There's lots more coverage this morning, and I'm going to break it out in the next three posts; editorials, news articles, and blogosphere.
First the editorials. Today's Corpus Christi Caller Times has, "Questions about 2004 execution won’t go away."
Before Willingham was executed, a known fire expert looked at the case, pro bono, and concluded that the arson investigators’ testimony was based on what he called discredited “junk science.” His report raising questions about Willingham’s guilt went to the clemency board and Gov. Perry, but it reportedly went unread and Willingham was put to death in 2004.
In 2005, the Texas Legislature established a commission to investigate error by forensic experts. Willingham’s was one of the first cases reviewed. In a scathing report, noted fire scientist Craig Beyler concluded that fire investigators had no scientific basis for claiming the Willingham fire was arson and they ignored evidence that contradicted their theory.
Beyler’s report was scheduled to be reviewed on Friday. The governor’s abrupt removal of three board members (whose terms were expired) led to the cancellation of that review. The timing of the governor’s action raises eyebrows, but draw your own conclusions.
The bottom line to this tragic story is that if Texas executed an innocent man, we need to know that. We need to know that to try to prevent it from happening again. Whatever the makeup of the Texas Forensic Science Commission, the disturbing question of whether Texas executed an innocent man will not go away.
New York's Buffalo News carried the editorial, "Protect the innocent," in Sunday's edition.
The horrific problem of wrongful conviction has finally secured a foothold in Congress, where the Senate Judiciary Committee last month focused its attention on what amounts to rock-solid proof that an innocent man was put to death in the United States.
The State of Texas executed Cameron Todd Willingham in 2004 for setting a fire that killed his three children. But a report in the Sept. 7 issue of The New Yorker destroyed the case and, in a later television interview, even the judge admitted that "without question" the scientific evidence was not valid. Yet Willingham is dead.
The hearing, according to The Innocence Project, made clear that bipartisan support exists for "science-based federal forensic standards." That would be a critical development, but since most criminal cases occur in state, not federal, courts, it will be imperative that when and if those standards are developed, they are adopted in states where inadequate forensic standards can land innocent men and women in the penitentiary.
But bad science is only part of the problem of wrongful conviction and in New York, which has one of the worst records for fixing the problems that ensnare innocent people, other issues are more critical. They include eyewitness misidentification and false confessions. Albany knows about these issues, yet it is dragging its feet on fixing them.
And:
With Washington now starting to pay attention to the problem of wrongful conviction, perhaps the laggard states, including New York, will be moved to act. Even if lawmakers don't care that innocent people are behind bars, they could at least pretend.
The McClatchy DC Bureau has distributed, "Perry's move derails forensics review."
The integrity of the prosecution in a criminal case, and thus the public's faith in the justice system, can be severely eroded by news of mistakes, misconduct or sloppy investigations by those entrusted to ensure equal justice under the law.
The Texas Legislature created the Texas Forensic Science Commission in 2005 after a series of revelations about improper procedures in forensics labs used to test criminal evidence. The nine-member body is charged with reviewing forensic analysis problems in criminal cases.
The group's mission statement ( www.fsc.state.tx.us) says its role includes investigating "in a timely manner" allegations of "professional negligence or misconduct that would substantially affect the integrity of the results of a forensic analysis conducted by an accredited laboratory, facility or entity."
The commission was scheduled to meet today to hear from specialists and review a report by an expert it hired to examine evidence in an arson case that resulted in the 2004 execution of Cameron Todd Willingham. He had been convicted of murdering his children by setting a fire in 1991. The expert, Dr. Craig Beyler of Baltimore, concluded that investigators in the case had "poor understandings of fire science" and that the Corsicana blaze that killed Willingham's children was not arson.
If that's an accurate assessment, Texas executed an innocent man, other experts and death penalty opponents say. Gov. Rick Perry interrupted the fact-finding process by abruptly dismissing three of his four commission appointees, including Tarrant County prosecutor Alan Levy and Aliece Watts, a forensic scientist in Euless. Perry also removed commission Chairman Samuel Bassett, an Austin attorney.
This item ran in Friday's Fort Worth Star-Telegram as the the editorial, "Texas governor derails important review of forensics in Willingham
murder case," noted here.
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.
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