"An inquiry into whether Cameron Todd Willingham was wrongly executed was postponed today after state District Judge Charlie Baird announced that he needed some time to review a motion for his recusal from the case and to allow lawyers for Willingham’s family to respond..
Baird reset the case for a week from Thursday in his Travis County courtroom.
The recusal motion was made by Navarro County District Attorney Lowell Thompson, whose office successfully prosecuted Willingham in 1992. Thompson was in court and said he would return next week.
Baird said that prior to the hearing he was delivered a letter form Caren Barbach, general counsel for Gov. Rick Perry, declining Baird’s invitation for the governor or someone from his office to participate in the Willingham hearing.
In the letter, Barbach questioned whether Baird had the jurisdiction to hear Willingham’s case and noted that multiple levels of state and federal court upheld Willingham’s conviction.
“The petition and hearing appear to be improper collateral attacks upon a final judgment against a man found guilty of murdering his three children,” Barbach wrote."
REPORTER STEVEN KREYTAK: AUSTIN AMERICA-STATESMAN;
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BACKGROUND OF REVIEW: District Judge Charlie Baird agreed to hold the unprecedented two-day hearing to consider evidence on whether Cameron Todd Willingham was actually innocent of and executed for a crime that never occurred. Willingham was executed in 2004 in connection with a fire in his home in Corsicana that claimed the lives of his three young children. State officials – including the State Fire Marshal's Office – concluded that the 1991 fire had been deliberately set by Willingham; Willingham maintained his innocence, including in his last words before death...Baird, who will retire at the end of the year, will consider testimony and evidence in the case on Oct. 6 and 7. Baird last year presided over the state's first posthumous hearing in the case of Tim Cole.
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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"An inquiry into whether Cameron Todd Willingham was wrongly executed was postponed today after state District Judge Charlie Baird announced that he needed some time to review a motion for his recusal from the case and to allow lawyers for Willingham’s family to respond," the American-Statesman story by reporter Steven Kreytak begins, ubnder the heading, "Judge Baird postpones Willingham hearing."
"Baird reset the case for a week from Thursday in his Travis County courtroom," the story continues.
"The recusal motion was made by Navarro County District Attorney Lowell Thompson, whose office successfully prosecuted Willingham in 1992. Thompson was in court and said he would return next week.
Baird said that prior to the hearing he was delivered a letter form Caren Barbach, general counsel for Gov. Rick Perry, declining Baird’s invitation for the governor or someone from his office to participate in the Willingham hearing.
In the letter, Barbach questioned whether Baird had the jurisdiction to hear Willingham’s case and noted that multiple levels of state and federal court upheld Willingham’s conviction.
“The petition and hearing appear to be improper collateral attacks upon a final judgment against a man found guilty of murdering his three children,” Barbach wrote.
Baird said from the bench that “these were pretty much exactly the same proceedings that we engaged in on behalf of Mr. Timothy Cole, who the governor later recognized and who was posthumously pardoned by the governor.”
After a hearing last year, Baird issued the first posthumous DNA exoneration to Cole, who died while serving a prison term for a rape he did not commit.
Earlier
On the day a judge is scheduled to begin a hearing into whether Cameron Todd Willingham was wrongly executed, Willingham’s ex-wife stood outside the Travis County courthouse and said she believes Willingham was guilty of killing their three young daughters in 1991.
Stacy Kuykendall told reporters that before his 2004 execution, Willingham admitted to setting their Corsicana house on fire because she had threatened to leave him the night before. Their daughters, 1-year-old twins Karmon and Kameron and 2-year-old Amber, died from the fire.
“I think about my daughters every day and I miss them,” said Kuykendall, who was joined by her brother Tracy Kuykendall and her lawyer Johnny Sutton. “He burned them, he admitted he burned them to me, and he was convicted of his crime. That is the closest to justice that my daughters will get.”
Willingham publicly maintained his innocence until his death and his family and lawyers have claimed he was convicted on faulty arson science. Beginning shortly before his death, a string of arson experts have found that the science that two investigators used to determine the fire was arson relied on disproven theories and should not have been presented to a jury.
Lawyers for Willingham’s family last month petitioned state District Judge Charlie Baird in Travis County to restore Willingham’s reputation by declaring that he was wrongly convicted and to probe whether state officials committed official oppression in their handling of his case before the execution. Those state officials were not named.
It is still unclear whether the hearing in the case would happen at 1:30 p.m. as planned. On Monday, Navarro County District Attorney R. Lowell Thompson filed a motion seeking Baird’s recusal. Thompson’s motion noted several grounds including that while Baird was on the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals in 1995 he voted to uphold Wilingham’s conviction and death sentence. Thompson noted that that ruling could call into question Baird’s ability to be impartial. He also noted that Baird this year received an award from the Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty.
Kuykendall did not go into detail about Willingham’s alleged statements to her but her lawyer distributed a written statement from her that was first published in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram about a year ago.
In the dramatic two-page statement, she said she had doubts about her husband’s story after the fire and that she was incredulous that he did not testify on his own behalf to proclaim his innocence during his trial.
Kuykendall wrote that she visited Willingham on death row about two weeks before he was executed. With 10 minutes remaining in the visit, Willingham asked her to write the Texas Board of Pardons and Parole and ask for his sentence to be commuted to life, she wrote.
Kuykendall said he then put his head down, began crying and mentioned a fight the two had the night before the fire and her threats to leave him.
“He told me that he believed I was going to but he couldn’t let that happen,” the statement said. “He said if I didn’t have my girls I couldn’t leave him.”
Sutton said Kuykendall did not come to Travis County to participate in the scheduled hearing. He said she also did not wish to comment on the validity of the hearing, although Sutton did.
“There’s a lot around this hearing that looks wrong. That minds have been made up, that agendas are present here,” said Sutton, a former U.S. attorney. “It’s obvious in this case that there is an agenda, that people are pushing an anti-death penalty agenda.”"
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The story can be found at:
http://www.statesman.com/blogs/content/shared-gen/blogs/austin/courts/entries/2010/10/06/executed_mans_wife_claims_he_a.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;