"Smoke screen," is the title of the Houston Chronicle editorial.
Several of Texas Governor Rick Perry's appointees to state university regent boards have already learned the hard way that crossing him can be an administrative death sentence.
Playing footsie with Perry's primary opponent, Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, cost several Texas Tech regents their positions.
Now Perry has replaced three members of a state forensic commission, including its chairman, who were examining disputed evidence in an arson case that resulted in a man's execution. The probe has put Perry in the ticklish position of being spotlighted as the executive who let a possibly innocent man be executed.
The Texas Legislature had created the nine-member commission in 2005 to study questionable convictions and try to prevent future miscarriages of justice. It seems that with criminal justice, as with higher education, the top priority for Perry appointees who want to keep their positions is protecting the governor rather than carrying out their sworn duties.
The governor had denied a last-minute death-row appeal in 2004 by Cameron Todd Willingham, convicted of setting a house fire that killed his three young daughters. The appeal included a report by an arson expert disputing the evidence used to convict Willingham.
The commission was scheduled to take testimony last Friday from a nationally recognized arson expert assigned to examine the Willingham case. In a preliminary report, Craig L. Beyler likewise faulted the arson findings presented at Willingham's trial as not meeting professional standards.
And:
We hope the new forensic commission chairman swiftly acquaints himself with the Willingham case and pushes forward to a rescheduled hearing before the March primary. Otherwise, the inescapable conclusion will be that his appointment was just another example of the governor's appointment politics.
"Perry errs with panel shake-up," is the editorial in today's San Antonio Express-News.
There’s good reason to believe the state of Texas put Todd Willingham to death in 2004 for a crime he didn’t commit. Law enforcement and prosecutors in Corsicana determined Willingham started the 1991 fire that consumed his home and killed his three daughters. A review of the evidence, however, shows that determination was deeply flawed.
The Willingham case was one of the first taken up by the Texas Forensic Science Commission. Created by the Legislature in 2005, the commission sets standards for forensic analysis and investigates allegations of negligence or misconduct that could affect the integrity of such analysis.
And:
The explanation from the governor’s office that the commissioners’ terms expired on Sept. 1 doesn’t hold water. Among the thousands of gubernatorial appointments to boards and commissions, holdovers are common for months or even years. No reasonable explanation exists for Perry to sack the forensic science commission’s leadership at this crucial stage and impede its progress in the Willingham review.
That review is not a proxy for the death penalty debate. It is about how bad science can empower an overzealous prosecution.
The review also isn’t about politics — at least it shouldn’t be. It’s about improving the system of justice in Texas by determining how a highly questionable case made it past jury members, a judge, more appellate judges, the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles and, ultimately, the governor.
Perry’s shake up of the commission has, unfortunately, injected politics into the matter. Perry, who declined to commute Willingham’s sentence to life in prison, faces a strong primary challenge from Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison.
The evidence that Perry is trying to delay or even quash a commission finding that could prove to be detrimental to his re-election effort is at least as sound as the evidence that sent Todd Willingham to the death chamber in Huntsville.
The Longview News-Journal editorial is, "Justice Delayed? Perry's last-minute board switch is questionable."
Gov. Rick Perry's decision to remove three members of the Texas Forensic Science Commission just before a meeting on whether the state executed an innocent man convicted of the arson-related deaths of his three daughters simply doesn't pass the smell test. Once again, it appears the governor has put his political interests ahead of what's best for the state.
And:
The arson investigator hired by the commission, Craig Beyler of Baltimore, claims the original finding of arson is not supported by the scientific evidence, a conclusion also reached by an Austin-based investigator. Gov. Perry was in office when Willingham was executed and refused to grant a stay.
The commission certainly has a moral obligation to reopen the evidence and weigh whether the state indeed made a horrible mistake. The governor, by replacing three members of the commission just 48 hours before that hearing, has forced it to be delayed — perhaps past next March's Republican primary, in which he faces his toughest challenge to date from U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison. Perry claims the members' terms had expired and this was "business as usual." Several of these members have served more than one term.
We do think it is business as usual for the governor. That is why it doesn't pass the smell test.
"Questions about 2004 execution won't go away," is the San Angelo Standard-Times editorial.
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.
There is additional commentary from out of state. The Guardian has, "Death and Texas," written by Alex Hannaford.
"I am an innocent man - convicted of a crime I did not commit."
Those were the final words of Cameron Willingham, seconds before he was executed by the state of Texas in 2004 for starting the fire in his home that killed his three young children. Willingham maintained his innocence for the 12 years he spent on death row – even refusing a plea-bargain at his 1992 trial that would have meant a life sentence instead of a death sentence.
The final go-ahead for his execution was given by the governor of Texas, Republican Rick Perry, a slick Pierce Brosnan-lookalike who assumed office in 2000, replacing George Bush who was then running for president. But last month it looked like Willingham was coming back to haunt Perry: doubts over his execution had reached fever pitch – an investigation by the Chicago Tribune and a damning article in the New Yorker didn't help – and Texas's Forensic Science Commission (FSC) was tasked with carrying out an official inquiry.
That inquiry found that the key evidence had no basis in modern fire science but then, last Wednesday, Slick Rick announced his decision to remove the head of the commission and two of its investigators. The incoming chairman subsequently cancelled the meeting scheduled to discuss the FSC report.
Perry denied that the changes were intended to quash the investigation, saying: "Those individuals' terms were up, so we're replacing them."
It's Perry's arrogance that really reeks here. Last month, the Dallas Morning News reported him saying: "I'm familiar with the latter-day supposed experts on the arson side of it," adding that he made quotation marks with his fingers to underscore his skepticism.
The question is whether Perry – currently campaigning for a third term as governor in 2010 – can survive, after one of the ousted FSC members described his motives for removing her and her two colleagues as "suspicious" and his opponents in the race for governor have said there should be no interference in the wheels of justice. The heat is most definitely on.
From Georgia's Dalton Daily Citizen, Charles Oliver writes, "It couldn't happen here?"
Texas Gov. Rick Perry apparently doesn’t want to know whether the state killed an innocent man. A study commissioned by the Texas Forensic Science Commission found serious concerns in the case against Cameron Todd Willingham, whom the state executed in 2004 after finding him guilty of an arson that killed his children. The commission was set to review the report, but two days before the meeting, Perry replaced three members of the commission. The new chairman chosen by Perry is Williamson County District Attorney John Bradley, a man with a reputation as one of the “most conservative, hard-line prosecutors” in the state, according to the Dallas Morning News. Bradley canceled the hearing and says he does not know if he will continue the investigation of Willingham’s case.
Earlier coverage begins here.
Comments