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Flint · 10-02-2009, 01:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Redux

A highly emotional case in Texas where a man was convicted of intentionally setting his house on fire with his three young kids inside:

Quote:

Cameron Todd Willingham was executed in 2004 for starting a house fire in Corsicana 13 years earlier that killed his three young daughters. From the time of his arrest until a lethal injection ended his life on a prison gurney in Huntsville, Willingham maintained his innocence, refusing to enter a guilty plea at trial in exchange for a life sentence.

At the time of his state-inflicted death, it appeared Willingham's fate was to be remembered as a monster who burned his children alive for no conceivable motive. With the release of a report by renowned arson expert Craig Beyler, commissioned by the Texas Forensic Science Commission, history may hold him in a very different light: the first person executed since capital punishment resumed in the United States in 1974 who was posthumously proven innocent.

Beyler's report doesn't flatly say that, but it demolishes the findings by arson investigators that the fire was deliberately set. According to Beyler, they had “poor understanding of fire science” and misread burn patterns....

...Shortly before his execution, a well-known arson investigator, Gerald Hurst, examined the evidence that led to Willingham's conviction and came to the conclusion that the original finding of arson was wrong. All of the indications cited as proof of a deliberate fire could have been caused by a so-called flashover, when intense heat triggers flame bursts that can mimic arson.

Hurst's report was submitted as part of last-minute appeals to the state Board of Pardons and Paroles and Gov. Rick Perry to stay Willingham's execution. The appeals were denied....

...Whether or not it officially acknowledges that Willingham was wrongfully executed, the members of the Forensic Science Commission deserve thanks for their willingness to launch a thorough and impartial investigation. Since there are no do-overs where capital punishment is involved, the commission's next step should be formulating recommendations to upgrade and standardize forensic investigations and testing to prevent future miscarriages of justice.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/...l/6598054.html

Convicted and sentenced to death after a two-day trial....no motive was ever presented by the prosecution.

Additional evidence at the time of his executive that suggested the initial arson investigation was flawed.

And now, more compelling evidence of a wrongful conviction. At the very least, serious doubt.

You can NEVER undue a wrongful execution. The system failed.

A system based on punishing the worst of the worst should never fail those similarly charged but where the facts are in doubt from the very start.

Putting the morality of the death penalty aside with the understanding that morality is subjective, a system of justice should never be based on the worst case but rather on preventing the miscarriage of justice for any case.

Texas Governor Rick Perry doesn't want you to know that Texas executed an innocent man.

Quote:

The panel's post-mortem look at the Cameron Todd Willingham arson-murder case goes to the heart of Texas justice – including the governor's role in it – and whether an innocent man was railroaded into the death chamber at Huntsville.

Since Perry signed off on the Willingham execution in 2004, his own accountability is at stake. So perhaps it's no surprise that two days before the Texas Forensic Science Commission was to proceed with the case this week, Perry replaced the chairman and set things back.

http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&so...-8&sa=N&tab=wn