A Democratic Houston judge who last week ruled that the procedures used to convict and sentence someone to death in Texas are unconstitutional has put his ruling in abeyance and scheduled a hearing on April 27 to hear evidence on the issue (Read more here). State District Judge Kevin Fine said he wants more information before making a final decision about whether the state's death penalty statute protects innocent people from execution. Judge Fine has asked Harris County prosecutors and defense attorneys to submit motions on the due process issue by April 12. Fine will then have an evidentiary hearing April 27 when testimony on whether innocent people have been executed in Texas is set to be presented. The defense attorneys are still determining whom they might call to testify at the April 27 hearing, but they said it might include officials connected to the case of Cameron Todd Willingham, whose 2004 execution for the deaths of his three daughters in a 1991 house fire near Corsicana is now being questioned.
With the hearing in Judge Fine's court looming on April 27, a group of people, students and non-students alike, are planning to spend their spring break next week learning about the problems in the Texas death penalty system and training on how to organize to change Texas public policy. Everyone is welcome to attend.
Guest speakers include six innocent, exonerated people who together spent 65 years on death row, Curtis McCarty, Shujaa Graham, Ron Keine, Derrick Jamison, Perry Cobb and Juan Melendez. (Speaker bios)
Today, Saturday October 24, is the 10th Annual March to Abolish the Death Penalty, where the focus will be the Todd Willingham case and other cases involving innocent people sentenced to death. The march starts at 2 PM at the Texas Capitol in Austin.
Three innocent, exonerated former death row prisoners will be among the special guests today at the Tenth Annual March to Abolish the Death Penalty. Curtis McCarty spent 19 years on death row in Oklahoma before being exonerated and released in 2007. Shujaa Graham spent three years on death row in California and Ron Keine spent almost two years on death row in New Mexico, which abolished the death penalty in 2009.
Also speaking will be the penpal of Todd Willingham, Elizabeth Gilbert, who first investigated his innocence. Todd's last lawyer Walter Reaves will also speak. Reaves submitted information on the day of Willingham's execution to Governor Rick Perry saying there was new evidence indicating Willingham may be innocent and that urged Perry to stay the execution. Of course, Perry ignored the new information and Willingham was executed on Feb 17, 2004.
The last request of Todd Willingham to his parents was "please don't ever stop fighting to vindicate me."
Please attend the march to support the Willingham family as they fight to prove that Todd Willingham was innocent.
Speakers at the march include three innocent, now-exonerated death row prisoners (Shujaa Graham, Curtis McCarty and Ron Keine), Jeff Blackburn (Chief Counsel of the Innocence Project of Texas), Jeanette Popp (a mother whose daughter was murdered but who asked the DA not to seek the death penalty), Elizabeth Gilbert (the penpal of Todd Willingham who first pushed his innocence and helped his family find a fire expert to investigate), Walter Reaves (the last attorney for Todd Willingham, who fought for him through the execution and continues to fight to exonerate him), Terri Been whose brother Jeff Wood is on death row convicted under the Law of Parties even though he did not kill anyone, and Anna Terrell the mother of Reginald Blanton who is scheduled for execution in Texas on Oct 27 three days after the march, plus others to be announced.
The march starts at 2 PM on October 24 at the Texas Capitol. We will gather at the Texas Capitol at the gates leading into the Capitol on the sidewalk at 11th Street, march down Congress Avenue to 6th street, then back to the South Steps of the Capitol for a rally to abolish the death penalty.
The case of a Corsicana man executed in 2004 for arson murder will be at the center of an anti-death penalty rally today at the Texas Capitol.
Local attorney Walter M. Reaves Jr., who represented Cameron Todd Willingham during the final part of his appeals process, planned to attend the 10th annual March to Abolish the Death Penalty, along with four people who were exonerated after being on death row. The event is being organized by a number of groups that oppose the death penalty.
As part of the event, activists plan to deliver a petition to Gov. Rick Perry that urges him to say that the 1991 fire that killed Willingham's three young daughters was not arson, said Scott Cobb, president of the Texas Moratorium Network. It will also ask for Texas executions to be suspended and for Perry to appoint an impartial body to examine the state's death penalty system, he said.
