Time to Face the Truth in the Willingham Case

That's the title of Nina Morrison's post at the Dallas Morning News Death Penalty blog.  LINK  It addresses the recent OpEd, noted here, written by one of Todd Willingham's prosecutors.  Morrison is a staff attorney at the Innocence Project and has been involved in several Texas exonerations.  Here's an excerpt:

Judge John Jackson, who prosecuted Cameron Todd Willingham in the 1990s, recently wrote in the Corsicana Daily News that "facts" showing "overwhelming evidence" of Willingham's guilt are being ignored. The truth is that all of the evidence that Jackson and his colleagues used to convict Willingham has been disproven. In the five years since Willingham was executed, several investigations - including an exhaustive report in the New Yorker this week - deconstruct all of the evidence and show that he was innocent.

Jackson himself now admits that the forensic case supporting the arson theory is "undeniably flawed" but he clings to the idea that Willingham was guilty, focusing on seven other points and shading each of them to conceal the truth:

1. Jackson claims Willingham beat his wife when she was pregnant in an attempt to end her pregnancies. In fact, Willingham's wife has denied this and also told investigators he would never hurt his children.

2. Jackson claims Willingham's burns were so minor that they must have been self- inflicted to fake evidence of trying to save his family. In fact, scientific experts have conducted experiments with identical fires and Willingham's burns are normal for this type of fire.

And:

7. Jackson claims that a refrigerator in the house was pushed against a door, implying that Willingham moved it to trap the children inside. In fact, the refrigerator was covering a back door because there were two refrigerators in the small kitchen. The police detective and the fire chief who handled the case both now say that the refrigerator's location does not support the theory that the fire was arson.

Readers can judge for themselves whether Jackson is deliberately coloring the truth or simply unable to see the facts of the case clearly, perhaps because he cannot face his own role in a great tragedy. But facts are facts - and they have already been obscured for far too long in this case.

The Hill, a newspaper focused on the Capitol Hill community in Washington, DC, has posted, "Is the death penalty defensible?" by John Feehery.

I never agree with Bob Herbert, the New York Times columnist. But on this one, he may have a point. He wrote a column today about the plight of Cameron Todd Willingham, a Texan who was put to death for the crime of starting a fire in his own home, a fire that killed his three small children.

He was charged with murder, and refused to take a plea deal because he insisted that he was innocent. It turned out that he was right and the folks who had him executed him were wrong. Later evidence proved to exonerate him, but that exoneration did little good. He is still dead.

Without getting into all of the facts in this particular case, it is clear that we live with an imperfect justice system. The system makes mistakes. Wrong people are accused and convicted. Witnesses sometimes misremember the facts, and sometimes they lie for their own self-interest. Sometimes cops make mistakes, and sometimes prosecutors reach the wrong conclusions.

But the death penalty, when carried out, is always perfect. It always kills the target, and kills the target permanently. And once you kill the accused, you can’t really turn back the clock. If the system turns out to be wrong, as it does on occasion, saying you are sorry doesn’t do much good.

The Bob Herbert column is noted here.  Earlier coverage begins here.