"So you can't say that the media has denied the matter attention. The simple fact of the matter is, with all of the political reporters following Perry on the campaign trial, it seems that none have thought to put a question about Cameron Todd Willingham to Perry directly. This is despite the fact that death penalty issues have historical salience in presidential elections, despite the fact that the magnitude of the miscarriage of justice in the Willingham case is off the charts where physical science is concerned, despite the fact that Perry's involvement reeks of political meddling, despite the fact that the matter has received rich coverage in the past and despite the fact that events of the past three weeks have been more than adequate to provide a springboard into the matter for cagey journalists. Or if they have, the news organizations for which they work haven't found it worth the mention."
JASON LINKINS; THE HUFFINGTON POST; "Jason Linkins is a Political Reporter at the Huffington Post, covering media and politics. He's based in Washington, DC. Previously, he wrote for HuffPo's Eat The Press, and has also contributed to DCist and Wonkette.)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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
For an important critique of the devastating state of arson investigation in America with particular reference to the Willingham and Willis cases, go to:
http://smithforensic.blogspot.com/2011/01/fire-investigation-great-read-veteran.html
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"In the three weeks since Texas Gov. Rick Perry stormed into the 2012 presidential race, bigfooting past the Ames Straw Poll and surging to frontrunner status, the media have flocked to the new entrant like flies to cow manure," the Huffington Post post by Jason Linkins published earlier today under the heading, "Cameron Todd Willingham Execution: Rick Perry's Role Deserves Scrutiny," begins.
"Along the way, they've asked questions of seeming pertinence. Is Rick Perry too extreme? Is he too religious? Even, is he "too dumb" to be president," the post continues.
"The mission, as always, has been to set the horse race narrative first: Mitt Romney, the sort-of-reasonable, eager to please, awkward but electable technocrat, finally gets his foil in the swaggering Texas secessionist.
But one of the essential parts of Perry's record in Texas involves the executions carried out by the state legal system during his tenure. In a state that's distinguished itself in the use of capital punishment, the way it was applied under the Perry administration deserves scrutiny. The Texas Tribune calls for such this morning in a piece entitled "Under Perry, Executions Raise Questions." And one name receives top billing:
As Gov. Rick Perry touts his tough-on-crime policies on the national political stage, the case of Cameron Todd Willingham will continue to be scrutinized. Scientists have raised questions about whether Willingham set the blaze that killed his three daughters and led to his 2004 execution.
Cameron Todd Willingham was convicted in August 1992 for the murder of his three young children in a fire that was deemed an arson by investigators. While on death row, a frantic effort to prove his innocence resulted in a full report which questioned the scientific legitimacy of the evidence used to convict Willingham. That report made its way to Gov. Perry's office ahead of the zero hour, but it was all for nought -- no stay of execution was granted in order to consider the new findings.
Willingham was executed by lethal injection on Feb. 17, 2004. Yet the efforts to exonerate Willingham only intensified, and in 2005, the Texas Forensic Science Commission decided to re-examine the case. The commission hired a nationally known fire scientist, Craig Beyler, to evaluate the evidence, and in his report, he came down on the same side as the scientists who had evaluated the case prior to Willingham's execution: there was no credible scientific basis for the conclusion that arson had been committed.
Beyler was eventually scheduled to testify before the commission on Oct. 2, 2009. Two days before Beyler's appearance, however, Rick Perry put a stop to it.
Two years later, we're wondering if anyone wants to ask the presidential aspirant why.
* * * * *
In September 2009, the New Yorker published an article by David Grann titled "Trial By Fire." It remains the most comprehensive bit of journalism on the Cameron Todd Willingham case.
Grann's piece is masterful. It begins by presenting the case made against Willingham by the original arson investigators and prosecutors assigned to the case. Grann presents their brief with great care, and in the best possible light -- so much so that by the time you are through the first section, it's hard to not be convinced that Willingham was guilty of the crime. Then, in the rest of the article, that case is meticulously, ruthlessly torn down as Grann demonstrates that almost no science was brought to bear on the evidence.
