I've written pretty extensively on the case of Todd Willingham, the man was executed by Texas in 2004 for setting a fire which killed his daughters, but who all the evidence shows is innocent of that crime. Read these posts here, here, here, here, and here; if you haven't read it, it's a fascinating story, and those posts cover it pretty well.
Here is a CNN interview of David Martin, who was Willingham's attorney in a death penalty case.
Two things.
First, God help anyone who has this man as an attorney. He had clearly made up his mind about his own clients guilt, and it's almost impossible to believe that someone could be on trial for his life and have this man responsible for saving it. The fact that Texas allowed this man to serve as an attorney in a capital case is a travesty in its own right.
Second, what in the hell is Anderson Cooper doing thanking this man for his "expertise"? This is a prime example of the new "fair and balanced" journalism, in which an opinion that is idiotic on its face is treated as just as valid as an opinion backed by evidence and actual reasoning. (Or, in this case, is given more time, and barely challenged at all.)
We have these "debates" all the time. A "journalist" invites two people with opposing viewpoints to "debate" each other on a "news" show. These people proceed to scream at each other, and are allowed to lie outright if it helps their case. The "journalist" sits there in the middle, never challenging, never offering an opinion. The message is that lies are as good as truths, and that journalists don't care.
Why on earth would we ever want balanced journalism? Balanced between what? Truth and falsehood?
I don't want that kind of balance. I want my reporting to be biased. I want it to be as biased as it can be on the side of truth. I don't want reporters to write down lies and repeat them. The people who are lying usually don't need any help promoting their lies.
Cameron Todd Willingham was put to death in 2004 after being convicted of setting a fire that killed his daughters. The arson investigation has since been entirely discredited by the leading arson investigators in the country, and it is now apparent to anyone with a brain that an innocent man was executed. I've written more about the case and investigation here, here, here, and here.
Nightline recently interviewed some of the people involved in this story.
From the interview with John Jackson, who prosecuted Willingham, and who is now judge:
Nightline's Terry Moran: You would agree that this report, from the Texas Forensic Science Commision, call into very serious question the methodology, and the way, this arson investigation-
Jackson: Without question.
Moran: ...That it really has a problem.
Jackson: That the techniques used were flawed.
Moran: Deeply.
Jackson: Yes...Some of the evidence is certainly less than, less credible than I would have liked to see.
Moran: And doesn't that give you pause at all, about sending a man to death?
Jackson: Not a man like Todd....The best evidence to me is not the investigation of the arson, the best evidence that I believe I presented was the, uh, prior attempts of Todd Willingham to kill his children.
Moran: He beat his wife when she was pregnant, therefore he killed his children in the fire?
Jackson: I think that's the major factor that most finders of facts such as jurors would consider.
Even Willingham's wife testified that he would never have hurt their children. Nor was there ever any evidence that he had tried to harm or kill his children. Jackson is just lying here, and he knows it.
Here's Jackson again, talking about the burn marks on the floor, which seem pretty random.
Jackson: It's perhaps a pentagram kind of a figure, ah, that some people accosiate with devil worship, that sort of thing.
Moran: You think that, that Todd Willingham poured accelerant in the shape of a pentagram, some sort of devil worship thing?
Jackson: I think that's very possible, and I think that's very likely.
Moran (obviously stunned): It's likely?
Jackson: Yes.
Moran: Based on the fact that he liked heavy metal and Iron Maiden, and liked metal rock groups that use skulls, and those kind of imagery, that makes him a devil worshipper?
Jackson: No, it does not make him, but it makes him more likely that he is a devil worshipper, or that he is obsessed with, ah, ah, Satan-like figures and that sort of thing.
Moran: And that would...that's evidence that he killed his children.
Jackson: Uh, that's certainly one factor that, that, uh, a finder of fact could consider.
Which would make half of the teenage boys in America in 1991 devil worshippers, and by, extension, child killers, apparently.
Here's Jackson talking about how he felt that Willingham's angry refusal to admit that he killed his children in exchange for a life sentence, was evidence that he was guilty.
Jackson: I think it's a response to his belief that, uh, a life sentence for him would be, uh, worse than a death penalty.
Isn't it also possible that he just was telling the truth when he said that, "I will never plead guilty to something I didn't do, especially killing my kids"?
Jackson: Uh, I don't think it's a very good possibillity that Todd Willingham ever told the truth to anybody, about anything. He's- he was one of the most completely manipulative individuals that you'd ever hope to find. (Pause) He's still manipulating us from the grave!
Paranoia. Irrational fear of things you don't know anything about, like heavy metal. Refusal to change one's mind in light of new information.
I think we got us a conservative here, boys!
Jackson is still in denial:
Moran: They say the conclusions reached by the investigators are not warranted by modern fire science, and are based on primitive, old wives tales...fold lore.
Jackson: It's not to say that they're not correct though.
Moran: You send a man to death on that.
Jackson: I'm comfortable with that.
Moran: Beyond a reasonable doubt?
Jackson: Beyond a doubt.
This man is still a judge in Texas. Is there any way on earth, after reading that, that you could expect a fair trial in front of this judge?
Update:
Here's Doug Fogg, the original arson investigator who decided that the fire was arson, explaining that all the tests and studies that have been done show him to be wrong:
Fogg: And, they gonna take it to these labs, and, blah, blah, blah, try and disapprove it. Well, I'll take it to a lab and disapprove it. But, ah, come to the real word sometime. Go out and let the beasts get ahold of you.
I don't even know what this statement means. In the real world, where they actually ran experiments, Fogg's theories of arson have be proven to be bullshit.
AUSTIN – Gov. Rick Perry reiterated his support for the state's death penalty system Tuesday after one of his predecessors raised questions about its reliability.
Questions about the arson investigation that led to the execution of Cameron Todd Willingham prompted former Gov. Mark White, a Democrat who ran as a strong advocate of capital punishment in the 1980s, to say last week that he now opposes it. Perry said Texas' system is sound.
"Our process works, and I don't see anything out there that would merit calling for a moratorium on the Texas death penalty," he said after voting early on a slate of constitutional amendments. "It's fair and appropriate, and we will continue with it."
Perry has been criticized for replacing members of the Texas Forensic Science Commission as it was about to hear from a scientist whose review raised doubts about the case.
Willingham was executed in 2004 in the 1991 Corsicana house fire that killed his three children.
In 2004, just before Willingham was executed, Gov. Perry was sent a report which exonerated Willingham. He ignored it, even though it is his job to review exactly that kind of evidence. Willingham was executed.
Last month, he prevented a commission from reviewing that same report, because, obviously, it would have shown that he negligently caused the death of Willingham, an innocent man. In Texas, this qualifies as negligent homicide.
So Perry is correct when he says that he doesn't " see anything out there that would merit calling for a moratorium on the Texas death penalty." But it's not because it's not out there. It's because he's just trying not to look.
I've written more about this here, here, and here.
As I wrote earlier:
Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, in 2006, voted with a majority to uphold the death penalty in a Kansas case. In his opinion, Scalia declared that, in the modern judicial system, there has not been “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.”
Well, it's time to start shouting from the rooftops. Where is Mr. Scalia now?
