"On Friday afternoon, the Fire Marshal’s office made a stunning presentation defending its work in the Willingham case.
Fire Marshal officials appeared before the Texas Forensic Science Commission at a hearing in downtown Austin to publicly answer questions for the first time about their handling of the Willingham case. Assistant Fire Marshal Ed Salazar told the commissioners today that his office stands behind the Willingham investigation and its conclusions.
In the past 15 years, scientific experiments have proved false many of the old assumptions that fire investigators relied on, including many in the Willingham case. But no matter. Salazar said if this case were being probed today, his office might reach similar findings. That’s a scary thought......"
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"Kerrigan asked if the Fire Marshal’s office—in light of recent discoveries in the field—had gone back to examine the thousands of older cases it investigated with what now appears outdated knowledge.
This is the key question. As I’ve written before, nothing can be done about the Willingham case now. What matters is whether lessons gleaned from the case can help free anyone wrongly convicted of arson. There are 750 people in Texas prisons on arson convictions and many could be innocent.
Salazar wouldn’t answer the question directly. He said he hoped any investigator who became aware of a mistake would come forward.
But it became clear that the answer to Kerrigan’s question was no, despite the disturbing implication that hundreds of people may have been wrongly convicted of arson, the Fire Marshal’s office hasn’t bothered to review its case files.
A wider review seems needed."
REPORTER DAVE MANN: THE TEXAS OBSERVER;
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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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"It’s hard to admit a mistake. It’s even harder when that mistake led to a man’s death," the Texas Observer commentary by Dave Mann published on January 7, 2011 under the heading "Fire Marshal: Willingham Case Was Fine and Dandy," begins, under the heading, "At forensic hearing, Fire Marshal's office stands by its arson investigation."
"So it’s understandable that officials with the Texas State Fire Marshal’s office would be reticent to admit that their investigation into the Cameron Todd Willingham case was deeply flawed. That flawed and outdated evidence, after all, led to Willingham’s 1992 arson conviction and his 2004 execution," the commentary continues.
"On the other hand, nine of the top fire scientists in the country have examined the case and concluded there wasn’t a shred of evidence that Willingham committed arson. That doesn’t prove his innocence, but it does undercut the evidence that led to his execution. So how could Fire Marshal officials not admit that something was seriously amiss?
The answer, apparently, is very easily.
On Friday afternoon, the Fire Marshal’s office made a stunning presentation defending its work in the Willingham case.
Fire Marshal officials appeared before the Texas Forensic Science Commission at a hearing in downtown Austin to publicly answer questions for the first time about their handling of the Willingham case. Assistant Fire Marshal Ed Salazar told the commissioners today that his office stands behind the Willingham investigation and its conclusions.
In the past 15 years, scientific experiments have proved false many of the old assumptions that fire investigators relied on, including many in the Willingham case. But no matter. Salazar said if this case were being probed today, his office might reach similar findings. That’s a scary thought.
It’s not clear where the commission’s two-year-old Willingham inquiry will go from here. But if nothing else, today’s hearing showed that Texas needs a wide-ranging inquiry into whether flawed arson evidence has sent innocent people to prison.
When Salazar, who’s served in the Fire Marshal’s office since 1994, stepped to the podium this afternoon to address the commission, I was curious to hear what he would say. Salazar had sat stone-faced through the morning session while Dr. Craig Beyler and Dr. John DeHaan—two of the most respected fire scientists in the country—eviscerated the evidence in the Willingham case.
DeHaan called the investigation “flawed” and “negligent.” Beyler, who was appearing before the commission 15 months after he wrote a report that found no evidence to support a finding of arson, criticized the investigators for not ruling out all possible “accidental and natural causes,” which, he said, any good fire investigator must do before concluding that a blaze was intentionally set. (Beyler was originally scheduled to address the commission in September 2009, but that hearing was canceled after Gov. Rick Perry deposed three members of the commission.) Beyler also noted today that contents from the bedroom where the fire started were dumped out the window and never examined. How, Beyler wondered, could Manuel Vasquez—who led the Fire Marshal’s investigation—declare the fire an arson without examining the full contents in the room of origin?
Moreover, other experts have debunked every piece of arson evidence put forth by Vasquez. At a court hearing in October, another noted fire scientist, John Lentini, went point-by-point and explained why every one of Vasquez’s supposed indicators of arson were wrong and that all of them could have resulted from an accidental fire.
So Salazar had a lot to answer when he began his afternoon power-point presentation. He clicked through photos from the fire scene—including the blackened bedroom where Willingham’s daughters died in the fire. The photos caused Eugenia Willingham, Todd’s stepmother, and his cousin Patricia Willingham Cox, who were both sitting in the front row, to turn away at times.