It seems that Willingham's first crime was that he was not a particularly virtuous man. A high school dropout, Willingham was an impoverished knockabout with a rap sheet of petty crimes, a penchant for heavy metal music and a reputation for abusing his wife. It was the birth of his first child, Amber, that seemed to put Willingham back on a path toward something like redemption. Twin girls followed a year later, and Willingham took up domestic responsibilities as his wife, Stacy, tended bar to earn money.
The fire that claimed the lives of the Willingham's children broke out on the morning of Dec. 23, 1991. Firefighters were called to the scene after residents in the neighborhood noticed the flames, and a frantic, shirtless Willingham on his front porch calling for help. Firefighters had to restrain him several times to keep him from re-entering the house. Willingham would later claim to have been awoken by the fire and his daughters' calls for help. Unable to reach them, he exited to house to try to get someone's attention. His wife was out Christmas shopping at the time of the conflagration.
The fire investigators assigned to Willingham's case saw evidence of arson in the remains of the house, and quickly established a theory of the crime. Per Grann:
By now, both investigators had a clear vision of what had happened. Someone had poured liquid accelerant throughout the children's room, even under their beds, then poured some more along the adjoining hallway and out the front door, creating a "fire barrier" that prevented anyone from escaping; similarly, a prosecutor later suggested, the refrigerator in the kitchen had been moved to block the back-door exit. The house, in short, had been deliberately transformed into a death trap.
The investigators collected samples of burned materials from the house and sent them to a laboratory that could detect the presence of a liquid accelerant. The lab's chemist reported that one of the samples contained evidence of "mineral spirits," a substance that is often found in charcoal-lighter fluid. The sample had been taken by the threshold of the front door.
That Willingham wasn't held in particularly high regard worked against him once he was formally accused of the murder of his children. Witnesses, who had at the time of the incident recalled his desperate attempts to save his children, began to ascribe darker motives to his actions. Neighbors suggested he was "putting on a show" for their benefit, playing the frantic father in order to mask the fact that he had set fire to his own home, in what was presumably one of the most complicated and dangerous schemes ever conceived to get out of parental custody.
The deal was sealed with testimony from a jailhouse snitch named Johnny Webb, in which he claimed that Willingham had -- out of the blue -- confessed his guilt to him. (Webb would later attempt to recant his testimony, and allege that his story was purchased in exchange for beneficial treatment.)
As far as what would have motivated Willingham to take the lives of his children, the prosecutors were content to simply rely on the testimony of medical experts, who labelled Willingham a sociopath. After a two-day trial, a conviction was secured. Willingham was offered a life sentence in return for confessing to the crime, but he refused. That's how he came to be on death row. (As Grann reported, the forensic psychology was flawed as well. Three years after the conclusion of Willingham's trial, the forensic psychiatrist who worked the case for the prosecution, James Grigson, "was expelled from the American Psychiatric Association" after it came to light that he "had repeatedly arrived at a psychiatric diagnosis without first having examined the individuals in question," among other ethics violations.)
Not long after, the evidence used to put him there came under scrutiny, and the case started to fall apart.
Here, Grann's article is essential. He describes how Willingham's plea for clemency ended up on the desk of Gerald Hurst, a renowned fire investigator and scientist whose patents (Hurst invented the Mylar balloon, among other things) afforded him the luxury of doing pro bono work watching the watchmen who investigate arson. With scant days remaining until Willingham's execution, Hurst agreed to examine the case.
One thing that Hurst was in a unique position to appreciate was the fact that the conventional wisdom as to what constituted adequate arson investigation had shifted radically in the years since the conviction. As it happened, the scientific method was not exactly in vogue at the time of the Willingham fire -- arson investigators instead relied on experiential lore handed down from one generation of arson investigator to another. For the most part, it was junk science. Hurst likened it to "witch-hunting." By the year 2000, Grann reports, the scientific method was more widely embraced, but even then "there remained great variance in the field, with many practitioners still relying on the unverified techniques that had been used for generations."
