Rick Perry sat on a wall. Rick Perry took a big fall. All the king's horses and all the king's men could not put Rick Perry together again. (From an old English nursery rhyme, Humpty Dumpty.)
If Rick Perry had nothing to hide, his hand picked go-to crony would not continue to cover up the Cameron Todd Willingham execution investigation. According to Rick Casey of the Houston Chronicle, Chairman Bradley of the Texas Science Commission has no intention of meeting anytime soon. At least there will no meetings between now, and guess when?
You got it.
Hell has better chances of freezing over between now and November. Hell, Texas has a better chance of freezing over between now and November. It would be easier to envision a July snowstorm in Houston before a meeting of the Texas Forensics Science Commission.
Last fall when Gov. Rick Perry abruptly replaced the chairman of the Texas Forensic Science Commission two days before it was to hear a national arson expert testify that Texas had executed a man for murder by arson based on faulty evidence and profoundly flawed testimony by a fire marshal, I naively wondered whether the commission's findings on the case would be delayed until after the March primary.
I underestimated the skills of Perry's hand-picked new chairman, Williamson County District Attorney John Bradley.
Now I can confidently predict that the matter will not be settled until after the November election, a full 14 months after Bradley took over leadership of the commission.
This morning, I attended the Texas Senate Criminal Justice Committee hearing. The hearing was called, largely, to hear testimony from the new Texas Forensic Science Commission Chairman, John Bradley.
Two things strike me as clear after attending the hearing:
The Democrats on the Senate Criminal Justice Committee -- Chairman John Whitmire, Senator Rodney Ellis, and Senator Juan "Chuy" Hinojosa -- are going to do everything in their power to make sure that the Texas Forensic Science Commission begins to fulfill its role as an independent state agency that reviews mishandled and questionable forensic science in the Texas criminal justice system.
The new Texas Forensic Science Commission Chairman, John Bradley, is going to serve as Governor Rick Perry's puppet on the Commission, and work with Republicans like Senator Dan Patrick to deflect any of the public controversy brought to Rick Perry for his controversial mismanagement of the agency in the recent months and years.
From listening to Bradley's testimony in person today, here are the ways I think he will be nothing more than Perry's puppet:
Ignorance and Inexperience
John Bradley testified before the Committee that he knew nothing about the Commission before he was appointed by Governor Perry.
Blaming the Legislature - With No Proof
John Bradley accused the Legislature, on multiple occassions, of not having providing the Commission with the resources they needed to do their job. This was obviously a strong talking point that he had decided to pursue -- despite these obvious facts:
When pressed by State Representative Tommy Merritt about the specific budget issues the Commission was facing, he knew of none.
When pressed further about proving -- with a letter, or a phone call, or anything -- when the Legislature has denied the Commission more funding, he could offer no proof.
The Forensic Science Commission is only investigating three cases right now. When asked during the hearing and in a follow-up press conference he held outside the Committee room if the Commission had the necessary resources to fulfill its work on those three cases, Bradley answered, "Yes we do."
Continuing Perry's Political Cover-Up and Privacy
John Bradley believes the Commission should be allowed to meet privately. From the Texas Lawyer:
Williamson County District Attorney John Bradley, the new chairman of the Texas Forensic Science commission, says he will recommend, among other things at the Senate committee hearing, that during an ongoing investigation, the commission should be allowed to meet in private to discuss the matter being investigated and that reports to the commission on an investigation be withheld from public release until the commission concludes its deliberations.
“It’s not a good idea to conduct an investigation in a public forum,” Bradley says.
Bradley did not back away from that during the hearing, until he began to hedge his bets when Senators Whitmire and Hinojosa pushed him on why an investigation on a process needs to be protected. He admitted that that should be transparent, but then -- when Senator Dan Patrick asked his Perry-friendly questions -- went back to talking about holding the initial parts of the investigation in private.
Texas Democratic Party Chairman, Boyd Richie, himself a former prosecutor, issued this statement:
It’s obvious the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree when it comes to Rick Perry’s political appointees. Perry’s politically motivated cancellation of an essential review of Texas’ forensic science methods threatened the ability of our criminal justice system to work properly for Texans.
Delays, Delays, Delays
John Bradley intends on taking the coming months to write rules and guidelines for the agency -- a task that should have occurred already, but under Rick Perry's watch never occurred. Of course, Bradley refused to acknowledge that Perry was at all responsible for any delays, choosing to act like the Commission was performing its duties in recent years without a net.
Until, that is, that Senator Ellis pointed out that the Texas Attorney General's office had a person in every one of the Commission's meeting, to ensure that they had the legal authority to carry out all their decisions. The excuse of delaying the Commission's work for months is no excuse at all, but another stall and delay tactic from Rick Perry's hand-picked appointee, John Bradley.
Eventually, the bigger picture left the hearing -- that going forward, the Texas Forensic Science Commission should be a place where the best forensic science can be determined, where mistakes can be evaluated, and where the work done by law enforcement across the state can be guaranteed to be the best work imaginable. But that's only going to happen because of the work of Senator John Whitmire, Senator Rodney Ellis, and Senator Juan "Chuy" Hinojosa. Of the Senators attending the hearing, the three Democrats carried the lion's share of the work. Republican Senator Dan Patrick asked questions that would have made a Rick Perry criminal justice staff person proud, and Senator Glenn Hegar sounded like he wrote his remarks while taking a bus to school in the morning.
Ultimately, I have faith that our Democratic State Senators will be able to kick-start this Commission into moving in the right direction. I also believe that John Bradley actually wants to make that happen. But that's only his second job.
