"In closing the case last week, White told Baird that the evidence offered against Willingham has been "impugned today by the overwhelming testimony of these experts" who agree that Vasquez's conclusions were "tantamount to some tea leaf reader." He noted that the case's outcome was markedly different than that of the eerily similar arson case against Ernest Willis, who was also sent to death row based on evidence gathered by Vasquez. He was later exonerated after prosecutors reviewed the case based on the work of Hurst, who concluded there was no arson. Willis walked free just months after Willingham was executed. "We have a Willis that walks free today, but we have nothing more than the memory of a Willingham," he said, even though the cases "are nearly identical in facts and law."
REPORTER JORDAN SMITH; THE AUSTIN CHRONICLE;
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BACKGROUND OF WILLINGHAM CASE: (Wikipedia); Cameron Todd Willingham (January 9, 1968 – February 17, 2004), born in Carter County, Oklahoma, was sentenced to death by the state of Texas for murdering his three daughters—two year old Amber Louise Kuykendall, and one year old twins Karmon Diane Willingham and Kameron Marie Willingham— by setting his house on fire. The fire occurred on December 23, 1991 in Corsicana, Texas. Lighter fluid was kept on the front porch of Willingham’s house as evidenced by a melted container found there. Some of this fluid may have entered the front doorway of the house carried along by fire hose water. It was alleged this fluid was deliberately poured to start the fire and that Willingham chose this entrance way so as to impede rescue attempts. The prosecution also used other arson theories that have since been brought into question. In addition to the arson evidence, a jailhouse informant claimed Willingham confessed that he set the fire to hide his wife's physical abuse of the girls, although the girls showed no other injuries besides those caused by the fire. Neighbors also testified that Willingham did not try hard enough to save his children. They allege he "crouched down" in his front yard and watched the house burn for a period of time without attempting to enter the home or go to neighbors for help or request they call firefighters. He claimed that he tried to go back into the house but it was "too hot". As firefighters arrived, however, he rushed towards the garage and pushed his car away from the burning building, requesting firefighters do the same rather than put out the fire. After the fire, Willingham showed no emotion at the death of his children and spent the next day sorting through the debris, laughing and playing music. He expressed anger after finding his dartboard burned in the fire. Firefighters and other witnesses were suspicious of how he reacted during and after the fire. Willingham was charged with murder on January 8, 1992. During his trial in August 1992, he was offered a life term in exchange for a guilty plea, which he turned down insisting he was innocent. After his conviction, he and his wife divorced. She later stated that she believed that Willingham was guilty. Prosecutors alleged this was part of a pattern of behavior intended to rid himself of his children. Willingham had a history of committing crimes, including burglary, grand larceny and car theft. There was also an incident when he beat his pregnant wife over the stomach with a telephone to induce a miscarriage. When asked if he had a final statement, Willingham said: "Yeah. The only statement I want to make is that I am an innocent man - convicted of a crime I did not commit. I have been persecuted for 12 years for something I did not do. From God's dust I came and to dust I will return - so the earth shall become my throne. I gotta go, road dog. I love you Gabby." However, his final words were directed at his ex-wife, Stacy Willingham. He turned to her and said "I hope you rot in hell, bitch" several times while attempting to extend his middle finger in an obscene gesture. His ex-wife did not show any reaction to this. He was executed by lethal injection on February 17, 2004. Subsequent to that date, persistent questions have been raised as to the accuracy of the forensic evidence used in the conviction, specifically, whether it can be proven that an accelerant (such as the lighter fluid mentioned above) was used to start the fatal fire. Fire investigator Gerald L. Hurst reviewed the case documents including the trial transcriptions and an hour-long videotape of the aftermath of the fire scene. Hurst said, "There's nothing to suggest to any reasonable arson investigator that this was an arson fire. It was just a fire. Legendary "Innocence" lawyer Barry Scheck asked participants at a conference of the National Association of Criminal Defence Lawyers held in Toronto in August, 2010, how Willingham, who had lost his family to the fire, must have felt to hear the horrific allegations made against him on the basis of the bogus evidence, "and nobody pays any attention to it as he gets executed." "It's the Dreyfus Affair, and you all know what that is," Scheck continued. "It's the Dreyfus AffaIr of the United States. Luke Power's music video "Texas Death Row Blues," can be found at:
http://smithforensic.blogspot.com/2010/09/cameron-todd-willingham-texas-death-row_02.html
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"In court testimony last week, two nationally recognized fire-science experts roundly discredited evidence that sent Cameron Todd Willingham to the death chamber for the 1991 arson-murder of his three children in his Corsicana home," the Austin Chronicle story by reporter Jordan Smith published earlier today under the heading, "Are Fire Marshals Shirking Their Duty?" begins.