Willingham's case, and the role Perry has played in the execution and subsequent investigation into whether it was flawed, has been in the national spotlight. Attention started mounting earlier this month after Perry abruptly replaced four people on the nine-member Texas Forensic Science Commission, including its chairman.
The 10th Annual March to Abolish the Death Penalty will be held at the Texas Capitol in Austin on October 24, 2009. The march and rally will include the delivery of a petition with thousands of signatures urging Governor Rick Perry and the State of Texas to acknowledge that the fire in the Cameron Todd Willingham case was not arson, therefore no crime was committed and on February 17, 2004 Texas executed an innocent man. The petition also urges Perry to suspend executions and appoint a balanced and independent commission to examine all aspects of the Texas death penalty system to determine what went wrong in the Willingham case and how to prevent the execution of innocent people. People can sign the petition at www.camerontoddwillingham.com.
The last request of Todd Willingham to his parents was "please don't ever stop fighting to vindicate me." U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia wrote in 2006 that in the modern judicial system there has not been "a single case-not one-in which it is clear that a person was executed for a crime he did not commit. If such an event had occurred in recent years, we would not have to hunt for it; the innocent's name would be shouted from the rooftops."
On Saturday Oct 24 in Austin, people from across Texas will gather and shout out that Todd Willingham was innocent to show the world and Rick Perry that there are people in Texas who are convinced that Todd was innocent and that executions in Texas should be stopped before another innocent person is executed.
The Houston Chronicle reported Sunday that former Texas Governor Mark White has said Texas needs to take a serious look at replacing the death penalty with life without parole. "There is a very strong case to be made for a review of our death penalty statutes and even look at the possibility of having life without parole so we don't look up one day and determined that we as the state of Texas have executed someone who is in fact innocent," said White.
Speakers and other confirmed attendees at the 10th Annual March to Abolish the Death Penalty will include three innocent, now-exonerated death row prisoners (Shujaa Graham, Curtis McCarty and Ron Keine), Jeff Blackburn (Chief Counsel of the Innocence Project of Texas), Jeanette Popp (a mother whose daughter was murdered but who asked the DA not to seek the death penalty), Elizabeth Gilbert (the penpal of Todd Willingham who first investigated and then advocated for his innocence), Walter Reaves (the last attorney for Todd Willingham, who fought for him through his execution and continues to fight to exonerate him), Terri Been whose brother Jeff Wood is on death row convicted under the Law of Parties even though he did not kill anyone, and Anna Terrell the mother of Reginald Blanton who is scheduled for execution in Texas on Oct 27 three days after the march, plus others to be announced.
Panel Discussion: Friday, October 23, the night before the march, there will be a panel discussion on the campus of the University of Texas at Austin at 7 PM with Elizabeth Gilbert (a Houston teacher and playwright, who befriended Todd Willingham and is featured in the New Yorker article by David Grann about the case. She became convinced of his innocence and was able to push for a new arson investigation that exonerated him.), Shujaa Graham and Curtis McCarty, who will both speak about what it is like to be innocent and sentenced to death as they were. Graham spent three years on death row in California. McCarty spent 19 years on death row in Oklahoma. They were both exonerated. The panel is in the Sinclair Suite (room 3.128) of the Texas Student Union on Guadalupe Street.
Elizabeth Gilbert, Shujaa Graham and Curtis McCarty will be available for media interviews earlier in the day on Friday, Oct 23. Call Scott Cobb at 512-552-4743 to arrange an interview.
Schedule for the 10th Annual March to Abolish the Death Penalty, Saturday Oct 24 in Austin
1 PM - 2 PM Members of the press are invited to attend a press availability in the Speaker's Committee Room (2.W6) inside the Capitol building. The purpose is to allow the media to ask questions and conduct interviews with the speakers listed below.
