"Although there is a fundamental enigma — what really happened — that cannot be fully answered, the first half of “Incendiary” seeks to demonstrate through the testimony of Gerald Hurst and John Lentini, arson science experts, as well as through gorgeous re-enactments, that there was simply no arson, the prosecution’s key to conviction. That methodical analytical breakdown using the latest forensic science is riveting, yet the film also demonstrates that there’s a little junior arsonist in its co-director.
“We deployed some accelerants and had a few controlled fires in my driveway,” Mr. Mims said, “but couldn’t quite convince the Austin Fire Department to help out with a full flashover fire.”"
JOHN PIERSON; TEXAS TRIBUNE; AS PUBLISHED IN THE NEW YORK TIMES; (John Pierson, the author of “Spike, Mike, Slackers & Dykes: A Guided Tour Across a Decade of American Independent Cinema,” lectures on film at the University of Texas at Austin.)
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BACKGROUND: (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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"Yes, this is West 11th Street, Corsicana, Texas. It’s about 10 o’clock in the morning. Those are the arson investigators, and they’ll soon decide that I set this house on fire and burned my three young children to death just before Christmas 1991. But before you hear it all distorted or blown out of proportion, maybe you’d like to hear the facts, the whole truth. The governor likes to quote my own defense attorney about how I am — or should I say: was — “a monster.” Because, you see, I was executed six years ago when he wouldn’t grant a stay," the Texas Tribune story published in the New York Times published on November 27, 2010 begins, under the heading, "Willingham Filmmakers Will Speak for the Dead."
"With apologies to Billy Wilder and William Holden as Joe Gillis in “Sunset Boulevard,” that is how Cameron Todd Willingham’s voice-over might begin “Incendiary,” a wildly and broadly appealing, nearly completed documentary about his controversial conviction and eventual execution in Texas," the story continues.
"When I asked Steve Mims, the co-director of “Incendiary” and my colleague in the University of Texas at Austin’s radio, television and film department, if such an opening would be disrespectful to Mr. Willingham’s memory, he was reassuring.
“I love ‘Sunset Boulevard,’ so I don’t think you can go wrong with that,” Mr. Mims said.
Then, showing his movie-maven credentials, he added, “Did you know they shot and edited a whole scene with many corpses talking in the county morgue, but cut it because it was unintentionally funny?” So the Hollywood feature ended up with just one dead man talking, while the Texas documentary, tragically, has none.
Mr. Mims has shot, edited and taught film in all lengths, genres and formats for decades in Austin, training a generation of young filmmakers. One day in the fall of 2009, Joe Bailey Jr., a postdoctoral fellow from the University of Texas School of Law, showed up in Mr. Mims’s class at the urging of his wife, Alice, a Travis County prosecutor. Mr. Bailey was a music aficionado and a frustrated writer who had plans to make a documentary about Doug Sahm, the legendary Texas troubadour.
Over brisket recently at Ruby’s BBQ, Mr. Bailey explained his frustration. “I could never quite express what I wanted to about music in words,” he said.
Mr. Bailey wasn’t Mr. Mims’s typical student: he was a bit older, very focused, with his own audio equipment to complement his professor’s camera gear. An unexpected chat after one class gave Mr. Bailey a new subject, an opportunity to use his legal background and an eager collaborator.
The conversation touched on the death penalty, but more specifically focused on appeals, stays, pardons and responsible governance. Mr. Mims had just read David Grann’s New Yorker piece on the Willingham case, a tale that was not well known, even in Texas. He sent it to Mr. Bailey, whose instant response was, “We should make this film.” Mr. Mims wrote back, “That would be a lot of work. ... Yeah, let’s do it.”
Although there is a fundamental enigma — what really happened — that cannot be fully answered, the first half of “Incendiary” seeks to demonstrate through the testimony of Gerald Hurst and John Lentini, arson science experts, as well as through gorgeous re-enactments, that there was simply no arson, the prosecution’s key to conviction. That methodical analytical breakdown using the latest forensic science is riveting, yet the film also demonstrates that there’s a little junior arsonist in its co-director.
“We deployed some accelerants and had a few controlled fires in my driveway,” Mr. Mims said, “but couldn’t quite convince the Austin Fire Department to help out with a full flashover fire.”
When it comes to films about justice gone wrong in Texas, Errol Morris’s “Thin Blue Line” casts a long shadow. It got out of jail a man, Randall D. Adams, who had been falsely convicted of gunning down a Dallas policeman, and it did it in style, with flying milkshakes, hypnotic watches, B-movie-obsessed eyewitnesses and a fatalistic Philip Glass score. Mr. Mims and Mr. Bailey love the film and certainly don’t mind any comparisons.
But Mr. Morris had a live prisoner to save, while Mr. Mims and Mr. Bailey could rescue only a dead man’s reputation. They started shooting in October 2009, just after Gov. Rick Perry had replaced the chairman of the state’s Forensic Science Commission, which was about to release a report on the Willingham case. As such, “Incendiary” depicts a surprisingly dramatic series of procedural events and political obstacles in the middle of Mr. Perry’s re-election campaign, ending in an exoneration trial.
“Our agenda was always in three parts: science, the law and politics,” Mr. Mims said.
He and Mr. Bailey did not set out to make a death penalty film, and they succeeded.
“The emotional climate of most death penalty convictions is that both the tough-on-crime side and the anti-death-penalty advocates lose sight of due process, fairness and science,” Mr. Bailey said.
If there’s an overriding theme to a film that puts science first, it is that science and advocacy are not friends."
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The story can be found at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/28/us/28ttdocumentary.html?_r=1
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;
