John Floyd was tried for the murders of William Hines and Rodney Robinson at a bench trial before Judge Jerome Winsberg in January 1982.  

Mr. Hines and Mr. Robinson were murdered in identical circumstances during the week of Thanksgiving 1980 within a mile of each other (one was murdered at the Fairmont Hotel and one on Governor Nicholls St. in the French Quarter). Both victims were gay men who apparently had consensual sex with their killer before being stabbed to death in the neck and torso. Police found two half-filled whiskey glasses at both crime scenes, as well as enough physical and witness evidence to eventually exclude Mr. Floyd from Mr. Robinson’s murder.

Two months later, in January 1981, Detective John Dillmann met Mr. Floyd in a bar where he was drinking. The detective bought Mr. Floyd a beer and later in the night arrested him and interrogated him about both crimes; obtaining a confession to both.

The confessions are very similar and the confession to the Hines murder contains a reference to the Robinson murder.

The case against Mr. Floyd relied heavily on these two confessions. Investigating officers mishandled evidence at the Hines crime scene, failed to disclose exculpatory results and evidence, and made probative testing unavailable to the defense by hiding testable evidence. Because of this misconduct, evidence from the Hines crime scene could not undermine the confession.  Crime scene evidence led Judge Winsberg to find Mr. Floyd not guilty of the Robinson crime in spite of his confession. Nevertheless, despite the similarity of the crimes and confessions, he was convicted of the Hines murder at the same trial as he was acquitted of the Robinson murder.

Detective Dillman was later the lead detective in the investigation of the Curtis Kyles case (Kyles v. Whitley is a 1995 United States Supreme Court case that issued a stinging rebuke to the practices of the Orleans Parish District Attorney's Office and New Orleans Police Department).

In another case, the Louisiana Supreme Court found that Detective Dillmann had led a team of police interrogators who beat a suspect into confessing less than two years before he arrested Mr. Floyd.

Years later, Detective Dillman took took case files from the New Orleans Police Department while he was writing a book about the case. Having never returned the files, they were later destroyed in his home by Hurricane Katrina.

IPNO recently found significant new evidence of Mr. Floyd’s innocence, including a fingerprint comparison that was never turned over to the Assistant District Attorneys working on the case, or to Mr. Floyd’s lawyer, but revealed that his fingerprints were not on the whiskey glasses found at both crime scenes. IPNO also obtained DNA testing on hairs found at the Robinson crime scene that excludes Mr. Floyd from the scene and establishes that an unknown black man was in bed with the victim immediately before his murder (Mr. Floyd is white).

This evidence, combined with the eyewitness and physical evidence that created reasonable doubt at trial, means it is now absolutely certain Mr. Floyd did not commit the Robinson murder and that his confession was completely false. The State’s case against Mr. Floyd for the Hines murder was solely based on his confession, as all physical evidence was mishandled at the scene and has since been destroyed.

Recent psychological testing shows John has an IQ of 59 and is highly suggestible and highly compliant, making him particularly susceptible to the pressure applied by the police when they interrogated him. It has been conclusively proven that he falsely confessed to one crime during the interrogation in which he confessed to the Hines murder.

On February 2010, Judge Benedict Willard denied Mr. Floyd a new trial in spite of this significant new evidence, much of which was withheld by the State for 28 years.

On May 20, 2011, the Louisiana Supreme Court denied Mr. Floyd’s application for review by a 4-3 vote. The majority gave no reason for not reviewing the case and one of the dissenting judges, Justice Bernette Johnson, argued Mr. Floyd was entitled to a new trial because: “Considering all of the evidence, including Floyd's false confession to the murder of Robinson, Floyd's low IQ and susceptibility to suggestion, the missing police records, the lack of evidence linking Floyd to the murder of Hines, the exculpatory value of the fingerprint  evidence, defendant is entitled to a new trial.”

On September 2, 2011, The Louisiana Supreme Court summarily denied by a 4-2 vote IPNO’s request for it to reconsider its May 20 ruling in Mr. Floyd’s case.

IPNO continues to seek relief for Mr. Floyd from federal courts.

Please tell your friends about John and keep his story alive.

He would love to receive letters and cards of support. You can send them to:

John Floyd - #98651

K9 Unit

Louisiana State Penitentiary

Angola, LA 70712

John’s birthday is June 29.