http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.newyorker.com%2Freporting%2F2009%2F09%2F07%2F090907fa_fact_grann%3Fyrail&h=f5b97fde0d7991f75f68b695b1a481dfEvery indication is that Texas executed an innocent man in 2004. Cameron Willingham was convicted of setting a fire in his house that killed his 3 children. The conviction was based entirely upon the testimony of arson investigators. In typical Texas fashion for a death penalty case, his defense attorney only put on one witness - a baby sitter who said he was nice.
A set of truly expert arson investigators from other areas were asked to review the evidence after the trial. They all concluded that the local arson investigator's testimony was completely flawed and based upon invalid science. In fact, the experts concluded that there was no arson at all - that the cause of the fire was accidental, such as faulty wiring.
The experts submitted their report to Texas Governor and the Texas Pardons Board. There is no indication that the report was read by any of them. The execution proceeded, after the Pardons Board voted unnanimously to deny the petition.
Here's an excerpt from the article:
"The vote was unanimous. The board members did not even have to review Willingham’s materials, and usually don’t debate a case in person; rather, they cast their votes by fax—a process that has become known as “death by fax.” Between 1976 and 2004, when Willingham filed his petition, the State of Texas had approved only one application for clemency from a prisoner on death row. A Texas appellate judge has called the clemency system “a legal fiction.”
The Innocence Project obtained all the records from the governor’s office and the board pertaining to Hurst’s report. “The documents show that they received the report, but neither office has any record of anyone acknowledging it, taking note of its significance, responding to it, or calling any attention to it within the government,” Barry Scheck said. “The only reasonable conclusion is that the governor’s office and the Board of Pardons and Paroles ignored scientific evidence.”
LaFayette Collins, who was a member of the board at the time, told me of the process, “You don’t vote guilt or innocence. You don’t retry the trial. You just make sure everything is in order and there are no glaring errors.” He noted that although the rules allowed for a hearing to consider important new evidence, “in my time there had never been one called.” When I asked him why Hurst’s report didn’t constitute evidence of “glaring errors,” he said, “We get all kinds of reports, but we don’t have the mechanisms to vet them.”
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Last month, US Supreme Court Justice Anto Scalia wrote an opinion that says the US Constitution does not provide any protection for an innocent man about to be executed. I don't remember reading that in my high school civics textbook.
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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