Hurst saw glaring flaws in the prosecution's case almost immediately. Hurst discovered that most of the assertions made by the original arson investigators as to how the fire began in Willingham's house, then subsequently moved and burned, had no basis in reality. Most significantly, the operative theory of the case -- that a liquid accelerant had been used to start the fire -- just didn't make scientific sense.
As Grann reports:
Without having visited the fire scene, Hurst says, it was impossible to pinpoint the cause of the blaze. But, based on the evidence, he had little doubt that it was an accidental fire -- one caused most likely by the space heater or faulty electrical wiring. It explained why there had never been a motive for the crime. Hurst concluded that there was no evidence of arson, and that a man who had already lost his three children and spent twelve years in jail was about to be executed based on "junk science." Hurst wrote his report in such a rush that he didn't pause to fix the typos.
Hurst's efforts were in vain. The Board of Pardons and Paroles, to whom Hurst's report was sent, denied Willingham's petition for clemency. Gov. Perry subsequently refused to grant a 30-day stay of execution to consider the new findings. There's no evidence to suggest that Hurst's report was ever read, let alone considered, by any of the people who held Willingham's life in their hands.
Grann's piece ends on a somewhat hopeful note:
In 2005, Texas established a government commission to investigate allegations of error and misconduct by forensic scientists. ... In mid-August, the noted fire scientist Craig Beyler, who was hired by the commission, completed his investigation. In a scathing report, he concluded that investigators in the Willingham case had no scientific basis for claiming that the fire was arson, ignored evidence that contradicted their theory, had no comprehension of flashover and fire dynamics, relied on discredited folklore and failed to eliminate potential accidental or alternative causes of the fire. He said that [arson investigator Manuel] Vasquez's approach seemed to deny "rational reasoning" and was more "characteristic of mystics or psychics." What's more, Beyler determined that the investigation violated, as he put it to me, "not only the standards of today but even of the time period." The commission is reviewing his findings, and plans to release its own report next year. Some legal scholars believe that the commission may narrowly assess the reliability of the scientific evidence. There is a chance, however, that Texas could become the first state to acknowledge officially that, since the advent of the modern judicial system, it had carried out the "execution of a legally and factually innocent person."
Grann's piece was published on Sept. 7, 2009. Three weeks later, while newly locked in a re-election battle against Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas), Rick Perry would put the kibosh on the commission's investigation.
* * * * *
When it comes to the death penalty, no one does it quite like Texas. Since 1976, Texas has executed 473 people, the most of any state in the nation. By means of comparison, the second place finisher in that morbid competition, the commonwealth of Virginia, has executed only 109 prisoners in virtually the same amount of time. (Texas' death penalty was re-enacted about two years before Virginia's, though both states made their first post-re-enactment execution in 1982.) The death row population in Texas is currently the third highest in the country, behind that in California and Florida.
The issue of the death penalty had salience the last time the Republican Party had a Texas governor running for the presidential nomination. As governor, George W. Bush presided over 152 executions, a record among U.S. governors until Rick Perry took the reins and oversaw 234. While running for president, Bush made the most of having to assume these responsibilities, and he suggested that the matter was worthy of seriousness in his book, A Charge To Keep, in which he discussed his process of adjudication: "For every death penalty case, [legal counsel] brief[s] me thoroughly, reviews the arguments made by the prosecution and the defense, raises any doubts or problems or questions."
But particular cases did raise doubt. In 1997, Bush denied clemency to Terry Washington, who was convicted of brutally murdering a 29-year-old restaurant manager named Beatrice Huling. That Washington was guilty of the crime was never in doubt. However, advocates for the accused protested that the death penalty was too severe a punishment in light of the fact that Washington was seriously mentally disabled, was the victim of sustained child abuse and received inadequate defense during his trial.