"Florida-based expert John Lentini and Austin-based Gerald Hurst testified during a hearing before District Judge Charlie Baird that there's no proof the fire that killed the children was intentionally set," the story continues;
"Further, both experts questioned why anyone would continue to defend the science that the state used to convict Willingham – unless, of course, they are intent on ignoring the so-called "duty to correct," which compels scientists to admit when they've provided incorrect evidence or testimony in a criminal case. That's exactly what it appears state Fire Marshal Paul Maldonado has done, testified Lentini, by penning an Aug. 20 letter to the Forensic Science Commission that his office stands by "the original investigator's report and conclusions." Barry Scheck, co-director of the Innocence Project and one of the team of lawyers representing Willingham's surviving relatives, asked Lentini if there was any way to explain Maldonado's steadfastness. Lentini replied, "Only if someone is holding a gun to his head or is trying to avoid the duty to correct."
The testimony was part of a roughly three-hour hearing Oct. 14 in Baird's court. Willingham's relatives are asking Baird to find that Willingham was wrongfully convicted and that there's enough evidence to warrant opening a formal court of inquiry to determine if any state officials (i.e., the Fire Marshal's Office and/or Gov. Rick Perry) committed official oppression by allowing Willingham to be executed despite having been provided compelling scientific evidence challenging the propriety of his conviction.
The lawyers closed the case, and Baird took the evidence into consideration, just minutes before the 3rd Court of Criminal Appeals issued a stay in the case, ordering Baird to stop until an argument made by Navarro District Attorney R. Lowell Thompson can be sorted out and whether Baird should be hearing the case at all. The hearing was initially scheduled to take place Oct. 6, but Baird stayed the proceedings to consider Thompson's motion asking Baird to recuse himself from the case due to evidence (albeit contradictory) suggesting Baird could not be impartial: As a judge on the Court of Criminal Appeals, Baird had once ruled on Willingham's case, in favor of upholding his conviction; more recently, he was given the Courage Award by the Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty.
At the start of court last Thursday, Baird said he'd considered the motion and was persuaded by the arguments of the attorneys for Willingham's family – including Scheck, former Gov. Mark White, and San Antonio attorney Gerald Goldstein – that Thompson was not actually a party to the proceeding, and thus had no standing to ask for Baird's recusal. Thompson seemed flustered by that decision, and, as it turns out, he left Baird's courtroom and went several blocks east to the 3rd Court's offices to file for a stay, which Chief Justice Woodie Jones granted. The order gives Scheck, White, and Goldstein until Oct. 22 at 5pm to respond. (Baird will be allowed to issue his findings if and when the court tells him he may do so.)
Lawyers for Willingham's family questioned Lentini and Hurst about problems with the evidence former fire marshal's investigator Manuel Vasquez (now deceased) testified to during Willingham's 1992 trial. At issue is the fact that some of Vasquez's conclusions were not even then supported by the standard of care for fire investigation, said Lentini. Some of his incorrect assessments were widely believed at the time, including the notion that rapid heating creates spiderwebbing in glass, a myth that Lentini ultimately debunked in 1992 (known as "crazed glass," it is in fact created only by rapid cooling, such as when water hits hot glass). But most of the assertions in Vasquez's initial report, and later in testimony at Willingham's murder trial, were not consistent with the established and accepted science. Lentini should know: He was among the experts who wrote the National Fire Protection Association's manual on fire investigation.