2 PM Marchers start to gather at the Texas Capitol on the sidewalk by the South gate of the Capitol entrance on Congress Avenue at 11th Street
2:30 or 2:45 Start to march down Congress Ave to 6th Street and back to Capitol
3:00 or 3:15 Rally on the South Steps of the Texas Capitol with speakers mentioned above
The march is sponsored by many organizations, including Texas Moratorium Network, the Austin chapter of the Campaign to End the Death Penalty, the Texas Death Penalty Abolition Movement, Texas Students Against the Death Penalty, Texas Death Penalty Education and Resource Center, Kids Against the Death Penalty, Sister Helen Prejean, Journey of Hope ... From Violence to Healing, the Texas Civil Rights Project, Reprieve, Iranians for Peace and Justice, UT Campus Progress, Democrats for Life of Texas, S.H.A.P.E Community Center in Houston, the Dallas Peace Center, ALIVE Against the Death Penalty (Germany), Ensemble Contre la Peine de Mort (France) and many others.
If anyone would like to be listed as a sponsor of the 10th Annual March to Abolish the Death Penalty, just fill out this form. It's free to be a sponsor, we only ask that you help spread the word to your friends so that they attend if they can be in Austin or sign the petition that we will deliver at the march.
For more information and the complete list of sponsors, visit www.MarchforAbolition.org or call Scott Cobb at 512-552-4743.
Thursday, I posted the video from that night's CNN AC 360 program when Todd Willingham's trial lawyer was on the program and made remarks that I thought violated his attorney-client obligations, which bind a lawyer even after his client has died. Now, some attorneys have begun posting about David Martin and some also seem to agree that Martin violated his ethical obligations as an attorney to his former client.
After reading this, if you are think David Martin should be investigated, click here to download a grievance form and send it to the Office of the Chief Disciplinary Counsel, State Bar of Texas.
My position is that a) all facts the lawyer learns in the course of representation is privileged; and b) this privilege survives the end of representation and the client's death. So, for example, the fact that the defense team did its own pseudoscientific experiment would be privileged and not something that the ex-lawyer would be free to reveal (without the client's permission).
as a lawyer you ought to have some duty to not damage your client. At the very least, Mr. Martin is damaging Todd's reputation, and his ability to obtain some relief in through the forensic commission. The fact that he aligning himself with Gov. Perry ought to tell you something.
At least three other lawyers have now also posted their thoughts on David Martin. Here is one on her blog "Preaching to the Choir".
I have nothing nice to say about David Martin after watching this appalling performance, so perhaps I should not say anything at all. Except, I have no duty of loyalty to David Martin. But I do feel a duty of loyalty to my profession. I happen to think that defending people is one of the most noble things you can do. I can go on quite a tear about how we defenders of the constitution are the true patriots and the most noble actors of all in the criminal justice system. I take my job seriously. Very seriously. My clients trust me with their lives, just as Todd Willingham had to trust David Martin. As much as I rail against prosecutors and cops who bend the rules or cut corners, no one offends me more than the defense attorney who does not live up to my high ideals for the profession. From what I've seen in this video, David Martin is the kind of defense attorney I don't ever want to be.
Let's assume, for the sake of argument, that Martin has no grossly improper motive, like he's been promised a judgeship by Perry if he does everything in his power to undermine the evidence of Willingham's innocence. If Martin truly believes what he's saying to be true, his statements are the most irresponsible, unethical, improper I have ever heard from the mouth of a criminal defense lawyer. Outrageously wrong. Utterly disgraceful.
So we know that Martin was spouting bullshit. (He claimed to have just returned from "chasing cows," so maybe there's a reason.) We also know that at least one thing he talked about, the lighter fluid experiment, is covered by the work-product privilege. It's a secret. He had no business telling anyone. A clear violation of his ethical obligations.
And then there's the matter of going on the air to declare his client guilty. Why in the world would he do that? To garner business? Unlikely. That's not the way you attract clients. For the glory of national television? Some people just can't resist. Whatever the reason, he was wrong. Whatever he was thinking, he wasn't thinking enough. That duty of loyalty. That obligation not to disadvantage. That lack of judgment. That putting his own interests before his client's.
Eileen Smith of Texas Monthly has also written about Martin, saying in her blog "In the Pink":
Willingham's trial lawyer David Martin is such a caricature of what people think of Texans that I was mortified watching it. Haven't we been the posterior region of enough jokes this year, what with all the secession talk and Dancing With the Stars? And I'm not even a native Texan. So really, you guys should be extra-extra mortified.
Right from the start of the interview, you just know it's going to be bad. For one, Martin is wearing a cowboy hat that's about to fall off his head. And two, the guy's drunk as a Honduran skunk.