The best-known figure of Bush's death row was Karla Faye Tucker, who drew even more media attention by virtue of the fact that she was to be the first woman executed in the state of Texas since the Civil War. Again, that Tucker had committed a brutal crime -- she hacked two people to death with a pickax during a home invasion -- was never in doubt. But Tucker, who was in the throes of drug addiction at the time of the murder, made enormous efforts to reform herself in prison. In the minds of many, she was successful. Pope John Paul II urged clemency, joined by several of the leading figures in the conservative Christian world, including Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson. Current presidential aspirant Newt Gingrich did the same.
Bush disregarded those calls, and will probably be best known for his mocking imitation of Tucker -- "Please... please, don't kill me" -- as reported by conservative pundit Tucker Carlson for Talk Magazine. (The Bush campaign strenuously denied Carlson's claim.)
In the three weeks since Texas Gov. Rick Perry stormed into the 2012 presidential race, bigfooting past the Ames Straw Poll and surging to frontrunner status, the media have flocked to the new entrant like flies to cow manure. Along the way, they've asked questions of seeming pertinence. Is Rick Perry too extreme? Is he too religious? Even, is he "too dumb" to be president. The mission, as always, has been to set the horse race narrative first: Mitt Romney, the sort-of-reasonable, eager to please, awkward but electable technocrat, finally gets his foil in the swaggering Texas secessionist.
But one of the essential parts of Perry's record in Texas involves the executions carried out by the state legal system during his tenure. In a state that's distinguished itself in the use of capital punishment, the way it was applied under the Perry administration deserves scrutiny. The Texas Tribune calls for such this morning in a piece entitled "Under Perry, Executions Raise Questions." And one name receives top billing:
As Gov. Rick Perry touts his tough-on-crime policies on the national political stage, the case of Cameron Todd Willingham will continue to be scrutinized. Scientists have raised questions about whether Willingham set the blaze that killed his three daughters and led to his 2004 execution.
Cameron Todd Willingham was convicted in August 1992 for the murder of his three young children in a fire that was deemed an arson by investigators. While on death row, a frantic effort to prove his innocence resulted in a full report which questioned the scientific legitimacy of the evidence used to convict Willingham. That report made its way to Gov. Perry's office ahead of the zero hour, but it was all for nought -- no stay of execution was granted in order to consider the new findings.
Willingham was executed by lethal injection on Feb. 17, 2004. Yet the efforts to exonerate Willingham only intensified, and in 2005, the Texas Forensic Science Commission decided to re-examine the case. The commission hired a nationally known fire scientist, Craig Beyler, to evaluate the evidence, and in his report, he came down on the same side as the scientists who had evaluated the case prior to Willingham's execution: there was no credible scientific basis for the conclusion that arson had been committed.
Beyler was eventually scheduled to testify before the commission on Oct. 2, 2009. Two days before Beyler's appearance, however, Rick Perry put a stop to it.
Two years later, we're wondering if anyone wants to ask the presidential aspirant why.
* * * * *
In September 2009, the New Yorker published an article by David Grann titled "Trial By Fire." It remains the most comprehensive bit of journalism on the Cameron Todd Willingham case.
Grann's piece is masterful. It begins by presenting the case made against Willingham by the original arson investigators and prosecutors assigned to the case. Grann presents their brief with great care, and in the best possible light -- so much so that by the time you are through the first section, it's hard to not be convinced that Willingham was guilty of the crime. Then, in the rest of the article, that case is meticulously, ruthlessly torn down as Grann demonstrates that almost no science was brought to bear on the evidence.
It seems that Willingham's first crime was that he was not a particularly virtuous man. A high school dropout, Willingham was an impoverished knockabout with a rap sheet of petty crimes, a penchant for heavy metal music and a reputation for abusing his wife. It was the birth of his first child, Amber, that seemed to put Willingham back on a path toward something like redemption. Twin girls followed a year later, and Willingham took up domestic responsibilities as his wife, Stacy, tended bar to earn money.
The fire that claimed the lives of the Willingham's children broke out on the morning of Dec. 23, 1991. Firefighters were called to the scene after residents in the neighborhood noticed the flames, and a frantic, shirtless Willingham on his front porch calling for help. Firefighters had to restrain him several times to keep him from re-entering the house. Willingham would later claim to have been awoken by the fire and his daughters' calls for help. Unable to reach them, he exited to house to try to get someone's attention. His wife was out Christmas shopping at the time of the conflagration.
