There remains no greater evil than the manifest injustice of those in power who abuse their citizens for political gain. Holding one of the highest badges of achievement in this area can go to TX Gov (R) Perry, his board of pardons. As well as 2 forensic charlatans Douglas Fogg and Manual Vasquez. For they apathetically allowed to be murdered (by lethal injection) an innocent man (Todd Willingham) for the sake of their own career gain and personal haughtier.
Texan Todd Willingham had always proclaimed his innocence. He lost his children in a fiery blaze while being poor, without work and having a checkered past. There was never any motive documented - only the horrific death of children and the need by swift justice to hold someone accountable.
The innocence project has reported upon the issue in their story
Cameron Todd Willingham; Wrongfull Convicted and Executed in Texas
There remains massive media coverage of the case as the Innocence Project reports;
Cameron Todd Willingham was executed in Texas in 2004 for allegedly setting a fire that killed his three young daughters 13 years earlier. He always claimed his innocence, and the arson investigation used to convict him was questioned by leading experts before Willingham was executed. Since 2004, further evidence in the case has led to the inescapable conclusion that Willingham did not set the fire for which he was executed.
The Texas Forensic Science Commission is currently investigating whether professional negligence or misconduct played a role in the forensic evidence that led to Willingham’s conviction.
What is alarming - are the many chances the system had to correct itself and stop the insanity. A history teacher and playwright from Houstaon (Elizabeth Gilbert) did meet with Willingham and endeavored to document the story of his life, the tragic day and the years in prison.
The New Yorker reporter David Grann documents author Gilbert's record of events and the failures of the system Trial By Fire story
The innocence Project provides much details on the case starting with this summary;
Case Summary
On Christmas Eve 1991, a fire destroyed the Corsicana, Texas, home Cameron Todd Willingham shared with his wife and three daughters, killing the three girls. Willingham, who was asleep when the first started, survived. His wife was at the Salvation Army buying Christmas presents for the girls.
At Willingham’s 1992 trial, prosecutors claimed he intentionally set fire to his home in order to kill his own children. Willingham said he was asleep in the home when the fire started and always maintained his innocence. He was convicted based on the testimony of forensic experts who said they had determined that the fire was intentionally set and a jailhouse informant who said Willingham had confessed to him. On October 29, 1992, he was sentenced to death. (Download the full trial transcripts here.)
Thirteen years later, in the days leading up to Willingham’s execution, his attorneys sent the governor and the Board of Pardon and Parole a report from Gerald Hurst, a nationally recognized arson expert, saying that Willingham’s conviction was based on erroneous forensic analysis. Documents obtained by the Innocence Project show that state officials received that report but apparently did not act on it. Willingham was executed by lethal injection in Huntsville on February 17, 2004.
Months after Willingham was executed, the Chicago Tribune published an investigative report that raised questions about the forensic analysis. The Innocence Project assembled five of the nation’s leading independent arson experts to review the evidence in the case, and this prestigious group issued a 48-page report finding that none of the scientific analysis used to convict Willingham was valid.
In 2006, the Innocence Project formally submitted the case to the Texas Forensic Science Commission, asking the empowered state entity to launch a full investigation. Along with the Willingham case, the Innocence Project submitted information about another arson case in Texas where identical evidence was used to send another man to death row. In that case, Ernest Willis was exonerated and freed from prison because the forensic evidence was not valid.
In 2008, the Texas Forensic Science Commission agreed to investigate the case. The panel’s review has been interrupted several times over the last two years, however, and continues today. In 2009, an arson expert hired by the commission issued a report finding that experts who testified at Willingham’s trial should have known it was wrong at the time. Days before the expert was set to testify, however, Gov. Rick Perry replaced key members of the panel, delayed the investigation for months.
An investigative report in the September 7, 2009, issue of the New Yorker deconstructs every facet of the state’s case against Willingham. The 16,000-word article by David Grann shows that all of the evidence used against Willingham was invalid, including the forensic analysis, the informant’s testimony, other witness testimony and additional circumstantial evidence.
On October 14, Texas Judge Charlie Baird held a hearing in the Willingham case to determine whether to hold a court of inquiry. And on October 15, the Texas Forensic Science Commission discussed the case in depth at its regular meeting.
There are many Key Reports and Documents links in the IP story
including:
2010: John Lentini presentation at Court of Inquiry hearing
2009: Report of Craig Beyler to the Texas Forensic Science Commission
2009: New Yorker investigation: Trial by Fire
2008: Innocence Project Letter to TFSC
2006: Expert Panel Report on Willingham and Willis convictions
2006: Innocence Project Filing to Texas Forensic Science Commission
2004: Gerald Hurst Report on Willingham Arson Investigation
2004: Hurst report on Ernest Willis arson investigation
2004: Chicago Tribune Investigation: Man Executed on Disproved Forensics - 2004
Documents Obtained from Texas via Open Records Act (PDF)
Download the complete Trial Transcript(s) available;
Cameron Todd Willingham Trial Transcripts
In the New Yorker's article - you will find a detailed review by a true forensic scientist - Dr. Gerald Hurst PHD (Chemistry Cambridge University).
Prior to the execution of Willingham - Dr. Hurst took the case on "pro bono" and realized that the "purported" experts of Fogg and Vasquez were utilizing "Junk Science" to assure the conviction of Willingham.
Dr.Hurst concluded that not “a single item of physical evidence . . . supports a finding of arson.”
On February 13th, four days before Willingham was scheduled to be executed, he got a call from Reaves, his attorney. Reaves told him that the fifteen members of the Board of Pardons and Paroles, which reviews an application for clemency and had been sent Hurst’s report, had made their decision.
The Board of Pardons/Paroles and the Governor simply rejected looking at Dr. Hurst's report that totally vindicated Willingham.
The Board of Pardon's member LaFayette Collins, said
“We get all kinds of reports, but we don’t have the mechanisms to vet them.”
Alvin Shaw, another board member at the time, said that the case didn’t “ring a bell,”
adding, angrily, “Why would I want to talk about it?”
Governor Perry's office stipulated that;
“The Governor made his decision based on the facts of the case"
Apparently - not based upon any "scientific" facts!
Chicago Tribune reporters Maurice Possley and Steve Mills - infuriated by Dr. Hurst's findings and failures to address such overwhelming proof of innocence - conducted their own study and found the arson case against Willingham was 100% "scientifically proven to be invalid".
The New Yorker story had this glaring criticism of the charlatans;
In 2005, Texas established a government commission to investigate allegations of error and misconduct by forensic scientists. The first cases that are being reviewed by the commission are those of Willingham and Willis. 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 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.”
Just before Willingham received the lethal injection, he was asked if he had any last words.
He said,
“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 twelve 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.”
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We already have our own battle with manifest injustice - that may one day be told by others. Most don't want to look at the eToys case - because it points to systemic problems within our federal system of justice too heinous to admit.
But this case harms me even larger than the loss of my career and life savings. Just imagine losing your children is such a horrific manner, losing wife, friends and being spit upon and abused by prison's worst and guards as if you were the scourge of the earth.
Knowing all the while - you did no wrong.
The Poll below is a serious one -
for we believe that those who could not be bothered with doing their job of making sure justice was done
Should be Held Accountable!
Thu Jun 27, 2013 at 11:35 AM PT: Governor Perry should be Parry'd and Thrust out of Office - by our helping Wendy to become the next Texas Governor.
UPDATE June 27, 2013 - Youtube video and PDF link on TX/ Willingham
Youtube video provide by "Swarthmore" at Jonathan Turley's Blog (
here)
PDF Link on Forensic Commission formed in Texas provided by anon on Turley's blog (
here).