"Junk science? Another inmate on death row fights to disprove arson," is the title of Stephanie Chen's post at CNN. Here's a brief excerpt from the introduction:
This is the story of two fathers who drank too much and fought with their wives but, their families say, loved their children more than anything in the world.
The two never knew each other. One was in Texas and one in Pennsylvania, but each watched a fire swallow their home with their children inside.
One father, Cameron Todd Willingham of Corsicana, Texas, was convicted on murder charges; authorities said he set the fire that killed his three children in 1991. He was executed by lethal injection in 2004.
Across the country, at a prison outside of Waynesburg, Pennsylvania, where authorities say they hold the "worst of the worst," is 50-year-old Daniel Dougherty. He, too, was found guilty of deliberately igniting fires in his home that killed his two sons, Danny, 4, and Johnny, 3, in 1985. Police arrested Dougherty 14 years later, when his estranged wife came forward and claimed he confessed. A jury found him guilty on capital murder charges in 2000.
He is awaiting death.
And:
Like Willingham, Dougherty has maintained his innocence from the start. He is trying to prove he isn't responsible for the flames that engulfed his house and that he is also the victim of flawed arson science.
"We have an innocent man on death row who has been languishing there, and there is absolutely no evidence that a crime occurred," said his attorney, David Fryman. "We've been trying our best to right that wrong."
Dougherty and his attorneys at Ballard Spahr in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, are waiting on the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to decide whether to hear his petition for post-conviction relief filed in 2006. A crucial element of the appeal is the reports of two arson investigators who have re-examined the evidence and found no conclusive indicators of arson.
With science on his side, Dougherty hopes the court will set him free -- before it's too late. No execution date has been set.
Today's Westport Patch of Connecticut has Nancy Burton's profile of journalist David Grann, "Just Like Sherlock Holmes - But All True."
David Grann, Staples Class of 1985, returned to Westport on Wednesday to talk about his blossoming career as an award-winning writer whose quirky investigations provide glimpses into the human condition, probe good and evil and illuminate large themes.
His subject as a guest speaker at the Westport Public Library was The Devil and Sherlock Holmes: Tales of Murder, Madness and Obsession, a collection of articles published in March. Most were published first in The New Yorker magazine where he has been a staff writer since 2003. Grann’s first book, The Lost City of Z, hit The New York Times bestseller list the week it first appeared in February of last year.
Grann’s talk highlighted his September 7, 2009 New Yorker piece, “Trial by Fire: Did Texas Execute an Innocent Man?” It’s a chronicle of Grann’s intensive investigation of the prosecution of Cameron Todd Willingham, a father of three, on charges he deliberately set his home on fire, an act of arson that claimed the lives of his children. A jury found him guilty after deliberating one hour and he was executed in 2004.
But soon after the execution, serious doubts arose about Willingham’s guilt, Grann explained. A fire investigator reviewed key documents in the case and an hour-long video of the aftermath of the fire scene. He found nothing to suggest to a serious arson investigator that arson was involved. “It was just a fire,” he concluded.
Earlier coverage of the Willingham case is here. David Grann's September 2009 New Yorker article is noted here.
All Willingham coverage is available through the Todd Willingham category index.
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."The Beyler report prepared for the Forensic Science Commission is here in Adobe .pdf format.
The Innocence Project has a Todd Willingham resource page which provides a concise overview of the Willingham case with links to all relevant documents.
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