"An angry, shouting Daniel Dougherty was escorted from a courtroom
Monday moments after being convicted for a second time of setting the
fire that killed his two young sons in 1985. "You got it wrong!" Dougherty, 56, yelled at the jury, rising to his
feet as the foreman somberly delivered guilty verdicts on arson and
murder charges. The judge told Dougherty to sit down and be quiet. Dougherty shot back: Why should I? "You threw the Constitution out the window," he told Common Pleas Court Judge J. Scott O'Keefe. Dougherty attempted to leave the courtroom to go to a holding cell,
then seemed to stop. The judge told him to obey the instructions of the
sheriff's deputies who surrounded him. "What are they going to do?" Dougherty snapped. "Beat me up?" A full courtroom of 50 spectators, including relatives and
fire investigators, sat silent as Dougherty erupted, having been warned
in advance that no outbursts would be tolerated. Assistant District Attorney Jude Conroy asked the judge to
immediately sentence Dougherty to two consecutive life terms - and the
judge agreed, adding a 10-to-20-year concurrent penalty for arson. "I haven't seen this despicable of a crime in a long time," O'Keefe said. Dougherty's grown son, Stephen, wept as the verdict was read. He had
been ordered to keep away from witnesses in the case, and the judge
specifically warned him to behave in the moments before the jury
returned. The trial spanned 15 days, including seven days of deliberations by
the jury of nine women and three men. One juror was replaced after
becoming emotionally unable to go on. Jurors declined to discuss their discussions - twice they had
reported they were deadlocked - as they left the courthouse Monday..........On Monday, Dougherty was convicted of arson and second-degree murder.
That indicates the jury believed he set the fire but did not
necessarily think he intended to kill the children when he did so. "We're incredibly disappointed," said defense lawyer David Fryman,
who with cocounsel Shannon Farmer has represented Dougherty for 12
years. "We're absolutely going to appeal. We think there were numerous
rulings that were erroneous, and those rulings made for an unfair
trial."........In 2014, an appeals court ordered a
new trial, saying his original lawyer's failings were so serious that
no reliable determination of guilt or innocence occurred. Those faults centered on the defense failure to challenge the fire
science against Dougherty. In the retrial, the defense produced
nationally known expert John Lentini, head of Scientific Fire Analysis
L.L.C. in Florida. Lentini said that the rowhouse was so badly damaged that it was
impossible to determine the cause of the fire - and that "undetermined"
should have been the classification. It could have been arson, Lentini said on the stand. But it also
could have been a cigarette, dropped and smoldering in a household of
smokers. Conroy, imploring the jury to see contradictions in Lentini's
testimony, called the scientist a disgrace who would "whore himself and
say anything" in exchange for a consultant's fee. The 1985 findings of Assistant Fire Marshal John Quinn gained fresh
support from consultant and former Fire Marshal Thomas Schneiders. After
reviewing the case file, he testified that burn patterns definitively
showed the fire was set in three places - a sofa, a love seat, and under
a dining-room table. Dougherty has always maintained his innocence, saying he loved his
sons and tried to save them that night. He was counting on advances in
fire science to free him, contending that the original inquiry was
flawed, that what once was once proof of arson is today known to be
proof of nothing. His case had been closely watched by legal experts who say the use of outdated fire science has put innocent people in jail. Marissa Boyers Bluestine, legal director of the Pennsylvania
Innocence Project, which has supported Dougherty, said the case "should
never have been allowed to go to trial." "There's certainly no scientific validity in the testimony from the
commonwealth experts. To be able to put that in front of a jury today,
in 2016, was a travesty," she said. "
Tuesday, April 12, 2016
Bulletin: Daniel Dougherty; Philadelphia; (Aftermath1 ): Updated story by reporter Jeff Gammage on the jury's troubling verdict on this arson/murder case that should never have gone to trial. "You got it wrong!" Dougherty, 56, yelled at the jury, rising to his feet as the foreman somberly delivered guilty verdicts on arson and murder charges. The judge told Dougherty to sit down and be quiet. Dougherty shot back: Why should I? "You threw the Constitution out the window," he told Common Pleas Court Judge J. Scott O'Keefe. Dougherty attempted to leave the courtroom to go to a holding cell, then seemed to stop. The judge told him to obey the instructions of the sheriff's deputies who surrounded him. "What are they going to do?" Dougherty snapped. "Beat me up?"... "We're incredibly disappointed," said defense lawyer David Fryman, who with cocounsel Shannon Farmer has represented Dougherty for 12 years. "We're absolutely going to appeal. We think there were numerous rulings that were erroneous, and those rulings made for an unfair trial."Philadelphia Inquirer; Philadelphia Inquirer;
