Governor Rick Perry's abrupt axing of three members of the Forensics Science Commission has created a firestorm. Let's begin with the national news coverage. The following two posts will contain Texas news coverage, then editorial criticism.
"Texas Governor Defends Shakeup of Commission," is James McKinley's report in today's New York Times.
Just before he was executed in 2004 for setting a fire that killed his three children, Cameron T. Willingham declared, “I am an innocent man convicted of a crime I did not commit.” Now his words seem to be echoing in the race for governor of Texas.
In what some opponents say looks like a political move and Gov. Rick Perry says was “business as usual,” the governor replaced the head of the Texas Forensic Science Commission and two other members on Wednesday, just 48 hours before the commission was to hear testimony from an arson expert who believes that Mr. Willingham was convicted on faulty testimony, a conclusion that has been supported by other experts in the field.
Mr. Perry’s decision to shake up the commission and put one of his political allies in charge has, at the least, delayed the inquiry into the Willingham case. While Mr. Perry says he has no political motive for the move, his opponents have called for the commission to finish its inquiry.
“If a mistake was made in this case, we need to know it,” Tom Schieffer, a Fort Worth businessman and a Democratic candidate for governor, said in a statement. “No one in public life should ever be afraid of the truth.”
Mr. Perry’s opponent in the Republican primary, Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, also questioned what harm the hearing could do. “I am for the death penalty,” Ms. Hutchison told The Dallas Morning News, “but always with the absolute assurance that you have the ability to be sure, with the technology that we have, that a person is guilty.”
Mr. Perry denied Thursday that the changes he had made at the commission were intended to quash the investigation. At a news conference for his re-election campaign, he said, “Those individuals’ terms were up, so we’re replacing them.”
He said the commission was “going to take a look at any new information that anybody has,” adding that “to make a statement now that it was not arson is a little premature.”
The governor was in office when Mr. Willingham was executed on Feb. 17, 2004. He denied the condemned man a reprieve even after a detailed report by an arson expert said the evidence that Mr. Willingham had set the fire was flimsy and inconclusive.
Last month, Mr. Perry expressed confidence that Mr. Willingham was guilty and played down reports casting doubt on the original investigation, calling the authors “supposed experts,” while making a quotes gesture with his fingers.
And:
That conclusion was confirmed six weeks ago by an independent arson expert hired by the Forensic Science Commission, which was created in 2005 to investigate mistakes in crime laboratories after scandals rocked the one in Houston. The expert, Craig L. Beyler, of Baltimore, said in his August report that “the investigators had a poor understanding of fire science” and that the evidence they cited did not support a finding of arson.
Mr. Beyler was to testify before the commission in Dallas on Friday. But the newly appointed chairman, John M. Bradley, the district attorney in Williamson County, canceled the hearing, saying he did not know enough about the inquiry. “I felt I had been asked to take a final exam without having an opportunity to study for it,” he said.
Mr. Bradley said he did not know if he would continue the inquiry into the Willingham conviction that his predecessor had started. He said he wanted to consult with the lawmakers who created the commission about its mission.
The former chairman, Sam Bassett, an Austin lawyer whom Mr. Perry had twice appointed to the commission — and could have reappointed — said the governor had not told him why he was replaced. Mr. Bassett said he had hoped to produce a definitive report on the case by next spring.
At the New Yorker News Desk blog, David Grann writes, "A Sudden Dismissal."
Yesterday, the Republican governor of Texas, Rick Perry, abruptly dismissed the chairman and two members of the Texas Forensic Science Commission investigating the execution of Cameron Todd Willingham, which I wrote about last month in The New Yorker. The move came two days before the commission was scheduled to hear crucial evidence that Willingham was put to death, in 2004, based on arson theories that have since been disproven by modern science. The new chairman appointed by Perry promptly postponed Friday’s hearing, when the noted fire scientist Craig Beyler was supposed to testify regarding his findings.
Beyler, who had been hired by the commission to review the original arson investigation, had determined that there was no scientific evidence that Willingham had set the fire that killed his three children, in 1991, and that the original investigators had relied on folklore and methods that defied rational reasoning. Several of the country’s other top fire scientists have reached a similar conclusion.
Perry, who is in a contested campaign for reëlection, had been governor at the time of Willingham’s execution. Before the execution, Willingham’s lawyer had asked Perry to grant a stay based on a report from Dr. Gerald Hurst, a leading fire expert, who had concluded that “there is not a single item of physical evidence in this case which supports a finding of arson.” Willingham’s request, however, was denied.
Perry insisted that the three commissioners’ terms had expired and the change was routine. But the ousted chairman, Sam Bassett, told the Houston Chronicle that he had heard from Perry’s staffers that they were “concerned about the investigations we were conducting”; another of the removed commissioners told the Associated Press that Perry’s office informed him that the governor was “going in a different direction.”
The Wall Street Journal Law Blog post is, "Texas Gov.’s Move Putting Death Penalty Case Back in Spotlight," by Ashby Jones.
Anyone who took the time to read the fascinating piece by David Grann in the New Yorker a few weeks back on the Cameron Willingham case might be intrigued to learn of an interesting development on the case’s aftermath, currently playing out in Texas’ top political circles.
First, the news: Texas governor Rick Perry (pictured) on Wednesday replaced the head of the Texas Forensic Science Commission and two other members, just 48 hours before the commission was to hear testimony from an arson expert who believes that Willingham was convicted on bad evidence. Willingham was convicted and in 2004 executed in for setting a fire that killed his three children.
And:
Perry’s decision to shake up the commission has provided unexpected election-year grist to his opponents.
“If a mistake was made in this case, we need to know it,” Tom Schieffer, a Fort Worth businessman and a Democratic candidate for governor, said in a statement. “No one in public life should ever be afraid of the truth.”
Perry’s opponent in the upcoming Republican primary, Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, also questioned what harm the hearing could do.
Perry denied Thursday that the changes he had made at the commission were intended to quash the investigation. At a news conference for his re-election campaign, he said, “Those individuals’ terms were up, so we’re replacing them.”
Earlier coverage begins with this post.
The Beyler report is here in Adobe .pdf format.
David Grann's New Yorker article is noted here. The Innocence Project's Todd Willingham resource page provides a concise overview of the Willingham case with links to all relevant documents.
Next, the Texas news coverage.
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