The fire investigators assigned to Willingham's case saw evidence of arson in the remains of the house, and quickly established a theory of the crime. Per Grann:
By now, both investigators had a clear vision of what had happened. Someone had poured liquid accelerant throughout the children's room, even under their beds, then poured some more along the adjoining hallway and out the front door, creating a "fire barrier" that prevented anyone from escaping; similarly, a prosecutor later suggested, the refrigerator in the kitchen had been moved to block the back-door exit. The house, in short, had been deliberately transformed into a death trap.
The investigators collected samples of burned materials from the house and sent them to a laboratory that could detect the presence of a liquid accelerant. The lab's chemist reported that one of the samples contained evidence of "mineral spirits," a substance that is often found in charcoal-lighter fluid. The sample had been taken by the threshold of the front door.
That Willingham wasn't held in particularly high regard worked against him once he was formally accused of the murder of his children. Witnesses, who had at the time of the incident recalled his desperate attempts to save his children, began to ascribe darker motives to his actions. Neighbors suggested he was "putting on a show" for their benefit, playing the frantic father in order to mask the fact that he had set fire to his own home, in what was presumably one of the most complicated and dangerous schemes ever conceived to get out of parental custody.
The deal was sealed with testimony from a jailhouse snitch named Johnny Webb, in which he claimed that Willingham had -- out of the blue -- confessed his guilt to him. (Webb would later attempt to recant his testimony, and allege that his story was purchased in exchange for beneficial treatment.)
As far as what would have motivated Willingham to take the lives of his children, the prosecutors were content to simply rely on the testimony of medical experts, who labelled Willingham a sociopath. After a two-day trial, a conviction was secured. Willingham was offered a life sentence in return for confessing to the crime, but he refused. That's how he came to be on death row. (As Grann reported, the forensic psychology was flawed as well. Three years after the conclusion of Willingham's trial, the forensic psychiatrist who worked the case for the prosecution, James Grigson, "was expelled from the American Psychiatric Association" after it came to light that he "had repeatedly arrived at a psychiatric diagnosis without first having examined the individuals in question," among other ethics violations.)
Advocates for Willingham, including the Innocence Project's Barry Scheck and former Texas Gov. Mark White (D), attempted to clear Willingham's name in an exoneration hearing, at which the forensic scientists most familiar with the case testified that Willingham was convicted by junk science. That procedure was halted by the Texas Third Court of Appeals before it could render its ruling.
There's an interesting coda, pertaining to John Bradley, the man whose delay-and-hide tactics stole the momentum from the Texas Forensic Science Commission's inquiry:
New DNA results, combined with evidence that was improperly withheld by Williamson County prosecutors for more than two decades, indicates that an Austin-area man has spent 24 years in jail for a murder he did not commit, a court filing alleged Wednesday.
Michael Morton, now 57, was convicted in the brutal beating death of his wife, Christine Morton, and sentenced to life in prison in 1987.
But a recent court-ordered DNA test, conducted on a blood-stained bandana over the objections of Williamson County District Attorney John Bradley, points instead to an unnamed California felon as the killer, according to court briefs filed by the Innocence Project of New York.
The court filing urged a Williamson County district judge to remove Bradley from the case, saying he cannot be trusted to oversee a reinvestigation of the killing because he has shown "unprofessional" animosity toward Michael Morton and his lawyers.
What's more, the motion alleges, Bradley worked to keep a key piece of evidence hidden from Morton's lawyers -- a transcript of a police interview that shows the Mortons' 3-year-old son witnessed his mother's murder and said the attacker was not his father.
That's from the Austin American-Statesman's "Austin Legal" blog. The dateline is Aug. 17, 2011, four days after Rick Perry announced his candidacy for president.