The Texas Bar website explains how to file a complaint and what the grievance system is.
The grievance system is designed to protect the public from unethical lawyers licensed to practice law in Texas. Lawyers are held accountable to a set of rules, called the Texas Disciplinary Rules of Professional Conduct. Lawyers who violate those rules are prosecuted under a set of rules, called the Texas Rules of Disciplinary Procedure.
Much like the criminal system, you, as the aggrieved, are not a party to the disciplinary action; you are a witness. Allegations of misconduct by an attorney are taken very seriously, and are reviewed and investigated carefully by the Office of the Chief Disciplinary Counsel. If you believe that an attorney has violated the Texas Disciplinary Rules of Professional Conduct, you may report this information in writing to the State Bar in the form of a grievance.
Tonight on CNN AC360, Todd Willingham's trial lawyer David Martin, the person who was supposed to have vigorously defended his client, made an appearance on national TV arguing for his former client's guilt. Martin, appearing in a cowboy hat, drawled that the report submitted to the Texas Forensic Science Commission by Dr Craig Beyler was one of the "least objective reports" he has ever read. "This is supposed to be a scientific report?", said Martin.
Steve Mills of the Chicago Tribune, then said that the arson investigation methods used in 1991 were not based on science. "That is absurd" said Martin.
You have to see the shocking video of Martin's appearance. This shows why the Texas death penalty system can allow innocent people to be executed. Willingham did not have a chance with Martin as his lawyer. Anderson Cooper at one point said, "you sound like a sheriff", "you don't sound like a defense lawyer".
Martin said, "this is riduculous. This is absurd. The defense lawyer doesn't have to believe the client. This is an absurdity."
.
Also on tonight's AC 360, they reported on a juror from Willingham's trial that told them she now has doubts about Wilingham's guilt. The juror also says that she was allowed to be a juror even though her family was good friends with the fire investigator whose testimony helped convict Willingham. Her family's close relationship with Doug Fogg would have likely been grounds for overturning his conviction and getting Willingham a new trial if it had been raised before his execution.
the controversy has led juror Dorenda Brokofsky to think twice about the decision she made in a jury room in 1992.
"I don't sleep at night because of a lot of this," Brokofsky said. "I have gone back and forth in my mind trying to think of anything that we missed. I don't like the fact that years later someone is saying maybe we made a mistake, that the facts aren't what they could've been."
"I do have doubts now," she said. "I mean, we can only go with what we knew at the time, but I don't like the fact now that maybe this man was executed by our word because of evidence that is not true. It may not be true now. And I don't like the fact that I may have to face my God and explain what I did."
Also today, the Dallas Morning News ran a column by Lynn Wooley in which he speculates that Rick Perry's handling of the Willingham case and Kay Bailey Hutchison's so far less than fully energetic campaign effort, could cause some new candidates to enter the race for the Republican nomination for Texas governor. He says both Perry and Hutchison "have issues that must be cleared up - and soon - or other big names are going to enter the race."
What if the commission concludes that Willingham was innocent - and the voting public concludes that Perry's move to replace the chairman and three other members of the commission might have been a blocking tactic? The Hutchison campaign is already saying, "It gives the appearance of a cover-up."
This sordid affair might prove very useful to Hutchison in her campaign to unseat the governor, except for the fact that she seems to have no fire in the belly to pursue the race. In a radio interview with WBAP's Mark Davis, she said she isn't sure when she will leave the Senate to pursue the governor's race full time. She isn't certain about what Congress will do with health care, and she wants to "stay and fight with every bone in my body against a government takeover."
Plan to attend the 10th Annual March to Abolish the Death Penalty on October 24 in Austin at the Texas Capitol. We plan to deliver the petition that day. Members of Todd Willingham's family are expected to attend the march and rally and help us deliver the petition signatures.
Todd Willingham was executed for arson/murder on February 17, 2004. He professed his innocence from his arrest until he was strapped down on the execution gurney. Now, we know for certain that he was telling the truth. On August 25, 2009, Dr Craig Beyler, the investigator hired by the Texas Forensic Science Commission to review the Willingham case, released his report in which he found that "a finding of arson could not be sustained" by a scientific analysis (Read the report here). He concluded that the fire in the Willingham case was accidental and not arson. In fact, there was no arson, so there was no crime. Texas executed an innocent person. The proven execution of an innocent person should mean the end of the death penalty in the United States.