As Salazar presented his evidence and contended that the slides still supported a finding of arson, it became clear that the field of fire investigation hadn’t come quite as far as we thought. His presentation relied on outdated notions, what some fire scientists have taken to calling “old wives tales.”
For instance, Salazar showed photos of burn patterns on the floor of the Willingham house that were labeled “pour patterns.” Investigators alleged this is where Willingham poured an accelerant to start the blaze. Salazar contended that even under today’s standards, pour patterns can be potential evidence of arson.
In reality, scientists now know that after a fire goes to flashover stage, which this fire did, investigators can glean very little information from the burn patterns on the floor. That’s because during flashover, the fire will scorch the floor. So after flashover, burns on the floor tell you nothing about how the fire started.
Salazar also showed photos of burned holes in the floor. This is another “old wives tale.” Salazar claimed that deep burning on the floor could indicate the presence of an accelerant. (In fact, the opposite is true, as DeHaan later explained in his rebuttal testimony. Repeated scientific testing has shown that gasoline and other accelerants burn off quickly, making it “very difficult, if not impossible, for the fire to burn through the floor,” DeHaan said. Typically, only a fire that goes to flashover can burn long enough to consume the floor. So, the deep burning on the floor couldn't have been caused by an accelerant, but was simply the byporduct of the fire going to flashover.)
Undeterred, Salazar plowed ahead. He said Vasquez had followed the scientific method and drawn proper conclusions. “[The finding of arson] is a judgment call ultimately coming down to opinions.” The fire scientists might assert that fire investigators relied on their opinions for too long rather than verifiable scientific fact.
But everyone would probably agree with what Salazar said next: “There is an underlying tension between the scientific community and the people doing the down and dirty work.”
Indeed, there has been a rift between the scientific eggheads doing the experiments and the fire investigators—mostly former firemen, police and military officers, some of whom lack college degrees and who took a 120-hour course—who work the scenes.
In fact, today’s hearing was a perfect example. In the morning, two eminent fire scientists debunked the evidence. In the afternoon, the fire investigators from the Fire Marshal’s office, and Thomas “Buddy” Wood, a long-time investigator from the Houston Fire Department who’s studied the case, defended the finding of arson.
Salazar, however, falls into neither category. “I’m not an arson investigator, I’m an attorney,” he said at one point. As his presentation went on, it became clear why the Fire Marshal’s office had dispatched a lawyer to argue its case rather than a fire expert.
Some of the commissioners seemed baffled by Salazar’s unyielding presentation. Commissioner Sarah Kerrigan asked Salazar how he would respond to the many experts who have been “highly critical” of the Willingham investigation.
Salazar acknowledged that Vasquez’s report in the case wasn’t detailed enough. And he conceded that Vasquez “included some superfluous information” that doesn’t square with what we know now—which seemed his acknowledgement that some of the evidence had been debunked. But he defended that ultimate arson finding, adding, “I believe the conclusions they reached can be scientifically sound. I can’t be sure. I wasn’t there.” His use of the words “can be” seemed indicative of the delicate dance he was attempting—defending the conclusion of arson while acknowledging some of the flaws in the evidence
But Salazar quickly pivoted and went on the attack. He looked at the scientists who testified earlier in the day and demanded to know their hypothesis of how the fire started. (Beyler and DeHaan had both labeled the cause “undetermined,” although they noted the cause could have been an electrical short.)
“These individuals said they looked at the electrical system and they looked for shorts,” Salazar said. “Are we calling these people liars now….What bad science was used?”
Kerrigan asked if the Fire Marshal’s office—in light of recent discoveries in the field—had gone back to examine the thousands of older cases it investigated with what now appears outdated knowledge.
This is the key question. As I’ve written before, nothing can be done about the Willingham case now. What matters is whether lessons gleaned from the case can help free anyone wrongly convicted of arson. There are 750 people in Texas prisons on arson convictions and many could be innocent.
Salazar wouldn’t answer the question directly. He said he hoped any investigator who became aware of a mistake would come forward.
But it became clear that the answer to Kerrigan’s question was no, despite the disturbing implication that hundreds of people may have been wrongly convicted of arson, the Fire Marshal’s office hasn’t bothered to review its case files.
A wider review seems needed. If the Fire Marshal’s presentation today is any indicator of the state of fire investigation, it’s clear that what befell Cameron Todd Willingham could very easily happen to someone else.
Asked about the Fire Marshal’s position, Dr. DeHaan said, “I was dismayed to see that interpretation. It was dismaying to see that all we’ve tried to do in the intervening 15 years didn’t make much difference.”
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The post can be found at:
http://www.texasobserver.org/contrarian/fire-marshal-willingham-case-was-fine-and-dandy
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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;