* * * * *
Prior to Perry's entrance into the 2012 race, the seeds for fulsome coverage of the Willingham case had long been planted. In addition to David Grann's New Yorker piece on the matter, the PBS documentary show "Frontline" aired a feature on the Willingham case in October of 2010. The documentary film "Incendiary" received a slew of rave reviews, and won the Louis Black/Lonestar Award at the 2011 South By Southwest Film Festival. The film's co-director, Steve Mims, was interviewed by Justin Elliott at Salon in June of 2011.
In addition to many cited above, various news organizations, newspapers and online news sites -- such as Talking Points Memo, the Burnt Orange Report and the Agitator (written by HuffPost's Radley Balko, formerly of Reason magazine) -- offered substantial coverage of the circumlocutions of the Texas Forensic Science Commission's struggles. Our own John Rudolph has done substantial reporting on this year's Texas executions on these pages. And a special mention must be given to the Texas Tribune, who -- well before this morning's piece documenting the questions raised by Perry's capital punishment record -- covered the matter relentlessly, led in particular by Editor-in-Chief Evan Smith.
Smith, to the best of our knowledge was the last reporter to have managed to ask Rick Perry a sustained set of questions about the Willingham case.
(For full context on Tim Cole, the name that briefly trips Perry up, and why it's relevant, click here.)
Since Perry entered the 2012 race, he's been the brightest, shiniest bait for political reporters, whose coverage of the governor has been as intense as the candidate's rise in the polls has been meteoric. If all the past coverage of the Willingham case wasn't enough to sustain some more recent inquiry, there have been several notable "news pegs" to which such coverage could have been attached.
Perry's take on evolution, which led to rampant speculation that he was "anti-science," would have served as a good starting point for an adjudication of the scientific evidence mustered by those seeking to exonerate Willingham -- evidence that Perry evidently ignored, thus preventing the hoped-for 30-day stay of execution.
And the image that Perry conjured in the early days of the campaign trial -- in which Federal Reserve Chairman Benjamin Bernanke deserved to be treated to the delicate hands of a Texas lynch mob -- failed to ignite the imagination of most campaign reporters. Most wrote off the incident as an example of the colorful way Perry communicated his beliefs. Alex Pareene at Salon was one of the few to make the connection to Willingham: "Also keep in mind that Rick Perry executed an innocent man and if that didn't disqualify him from being taken seriously as a presidential candidate I'm not sure how jokingly threatening to do so to another guy would."
Perhaps most strikingly, a concurrent news event provided an excellent inroad into an inquiry of Perry on the matter of Cameron Todd Willingham. On Aug. 19, 2011, Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin and Jessie Misskelley, Jr. -- better known as the West Memphis Three -- were granted the opportunity to enter an Alford plea in the murder case that sent them to jail in 1994 and be released from custody. Their conviction was controversial, and they were so widely believed to be innocent of the crimes they were accused of that their plight became a cause celebre. (Under the terms of an Alford Plea, the three men acknowledged the strength of the evidence against them, but were allowed to publicly maintain their innocence.)
Yet despite ample opportunity, the simple fact is that in the three weeks since Rick Perry became a presidential nominee, little attention has been paid to the Willingham case and the role the Texas governor played in it.
Based on a search of the TV Eyes transcript database, it appears that the cable news networks discussed the case on just two occasions. The first was an Aug. 24 segment on MSNBC, in which Al Sharpton discussed the case with Samuel Bassett and Richard Dieter of the Death Penalty Information Center. The second was a "Hardball" segment the next day, in which guest host Ron Reagan, Jr., led a panel debate between Professor Jordan Steiker of the University of Texas School of Law -- who was troubled by the case -- and Kent Scheidegger of the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation -- who argued that Willingham was guilty in spite of the scientific evidence that found the prosecution's theory of the case was inoperable.
That's it as far as television coverage is concerned. In the past three weeks, the death penalty that your cable news networks have been primarily concerned with is the potential "death penalty" faced by the University of Miami for multiple violations of NCAA regulations.