Rick Perry today vigorously defended his cover up of the execution of an innocent person in Texas by calling Todd Willingham a "monster". Eugenia Willingham, Todd's mother, responded to Perry's statement by telephone on tonight's CNN AC360, saying that Todd loved his kids and that Todd told her his trial was "a big joke" in part because his own defense lawyer thought he was guilty.
Kay Bailey Hutchison said today that Rick Perry's actions and cover up has given "liberals" a valid issue to criticize the death penalty.
Dr. Craig Beyler was quoted on CNN tonight saying that Rick Perry's new appointees to the Texas Forensic Science Commission should resign to restore integrity to the process. Beyler also said Perry is using his political clout to protect himself.
"As hard as Rick Perry's office and his campaign may try to divert from the issue, this is not about one man or one case. The issue is Rick Perry's heavy-handed politicization of a process and Commission established by the legislature to provide critical oversight. First, Rick Perry delayed the formation of the Texas Forensic Science Commission, then he tried to ensure it didn't have funding and when all else failed, he fired everyone he could. The only thing Rick Perry's actions have accomplished is giving liberals an argument to discredit the death penalty. Kay Bailey Hutchison is a steadfast supporter of the death penalty, voted to reinstate it when she served in the Texas House and believes we should never do anything to create a cloud of controversy over it with actions that look like a cover-up."
Chris Mathews also reported on the Willingham case tonight on Hardball. Watch the video here.
Beyler is quoted in the Dallas Morning News saying that Perry has a conflict of interest and should have not upended the investigation:
"his (Perry's) failure to recuse himself is both unethical and injurious to the cause of justice," Beyler wrote in a note intended for the Forensic Science Commission and forwarded to several reporters with his permission.
Call Perry's office at 512 463 1782 and demand that he release the memo he received from his staff on the day of Willingham's execution and all information that he is refusing to release regarding Willingham.
Plan to attend the 10th Annual March to Abolish the Death Penalty on October 24 in Austin at the Texas Capitol. We plan to deliver the petition that day. Members of Todd Willingham's family are expected to attend the march and rally and help us deliver the petition signatures.
Todd Willingham was executed for arson/murder on February 17, 2004. He professed his innocence from his arrest until he was strapped down on the execution gurney. Now, we know for certain that he was telling the truth. On August 25, 2009, Dr Craig Beyler, the investigator hired by the Texas Forensic Science Commission to review the Willingham case, released his report in which he found that "a finding of arson could not be sustained" by a scientific analysis (Read the report here). He concluded that the fire in the Willingham case was accidental and not arson. In fact, there was no arson, so there was no crime. Texas executed an innocent person. The proven execution of an innocent person should mean the end of the death penalty in the United States.
You can also send Perry a letter in the postal mail to the mailing address:
Office of the Governor
P.O. Box 12428
Austin, Texas 78711-2428
You can also call him on the phone and leave him a message:
(A great recap of the weekend's biggest news... - promoted by Phillip Martin)
According to an article in today's Houston Chronicle, Texas Governor Rick Perry is refusing to release documents that could show whether or not he considered or even read the information sent to him on the day of the execution of Todd Willingham informing him that there was new evidence casting doubt on Willingham's guilt and raising the question of whether Texas was about to execute an innocent man.
We must put pressure on Perry to release all information dealing with the Willingham execution. Rick Perry is continuing to hide information and cover up whether Texas executed an innocent person. The same information that Perry is refusing to release has been released before. In 2003, there was an article by Alan Berlow in The Atlantic ("Texas Clemency Memos") that discussed and contained copies of execution day memos sent to Governor George W Bush from his staff, including many written by his legal counsel Alberto Gonzales. According to Berlow:
Gonzales never intended his summaries to be made public. Almost all are marked CONFIDENTIAL and state, "The privileges claimed include, but are not limited to, claims of Attorney-Client Privilege, Attorney Work-Product Privilege, and the Internal Memorandum exception to the Texas Public Information Act." I obtained the summaries and related documents, which have never been published, after the Texas attorney general ruled that they were not exempt from the disclosure requirements of the Public Information Act.
