Bulletin: Outdated arson 'science': William Vasquez, Amaury Villalobos and Raymond Mora; New York; Reuters reports that three New York men have been exonerated in 1980 fire that killed family of six; "No physical evidence linked the men to the fire, which prosecutors now say could have been started accidentally, either by addicts who frequently cooked drugs in the apartment where the fire started, or faulty electrical wiring in the building. Investigators say they are uncertain what caused the blaze. Fire officials had testified during the trials that forensic evidence pointed to arson as the cause. But many of the methods and reasoning used in 1980 to determine that a fire was intentionally set are no longer considered valid, leading to a string of exonerations in recent years. In one high-profile case, 80-year-old Queens, New York, resident Han Tak Lee was freed from prison last year after a federal magistrate ruled the arson evidence used to convict him of murder was based on outmoded beliefs about arson. Lee spent 24 years behind bars for the death by fire of his mentally ill daughter."

"A New York judge on Wednesday exonerated three men convicted of murder and arson in a 1980 apartment fire that killed a family of six after prosecutors conceded they were found guilty on the basis of unreliable witness testimony and unsound science. William Vasquez, Amaury Villalobos and Raymond Mora served a collective four decades in prison after convictions in connection with a fire that tore through a Brooklyn apartment building 35 years ago. The blaze killed Elizabeth Kinsey, 27, and her five children, ranging in age from 9 years to 9 months. "After a thorough investigation, we've concluded that these three men were wrongly convicted based on weak evidence, outdated science and the testimony of a single wholly unreliable witness," Brooklyn District Attorney Ken Thompson said in a statement. "We now move to corrected this miscarriage of justice." Vasquez, 70, and Villalobos, 66, both paroled in 2012, were on hand at New York State Supreme Court in Brooklyn on Wednesday to hear their convictions overturned. Mora died while incarcerated in 1989.........No physical evidence linked the men to the fire, which prosecutors now say could have been started accidentally, either by addicts who frequently cooked drugs in the apartment where the fire started, or faulty electrical wiring in the building. Investigators say they are uncertain what caused the blaze. Fire officials had testified during the trials that forensic evidence pointed to arson as the cause. But many of the methods and reasoning used in 1980 to determine that a fire was intentionally set are no longer considered valid, leading to a string of exonerations in recent years. In one high-profile case, 80-year-old Queens, New York, resident Han Tak Lee was freed from prison last year after a federal magistrate ruled the arson evidence used to convict him of murder was based on outmoded beliefs about arson. Lee spent 24 years behind bars for the death by fire of his mentally ill daughter." http://news.yahoo.com/three-york-men-exonerated-1980-fire-killed-family-205212564.html See  related Innocence Project post:

--> "The only eyewitness in the trial was the building’s owner, Hannah Quick, who accused the three men of setting the fire. On her deathbed last year, Quick confessed to family members that she lied to investigators. During a review of the case by the Brooklyn district attorney’s Conviction Review Unit, prosecutors discovered that Quick made many contradicting statements to police.  The only other evidence against the three defendants was the testimony of a fire marshal who said he found evidence of arson at the scene. In partnership with Adele Bernhardt of the New York Law School Post-Conviction Innocence Clinic, the Conviction Review Unit commissioned experts to reexamine the crime scene evidence. The experts found no evidence that the fire was set intentionally. In light of these developments, Assistant District Attorney Mark J. Hale recommended that Justice Matthew J. D’Emic throw out the three men’s convictions.  “The record does not show that the defendants did anything to start a fire or acted together to start a fire—no evidence to show they were even present to start a fire,” Hale said in court on Wednesday. “The district attorney has no confidence in this case, no evidence of a crime. The people move to vacate the convictions of all three, and we lack evidence to retry any of these defendants.” http://www.innocenceproject.org/news-events-exonerations/three-men-exonerated-of-1980-brooklyn-arson-murder