Among the things Vasquez got wrong was the idea that burn patterns on a floor prove that an accelerant has been used to set the blaze. Those patterns, Lentini said, are actually created because items on the floor protect it from burning to the same degree as exposed flooring. Moreover, he testified that at the time of the Willingham fire, scientists had already shown that inside a room, fire will consume everything in its wake – burning underneath beds and tables, for example – as a result of a phenomenon called "flashover," in which fire rises to the ceiling and then consumes the room from the top down, eating fuel created by combustible materials, including furniture.
Hurst was the first to challenge the conclusion that the Willingham fire was arson. Back in 2004, just weeks before Willingham's execution, Willingham's cousin Pat asked him to review the evidence; he did, and he concluded that there was "no valid science whatsoever to suggest the Willingham fire was arson," he testified last week. Willingham's attorney handed that conclusion over to the Navarro County district attorney, the fire marshal, and the Governor's Office, but no one ever contacted him to ask about his assertions, he testified. Hurst said it's impossible to rule out arson altogether, but he saw nothing that would back up that conclusion. Instead, he said, the more likely culprit was faulty, "jerry-rigged" wiring in the room where the children slept: "It was an accident waiting to happen," he said.
The fight over whether Willingham might have been wrongfully convicted and executed has been playing out for several years. The Innocence Project first asked Lentini to review the case in 2006; it was then forwarded to the nascent Forensic Science Commission, which subsequently hired another expert, Craig Beyler, to review the case (his conclusions mirror those of eight other experts who have so far weighed in). Just two days before the commission was set to question Beyler about his conclusions, Perry removed two commissioners, including the group-selected chair, Austin attorney Samuel Bassett; Perry then appointed Williamson County District Attorney John Bradley as the new chair. Bradley has since tried to put the whole matter to bed, drafting a report, intended to close the case, that notably sidestepped the question of whether the Fire Marshal's Office had a duty to acknowledge it might have relied on inaccurate or outdated science – not only in the Willingham case but also in potentially hundreds of other arson cases. The commissioners rejected Bradley's move.
In closing the case last week, White told Baird that the evidence offered against Willingham has been "impugned today by the overwhelming testimony of these experts" who agree that Vasquez's conclusions were "tantamount to some tea leaf reader." He noted that the case's outcome was markedly different than that of the eerily similar arson case against Ernest Willis, who was also sent to death row based on evidence gathered by Vasquez. He was later exonerated after prosecutors reviewed the case based on the work of Hurst, who concluded there was no arson. Willis walked free just months after Willingham was executed. "We have a Willis that walks free today, but we have nothing more than the memory of a Willingham," he said, even though the cases "are nearly identical in facts and law.""
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The story can be found at:
http://www.austinchronicle.com/gyrobase/Issue/story?oid=oid:1101897
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PUBLISHER'S NOTE: The Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. The Star has a "topic" section which focuses on recent stories related to Dr. Charles Smith. It can be accessed at:
http://www.thestar.com/topic/charlessmith
For a breakdown of some of the cases, issues and controversies this Blog is currently following, please turn to:
http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=120008354894645705&postID=8369513443994476774
Harold Levy: Publisher; The Charles Smith Blog; hlevy15@gmail.com;http://www.newsweek.com/2010/10/09/alter-rick-perry-texas-and-the-death-penalty.html#
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PUBLISHER'S NOTE: The Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. The Star has a "topic" section which focuses on recent stories related to Dr. Charles Smith. It can be accessed at:
http://www.thestar.com/topic/charlessmith
For a breakdown of some of the cases, issues and controversies this Blog is currently following, please turn to:
http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=120008354894645705&postID=8369513443994476774
Harold Levy: Publisher; The Charles Smith Blog; hlevy15@gmail.com;