Samuel Bassett, whom Perry replaced on the Texas Forensic Science Commission two weeks ago, said he twice was called to meetings with Perry's top attorneys. At one of those meetings, Bassett said he was told they were unhappy with the course of the commission's investigation.
"I was surprised that they were involving themselves in the commission's decision-making," Bassett said. "I did feel some pressure from them, yes. There's no question about that."
Call Perry's office at 512 463 1782 and demand that he release all information.
In a letter sent Feb. 14, three days before Willingham was scheduled to die, Perry had been asked to postpone the execution. The condemned man's attorney argued that the newly obtained expert evidence showed Willingham had not set the house fire that killed his daughters, 2-year-old Amber and 1-year-old twins Karmon and Kameron, two days before Christmas in 1991.
On Feb. 17, the day of the execution, Perry's office got the five-page faxed report at 4:52 p.m., according to documents the Houston Chronicle obtained in response to a public records request.
But it's unclear from the records whether he read it that day. Perry's office has declined to release any of his or his staff's comments or analysis of the reprieve request.
A statement from Perry spokesman Chris Cutrone, sent to the Chronicle late Friday, said that "given the brevity of (the) report and the general counsel's familiarity with all the other facts in the case, there was ample time for the general counsel to read and analyze the report and to brief the governor on its content."
A few minutes after 5 p.m., defense lawyer Walter M. Reaves Jr. said he received word that the governor would not intervene. At 6:20 p.m. Willingham was executed after declaring: "I am an innocent man, convicted of a crime I did not commit."
Summaries of gubernatorial reviews of execution cases previously were released as public records in Texas, most recently under former Gov. George W. Bush. Yet Perry's office has taken the position that any documents showing his own review and staff discussion of the Willingham case are not public - a claim the Chronicle disputes.
Plan to attend the 10th Annual March to Abolish the Death Penalty on October 24 in Austin at the Texas Capitol. We plan to deliver the petition that day. Members of Todd Willingham's family are expected to attend the march and rally.
Todd Willingham was executed for arson/murder on February 17, 2004. He professed his innocence from his arrest until he was strapped down on the execution gurney. Now, we know for certain that he was telling the truth. On August 25, 2009, Dr Craig Beyler, the investigator hired by the Texas Forensic Science Commission to review the Willingham case, released his report in which he found that "a finding of arson could not be sustained" by a scientific analysis (Read the report here). He concluded that the fire in the Willingham case was accidental and not arson. In fact, there was no arson, so there was no crime. Texas executed an innocent person. The proven execution of an innocent person should mean the end of the death penalty in the United States.
It links to a video that is a version of the story that ran on Anderson Cooper and Headline News over the weekend, but now it is linked to on the front page of CNN.com. (I saw it on the front page after midnight on Oct 6.)
I tried to embed the video using the code on cnn.com, but I got an error message from Soapblox, so below is the CNN video that aired over the weekend from YouTube.
But, in the past week, a brouhaha over his refusal to reappoint three members of an obscure forensic-science commission has political observers wondering if Perry, who is facing a potentially bruising GOP primary battle, has made a political misstep.
A well-placed source has confirmed to TIME that Perry ignored the written pleas from several members of the Texas Forensic Science Commission, including two of his own appointees, to reappoint the board's well-respected chairman, Austin lawyer Sam Bassett. Bassett's departure has resulted in a delay in an important investigation of evidence in a death-penalty case that critics say will prove an innocent man was executed on Perry's watch.
...
Sarah Kerrigan, a forensic toxicologist who was appointed by Texas attorney general Greg Abbott, told TIME that she had circulated a letter she had sent "three or four weeks ago" in support of Bassett to Perry among the commission's members and she was aware of similar letters written by Watts and Levy. (The governor appoints four members of the forensics board; the state attorney general appoints two and the lieutenant governor appoints three. In this case, Bassett, Levy and Watts were all Perry appointees. Bassett was first named to the commission in 2005 and reappointed in 2007.)
