"Did anybody know about [the questionable arson evidence] prior to his execution? Now I will have to live with this for the rest of my life. Maybe this man was innocent." - Dorinda Brofofsky, one of the jurors of the Willingham case (Source)
I've been doing some general research on Rick Perry's cover-up of the Willingham execution. The idea that Texas executed an innocent man is outrageously appalling to me - and the fact that Perry dismisses this entire scenario as "business as usual" makes it all the worse. It turns out one of the original jurors for the Willingham case felt the same way. In the book, "The decline of the death penalty and the discovery of innocence," authors Frank Baumgartner, Suzanna De Boef, and Amber E. Boydstun took some time to revisit Willingham's execution. A passage in their book reports on a Chicago Tribune report on an independent investigation done by four arson experts on Willingham's case. From December 9, 2004 article in the Chicago Tribune piece, titled, "Man executed on disproved forensics" The author of the report, Gerald Hurst, reviewed additional documents, trial testimony and an hourlong videotape of the aftermath of the fire scene at the Tribune's request last month. Three other fire investigators--private consultants John Lentini and John DeHaan and Louisiana fire chief Kendall Ryland--also examined the materials for the newspaper.
"There's nothing to suggest to any reasonable arson investigator that this was an arson fire," said Hurst, a Cambridge University-educated chemist who has investigated scores of fires in his career. "It was just a fire."
Ryland, chief of the Effie Fire Department and a former fire instructor at Louisiana State University, said that, in his workshop, he tried to re-create the conditions the original fire investigators described.
When he could not, he said, it "made me sick to think this guy was executed based on this investigation. ... They executed this guy and they've just got no idea--at least not scientifically--if he set the fire, or if the fire was even intentionally set."
Rick Perry was aware of the new information - and still refused to stay the execution. From page 85 of the book, in a chapter titled, "A Chronology of Innocence" - Willingham's defense attorneys presented expert testimony detailing the new arson investigation to the state's highest court and to Texas governor Rick Perry before Willingham's execution, but no stay was granted. Some of the Texas jurors who convicted Willingham were troubled to hear the investigation's findings. Dorinda Brofofsky, one of the jurors, said, "Did anybody know about this prior to his execution? Now I will have to live with this the rest of my life. Maybe this man was innocent."
Yes, someone did know before the execution. Rick Perry knew. And he dismissed it, just as he dismissed the three members of the Texas Forensic Science Commission, as nothing important. Previous Coverage on BOR: |
