’ve written about some of the Pikett exonerations; most recently that of three members of the Winfrey family.

Rudolpho Dominguez was the man that Furton was assisting prosecutors in keeping behind bars with the assertion that Pikett wasn’t a phony.

In the Southeast Texas Record article of July 28, 2010, “Legally Speaking: Scents and Sensibility-When Evidence Doesn’t Pass the Smell Test (Part 3),” John G. Browning wrote this about Pikett’s participation in the Winfrey prosecutions:

As he had done so often before, Pikett conducted a scent lineup: the scent of the victim was collected by wiping gauze pads on his shirt and pants, and other scent pads were taken from the accused teenagers. The pads were then placed in separate tin cans roughly 10 steps apart, outdoors.

Pikett then had his bloodhound smell a scent pad from the crime scene before walking the leashed dog by the cans, waiting for an “alert” that the bloodhound had found a matching smell: stopping, turning, barking or some other sign.

Pursuant to his usual practice, Pikett did not have the people who placed the pads into the cans wear gloves, nor did he sterilize the cans between lineups.

In the article, mention is made of a jailhouse informant’s testimony against one of the Winfrey’s. Jailhouse informants were used against all three Brevard County, Florida men who got out from under Preston’s perjuries. Two jailhouse informants were used in addition to Preston’s perjuries to frame Gary Bennett.

And it is all related.

Furton testified for Casey Anthony, whom Jeff Ashton prosecuted at the same time he was leading Gary Bennett’s prosecution, after a hopelessly tainted transfer to Ashton’s judicial circuit from Brevard.

Furton is a multi-year federal grant recipient for his scent studies at Florida International University. Our money was worse than wasted, as Furton is going apparently flitting here and there to testify as a hired gun, as incredible as hired guns Pikett and Preston.

The scent evidence expert who testified for one of the Winfrey’s – Dr. I. Lehr Brisbin – is no hired gun … he donates his witness fees for sorting out scent evidence to the University of Georgia.

The last of the Winfrey’s – Megan – is scheduled to be released this month. Note the deep dishonesty of this statement in the court’s recent decision in her case, given Pikett’s “worst practices:”

We do observe that the dog-scent lineup evidence, with the dog alerting to the appellant’s scent on Burr’s clothing, simply indicates that appellant had some contact with Burr’s clothing, although the timing, circumstances and degree of the contact cannot be determined.

Per the linked article, the prosecutor – Richard Countiss – is considering requesting a rehearing.

He likely won’t make it to heaven, either.