Print coverage has been wanting as well. According to the LexisNexis database, the coverage the Willingham case has received since Perry entered the race is limited to:
* Glancing mention in articles in Politico, the Houston Chronicle (on two occasions), Austinist, Gawker and whatever this is. In addition, the Willingham case was brushed up against in editorials in a few places, such as the Wichita Falls Times-Record News, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette and on The Huffington Post.
* A glancing mention in a post on the blog "Lawyers Guns And Money" (who deserve special consideration for noting, "As readers of this blog know, the most powerful symbol for Perry's style of governance is Cameron Todd Willingham.")
* ProPublica, the Burnt Orange Report and Jezebel refer people to past reporting on Perry, including pieces that touch on Willingham.
* Listicles! Like the Concord Monitor's grab bag of Perry's "controversial quotes," National Journal's "Top Six Rick Perry Facts" and Think Progress' "Top 10 Things Texas Gov. Rick Perry Doesn't Want You To Know About Him."
* Two 800-word stories on Perry's death penalty record in the San Francisco Chronicle and Business Insider, and a longer feature in the same vein from the Washington Post.
* A column featuring the Willingham case from Dana Kelley of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
* Willingham feature story from The People's Vanguard Of Davis.
* Three letters to the editor in various newspapers.
* And one blog that said "Texas Gov. Rick Perry announced today his candidacy for president. Cameron Todd Willingham, the innocent man whose death warrant Perry signed, was not available for comment," was a "news lede [they'd] like to see."
And that's it. Besides this morning's piece in the Texas Tribune, we've had three features on Perry's death penalty record, a few mentions of the Willingham case on some listicles, a few sources that guide readers back to prior reporting and a handful of asides scattered hither and yon. The only organization to attempt a feature story on Perry's role in the Willingham affair since he entered the race is the most obscure news organization on the roster above. (Add to that the New Republic's Kara Brandeisky, who insists that "Since Rick Perry declared his candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination last week, much ink has been spilled over the controversy surrounding his decision as governor to execute Cameron Todd Willingham." Where that ink has been spilled I cannot hazard a guess. The desk looks clean to me.)
To put the best possible spin on the way the story has been covered since Perry became a candidate, I'd reckon that the media has done the bare minimum at keeping it in the public consciousness -- with a pair of MSNBC segments doing much of the heavy lifting. (And it's worth noting that in those cases, the matter was tended to by on-air talent who were considered, at the time of each segment's airing, the second string.)
So you can't say that the media has denied the matter attention. The simple fact of the matter is, with all of the political reporters following Perry on the campaign trial, it seems that none have thought to put a question about Cameron Todd Willingham to Perry directly. This is despite the fact that death penalty issues have historical salience in presidential elections, despite the fact that the magnitude of the miscarriage of justice in the Willingham case is off the charts where physical science is concerned, despite the fact that Perry's involvement reeks of political meddling, despite the fact that the matter has received rich coverage in the past and despite the fact that events of the past three weeks have been more than adequate to provide a springboard into the matter for cagey journalists. Or if they have, the news organizations for which they work haven't found it worth the mention.
If one delves into the past reporting on the trial and execution of Cameron Todd Willngham, one will, before long, encounter a famous statement made by Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia in the 2006 case Cameron v. Marsh:
"It should be noted at the outset that the dissent does not discuss a single case -- not one -- in which it is clear that a person was executed for a crime he did not commit. If such an event had occurred in recent years, we would not have to hunt for it; the innocent's name would be shouted from the rooftops.
Or not. The next reporter to ask Rick Perry, candidate for the presidency of these United States, about the execution of Cameron Todd Willingham will be the first."
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The post can be found at:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/02/cameron-todd-willingham-execution-rick-perry_n_946654.html
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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 found at:
http://www.thestar.com/topic/charlessmith
Information on "The Charles Smith Blog Award"- and its nomination process - can be found at:
http://smithforensic.blogspot.com/2011/05/charles-smith-blog-award-nominations.html
Harold Levy: Publisher; The Charles Smith Blog; hlevy15@gmail.com;
