Innocence is a recurrent claim in last statements. In Mr Willingham’s case, it may well have been true. Shortly before he was executed, an arson expert from Austin faxed a report to the governor, Rick Perry, arguing that the 1991 investigation was based on bad science and that there was no proof of arson. Half a dozen additional experts have come to the same conclusion. In August another report came from Craig Beyler, who had been hired by the Texas Forensic Science Commission (TFSC), an oversight board. Mr Beyler’s report gave a blistering assessment of the original investigation, saying its conclusions were “nothing more than a collection of personal beliefs that have nothing to do with science-based fire investigation.”
Two days before the commission was due to hold a hearing on the Beyler report, on September 30th, Mr Perry announced he was replacing three of his appointees to the TFSC, including its head, Sam Bassett. Several days later he said he would replace the fourth. Their terms had expired, the governor explained. That is true, but not especially convincing. “It certainly is bad timing for the continuity of these investigations,” says Mr Bassett, a criminal defence attorney in Austin. Had the commission concluded that the evidence did not point to arson, Mr Perry would have been faced with the grave possibility that Texas had executed an innocent person.
Even Republicans are concerned. The governor is up for re-election in 2010. Kay Bailey Hutchison, his chief opponent for the Republican nomination, announced that the business with the commission was just “giving liberals an argument to discredit the death penalty”.
Michelle Goldberg of the American Prospect writes, "The Execution of a Potentially Innocent Man Less Scandalous Than an Affair?" for AlterNet, today.
It's lucky for Gov. Rick Perry of Texas that he's not suspected of doing something truly shocking, like having an affair. Instead, it merely seems that he's helped cover up a homicide. Apparently that's not enough to make much of a national splash.
Last month, The New Yorker published a remarkable piece by David Grann about the case of Cameron Todd Willingham, who was executed in 2004 for a crime that all the evidence suggests he didn't commit. In 1991, Willingham's house caught on fire, burning his three daughters to death. Ill-trained investigators accused Willingham of arson. At his trial, a family therapist who had never met Willingham was called as an expert witness and suggested that Willingham's heavy metal posters indicated that he might be a satanist.
Because Willingham couldn't afford decent representation, it was many years before a friend of his managed to get qualified experts to take a look at the case. Grann described the investigation conducted by Gerald Hurst, one of the country's most acclaimed fire investigators: "Hurst concluded that there was no evidence of arson, and that a man who had already lost his three children and spent twelve years in jail was about to be executed based on 'junk science.'" If Perry read the report, which was submitted just weeks before Willingham was executed, he didn't act on it, refusing to grant a stay of execution.
Grann wasn't the first to probe the Willingham case. Ten months after Willingham was put to death, The Chicago Tribune published an important investigation by Steve Mills and Maurice Possley. Willingham, they wrote, "was prosecuted and convicted based primarily on arson theories that have since been repudiated by scientific advances. According to four fire experts consulted by the Tribune, the original investigation was flawed and it is even possible the fire was accidental."
And:
Perry's role in this continuing injustice should be cause for a national uproar at least as big as the one that attended Mark Sanford's dalliance in Argentina or Elliot Spitzer's patronage of prostitutes. What could be more sordid than hushing up an illegitimate state-sanctioned killing? What more obvious abuse of power exists? Yet one can easily read the country's major papers and faithfully watch TV news and barely hear a word about what's happening in Texas.
The state's press is covering it, of course, and both The Chicago Tribune and The New Yorker have been heroic. On Monday, the Tribune published its latest report under the blunt headline, "Texas execution: Statements by Gov. Rick Perry, others don't align with facts."
Still, the story, for all its drama, remains far from a hot topic. If ever a story were crying out for a journalistic pile-on, this one is. Yet there's no intimation that this could be a career-ending thing for Perry, no widespread sense of outrage. This should be the biggest scandal of the year. The fact that it's not is a scandal itself.
Earlier coverage of the Todd Willingham case begins with this post. All coverage is also available through the Todd Willingham category index.
The Beyler report prepared for the Forensic Science Commission 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. Steve Mills and Maurice Possley first reported on the case in a 2004 Chicago Tribune series on junk science. The December 9, 2004 report was titled,"Man executed on disproved forensics."
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