Bradley's first job, which was made clear during today's hearing, was that he is to work as Rick Perry's puppet and delay the Commission's work for as long as possible -- at least until it is no longer politically damaging to Governor Perry.
The answers the people of Texas and, indeed, across the country are looking for from Rick Perry's cover-up are well protected and hidden with John Bradley chairing the Texas Forensic Science Commission.
The renewal of news about the Cameron Todd Willingham case should not only shed light on the reasons Rick Perry is a bad governor, but it should also illuminate our way-too-Republican Court of Criminal Appeals, which denied writs of Habeus Corpus to Willingham continuously, even a month before execution.
The court is fully occupied by Republicans, and three judges are on the ballot in 2010. Two of those three, according to Grits, belong to the "more or less totalitarian wing" of the court and fully deserve strong challengers.
Keith Hampton, a veteran appellate lawyer and chair of the legislative committee for the Texas Criminal Defense Laywers Association, has announced his candidacy for the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, lining up to run against Michael Keasler. Here's Hampton's campaign website.
I've had my differences with Keith but he'd be an overwhelming improvement over Judge Keasler, if only to add some balance to the range of opinions on the court.
If the larger Democratic ticket can pull even a slightly successful year, good candidates have a strong chance to defeat Republicans for this court. The Willingham case is only the most recent spurt of anger that can be directed to the CCA.
Now, if only we can get another CCA candidate or two...and a ticket to lead the Democratic charge.
The Cameron Todd Willingham story has reached a new level. No longer will there be only strong suspicions of a cover up, but the Houston Chronicle, in a strong journalistic move, seeks to make public the papers Rick Perry saw the day Cameron Todd Willingham would later be executed.
The Houston Chronicle and Hearst Newspapers LLC announced a lawsuit against Governor Rick Perry.
The Houston Chronicle and Hearst Newspapers LLC are suing Gov. Rick Perry in an effort to force the release of a clemency report Perry received before denying a stay of execution to Cameron Todd Willingham.
The report is a summary and status of the case against Willingham that was given to Perry at 11:30 a.m. on the day of Willingham's 2004 execution in the fire deaths of his three daughters. Anti-death penalty advocates say modern fire forensics show the blaze cannot be proven as arson.
Perry's office has refused to release the report, claiming it is a privileged document. The clemency document was used by Perry in the process of deciding whether to give Willingham a 30-day stay of execution.
"When it comes to human life, there is no place the governor should be more transparent in his decision-making," said Jonathan Donnellan, an attorney for Hearst and the Chronicle.
"It should raise eyebrows that the governor is seeking to shield communications with his advisers as 'legal advice,' when the very idea of executive clemency power is to make a policy decision after the legal process has run its course," Donnellan said.
I applaud the Chronicle's decision to pursue this worthy goal. If they win, we will see more insight into Rick Perry's worst act as Governor on a long list of bad acts. I wish the Chronicle luck with their suit.
Texas Supreme Court Justice David Medina, who was once indicted in arson, was Gov. Rick Perry’s general counsel when Perry denied a stay of execution to Cameron Todd Willingham. Willingham received the death penalty for the alleged arson deaths of his three daughters. Perry appointed Medina to the high court in November, 2004. In a controversial 2007 case involving the burning of their home, Medina and his wife were indicted — and subsequently cleared — in connection with a fire experts ruled was arson. They were accused of tampering with the evidence.
Texas Governor Rick Perry is trying to cover-up his office's responsibility and actions surrounding the Cameron Todd Willingham execution case. The Houston Chronicle recently reported (and we echoed on BOR) that Perry's office is refusing to release documents pertaining to exactly how and when their office discussed the information that the arson evidence was bogus. Now we may have learned why Perry's office doesn't want anyone to know who was involved:
If David Medina was the man in the room dismissing the arson evidence, and he was indicted for arson fraud himself, well...
The Anderson Cooper feature outright stole the Houston Chronicle's exclusive story last week (without giving them credit) on the new information that Perry's office had information on the faulty arson evidence 88 minutes before Willingham was executed. The feature also has an interview with fired Commissioner Sam Bassett and Texas Monthly Senior Editor Michael Hall.
Glenn Smith has a significant observation: Rick Perry may have violated federal law when he obstructed the investigation into the execution of Cameron Todd Willingham. The U.S. Justice Department is deadly serious about oversight of forensics investigations, and warned grant recipients that federal law -- specifically, U.S.C. 18.1001, would apply to grant recipients if the independence and integrity of forensics oversight was jeopardized.
When Gov. Rick Perry obstructed an investigation into the execution of a man experts say was innocent, he committed a crime against all Texans. State executions are carried out in our names, collectively and individually. Subverting the truth in such a matter is a betrayal of the public trust that is difficult to describe or comprehend.
But Perry may have also committed a crime against the U.S., and I'm not talking about his secession threats. He may have violated federal law, U.S.C. 18.1001. This is no trivial matter. An innocent man was executed. Federal laws and guidelines are in place to keep that from happening. Perry may well have violated those laws and guidelines, for which there are criminal penalties.
Smith goes into many more details and sites observations from pundits and statute. Perry at best showed he was unfit to govern any agency let alone Texas. At worst, he willingly covered up an ongoing investigation in the execution of an innocent man. As Glenn puts it, he "destroy[ed] the independence and integrity of a critical law enforcement agency to conceal material facts".
Justice should be done, even if it hasn't been in the case of Mr. Willingham.
