"Dougherty has always insisted he awoke to a house ablaze, ran outside, then tried desperately to rescue John and Daniel. In 2000, he was tried, convicted, and sentenced to death. Now he's counting on advances in fire science to free him. He was granted a new trial when an appeals court ruled that his lawyer's failures so skewed the original proceeding that "no reliable adjudication of guilt or innocence took place." Dougherty's trial lawyer, Thomas Ciccone, now deceased, never rebutted the state's expert testimony by calling a defense expert to describe improvements in fire science between 1985 and 2000, the appeals court said. The testimony of Assistant Fire Marshal - John Quinn - now too ill to testify, was left unchallenged. Quinn said the blaze was arson, with fires started on a love seat, a sofa, and beneath a dining-room table. In court on Thursday, Quinn's trial testimony was read to jurors. They were shown photo after photo of the charred interior of the home. Earlier they heard testimony that Dougherty was a drunk who hit both his live-in girlfriend, Kathleen Schuler, who owned the home, and his wife, Dippel, from whom he was separated. Prosecutors say a vengeful Dougherty set the fire to hurt them both, destroying the house of one and the children of the other. The main drama on Thursday concerned the photos of the boys.........Judge J. Scott O'Keefe ruled that one photo of the dead boys could be shown to the jury. Defense counsel also failed to keep the jury from hearing Quinn's original testimony, although asserting that Quinn's lack of fire knowledge helped send Dougherty to death row. During the last 20 years, a stream of scientific studies has deflated what once were considered solid indicators of arson. In Pennsylvania and elsewhere, inmates have challenged convictions that they say are based on old, disproven science.".........Prosecutors insist that the original guilty verdict was correct. They will continue presenting their case when the trial resumes Monday."
http://www.philly.com/philly/news/20160325_Jurors_shown_1985_photo_of_boys__charred_bodies.html
