Today's Temple Daily Telegram has, "Texas House speaker visits Temple's economic engines," in which Joe Straus comments on the case. It's written by Janice Gibbs.
Straus commented on the recent news coverage about the 2004 execution of Cameron Todd Willingham of Corsicana and fire investigation, criticized as flawed, that played a role in him receiving the death penalty. Willingham was convicted for the December 1991 deaths of his three children, who died in a fire that investigators said he started.
The latest report was a 16,000-word article in the Sept. 7 edition of The New Yorker magazine.
Straus said he was aware of the recent article, but had no plans as speaker of the house to revisit the death penalty.
“We’re in a period where I have asked members of the House to submit items for interim studies, so I’m always open-minded to whatever the members seem to want to look at,” he said. “I want the state to be responsible for whatever laws we have on the books, to make sure they are enforced fairly . . . and the death penalty is the most severe case.”
"Point Austin: It's Not About Sharon Keller - The Texas system of justice is found wanting once again," is the title of Michael King's report in the current Austin Chronicle.
The Texas death penalty system has been much in the news of late because of the Keller trial and more recently over the belated exoneration of Cameron Todd Willingham – executed in 2004 for the 1991 arson murder of his three children at his Corsicana home. The case against Willingham rested entirely on the testimony of official investigators who opined that the burned house showed clear and abundant evidence of arson. Thanks in part to the efforts of the Innocence Project, three separate forensic investigations – the latest one an official report to the Texas Forensic Science Commission – concluded that not only was Willingham innocent of murder; no crime had even occurred.
On Aug. 25, the Chicago Tribune reported that forensic scientist Craig Beyler found that the fire marshal who investigated the fire was "wholly without any realistic understanding of fires and how fire injuries are created" and employed theories that "are nothing more than a collection of personal beliefs that have nothing to do with science-based fire investigation." Beyler concluded not only that there was no reason to believe the fire was caused by arson, but that investigators ignored more likely causes (e.g., malfunctioning electrical outlets or appliances).
The story is laid out at length by David Grann ("Trial by Fire") in the Sept. 7 New Yorker and has already been amplified by The New York Times' Bob Herbert ("Innocent but Dead," reprinted in Wednesday's Statesman). In addition to the completely botched arson investigation, equally intriguing about the story is how, once the prosecutors had targeted Willingham, even eyewitnesses began to alter their memories of the night of the fire. If the father had set the fire, he wouldn't have tried to get back into the house to save his kids, they recalled – even if that's what they saw on the night it happened.
The Fort Worth Press posts, "The Governor's Silence," by Peter Gorman.
Unless I missed it, Governor Perry has been awfully quiet in regard to the news–though not new news exactly–that Cameron Todd Willingham was put to death under his watch in 2004 for a crime that was never committed. Willingham was found guilty of arson leading to the deaths of his three young daughters in his home in Corsicana in 1991. He maintained his innocence right up until they put the needles in his arm.
But before Willingham was executed, Perry had on his desk a report from renowned arson investigator Gerald Hurst indicating that the fire was an accident, not arson. And Perry ignored it.
And:
Willingham was put to death in a case where there was no crime committed. It happened on Perry’s watch while he had a report explaining it. He did nothing. Now there’s a new report. He’s saying nothing. His silence speaks volumes.
"The Execution of an Arsonist Who Wasn't," is Slate's most e-mailed story.
Texas executed Cameron Todd Willingham in 2004 on the basis of bunk science, according to experts, perhaps the first time any state has executed an innocent person. The case against Willingham—convicted of killing his three young children in a 1991 fire prosecutors said he set—received a double blow in the past week. First, a new commission on the use of forensic science in the state found that the Willingham investigation was so deeply flawed that the conclusion of arson was invalid. Earlier this week, The New Yorker published a vivid and equally damning account of Willingham's case. In it, David Grann reports similar flaws with the fire investigation (it depended on discredited arson lore rather than the latest arson science) and also in the witness accounts (flush with contradictions) and the supposed confession relayed by a jailhouse informant (a particularly unreliably inmate). While Willingham's case is well-known among people who follow capital punishment debates closely—a Chicago Tribune series on fire investigations later in 2004 also concluded that Willingham had been wrongly convicted, and the Innocence Project has been vigilant about exonerating him—the new evidence and Grann's jarring account have stirred up broader dismay. New York Times columnist Bob Herbert calls this week's revelations "devastating, the kind of disclosure that should send a tremor through one's conscience."
Earlier coverage begins here.
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