I had been planning with other members of Texas Moratorium Network to attend the meeting of the Texas Forensic Science Commission on Friday to deliver public comments to the Commission and to hold a demonstration to Shout it from the Rooftops that Todd Willingham was innocent. Now, Texas Governor Rick Perry has canceled the meeting and replaced the Commission's chair and some other members.
Call the Governor's office to STRONGLY protest his cancellation of the meeting and his replacement of the chair of the commission.
It's official: The governor of the state of Texas doesn't even want to hear any evidence that the state may have made a mistake in this case. That's cowardly. That's refusing to be held accountable. That's Rick Perry.
In a surprise move, Gov. Rick Perry today appointed two new members to a state commission investigating case of a Corsicana man who some believe was wrongly executed for murdering his children - forcing the cancellation of a meeting on the case scheduled for Friday.
Named to head the Texas Forensic Science Commission was John Bradley, district attorney in Williamson County. Bradley cancelled Friday's meeting at which the panel was to accept fire expert Craig Beyler's analysis of arson investigators' work in the deadly December 1991 house fire.
Three children perished in the blaze. Their father, Cameron Todd Willingham, was convicted of capital murder and executed.
Bradley, who has been his county's chief prosecutor since December 2001, said he called off Friday's meeting because he didn't have adequate time to study the arson case.
Beyler's report was extremely critical of the investigations by Corsicana and state arson investigators, concluding they based their arson ruling on outdated and sloppy procedures.
Beyler's was the third review to fault the arson investigators.
Outgoing commission chairman, Sam Bassett, an Austin defense lawyer, expressed "disappointment" at Perry's timing in the naming of new commissioners, but noted, "I understand that I serve at the pleasure of Gov. Perry."
Also replaced were commission members Alan Levy, head of the Tarrant County District Attorney's criminal division, and Aliece Watts, quality director at Euless-based Integrated Forensic Laboratories.
Perry named Norma Farley, chief forensic pathologist for Cameron and Hidalgo counties to the panel, and will name a third member in the near future.
Here is the video from last Friday's ABC News' Nightline report on the case of Cameron Todd Willingham. The report was titled, "Wrongly Executed?: Was a man put to death for a crime that he may not have committed?".
The video on the left is part one. The video on the right is part two.
In the interview, John Jackson, the former prosecutor in the Willingham case who is now a judge, says that despite the report submitted to the Texas Forensic Science Commission by Dr Craig Beyler, he still believes Willingham was guilty. He cites as support his absurd argument that it is "very likely" that Willingham poured an accelerant on the floor in the pattern of a pentagram, which supports Judge Jackson's opinion that Willingham was a devil worshipper. He also says that Willingham being a fan of Iron Maiden and having fan posters "makes it more likely that he is a devil worshipper" (see second part above). Jackson's pentagram-pattern-pouring theory ignores the fact that "a finding of arson can not be sustained" by scientific analysis, as Beyler says in his report. If there was no arson, then there was no crime. Jackson's performance in this Nightline interview puts him in the running for being Texas' worst judge, although admittedly there is a lot of competition (e.g. Sharon Keller). Jackson is certainly a major embarrassment to the Texas judiciary.
The San Antonio Express News has an editorial today titled "A lethal failure of justice in Texas" that says, "the overwhelming evidence is that investigators, prosecutors, court appointed defense attorneys, jury members, appellate judges, the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles and, finally, Gov. Rick Perry failed and Texas executed an innocent man".
Over the weekend the Dallas Morning News found out what Gov. Perry thinks about the Willingham case:
"I'm familiar with the latter-day supposed experts on the arson side of it," Perry said, making quotation marks with his fingers to underscore his skepticism.
Even without proof that the fire was arson, he added, the court records he reviewed before the execution of Cameron Todd Willingham in 2004 showed "clear and compelling, overwhelming evidence that he was in fact the murderer of his children."
In order to prevent another innocent person from being executed, Texas needs to establish a moratorium on executions and create a commission to study the Texas death penalty system. Governor Perry is in denial that Texas executed an innocent person. If Perry wins re-election, another innocent person could be executed while he is in office because he will continue to do nothing. If someone defeats Perry next year, then the new governor should take action to reform the Texas death penalty system to prevent another innocent person from being executed.
