AUSTIN, Tex. — It was an unusual hearing. The subject at the center of it all, Cameron Todd Willingham, was not present. After being convicted of murdering his three children in a 1991 house fire, he was executed in 2004.
Members of Mr. Willingham’s family, working with lawyers who oppose the death penalty, had asked for the rare and controversial hearing, held here on Thursday, to investigate whether Mr. Willingham was wrongfully convicted. They argue that the proceeding, known as a court of inquiry, could restore Mr. Willingham’s reputation, a right guaranteed under Texas law, even to the dead.
But they also say that the hearing is more than symbolic — it could cast in a new light the Lone Star State’s record on executions. And more broadly, they argue, it is a cautionary tale about the power of flawed science to sway a courtroom, and a glaring injustice that could affect debates over the fairness of the death penalty.
That debate has been framed, in part, by a 2006 opinion written by Justice Antonin Scalia of the United States Supreme Court, in which he said that the dissent in a case had not cited “a single case — not one — in which it is clear that a person was executed for a crime he did not commit.”
Many who oppose the death penalty have taken Justice Scalia’s statement as a challenge, and argue that the Willingham case is their proof.
To those favoring the death penalty, Mr. Willingham is guilty, and the efforts to posthumously exonerate him are an abolitionist farce.
Critics of the hearing have said the proceeding is illegal, and have tried to derail it. The district attorney of Navarro County, R. Lowell Thompson, whose office originally convicted Mr. Willingham, filed a motion last week demanding that Judge Charlie Baird recuse himself, arguing a judge cannot appoint himself to lead a court of inquiry, and must instead refer the matter to a higher court for an appointment. At the beginning of the hearing on Thursday, Judge Baird ruled that he would allow the hearing to go forward.
At the end of the day, however, as testimony was closing down, the Texas Third Court of Appeals in Austin issued a stay at Mr. Thompson’s request, ordering Judge Baird not to hold further proceedings or to issue rulings until next Friday, and asked the Willingham team to explain why the case should be allowed to go forward.
The focus of lawyers for Mr. Willingham’s family was on evidence presented by fire marshals at Mr. Willingham’s original trial — evidence that nine experts have said included “many critical errors,” as one report put it. Several of the experts were working at the request of the Innocence Project, an organization that seeks the acquittal of wrongfully convicted people.
The expert who wrote that critical report, Gerald Hurst, argued that evidence suggested the fire was accidental, not arson. His report was sent to Gov. Rick Perry shortly before the execution, but Mr. Perry declined to halt or delay the procedure.
The evidence presented at trial that Mr. Willingham committed arson “amounts to junk science,” Gerald H. Goldstein, a San Antonio lawyer arguing on behalf of the Willingham family, said in the courtroom.
Judge Baird asked Dr. Hurst at the hearing whether his review of the case could rule out arson “within a reasonable degree of scientific certainty.”
Dr. Hurst demurred. “I never had a case where I could exclude arson,” he said. “It’s not possible to do that.”
The judge then asked if “there’s nothing in the evidence you’ve seen here that suggests arson.”
“That’s correct,” Dr. Hurst said.
John Lentini, a fire expert who has studied flawed arson investigations, hammered at the evidence and analysis from fire marshals at the Willingham trial.
Under questioning by Barry Scheck, a founder of the Innocence Project, Mr. Lentini ridiculed critical testimony at the trial that 20 factors, including burn patterns on the floor and cracks in the windows, proved that Mr. Willingham spread accelerants to fuel the fire.
No such chemicals were found in the house, Mr. Lentini said. Much of the analysis of Manuel Vasquez, the state fire marshal in the Willingham trial, “didn’t even meet the standards of 1991,” a time that Mr. Lentini characterized as having “a wretched state of the art.”
The current fire marshal, Paul Maldonado, stands by the work of the original marshals in the Willingham case, which Mr. Lentini said he found mystifying.
Mr. Lentini said that the flaws in the science required the state to go back and take a new look at other arson convictions. “I can understand why the fire marshal doesn’t want to go back and review hundreds of cases,” he said. “But that’s probably his duty.”
Governor Perry has fought the review of the case, and declined to participate in the hearing. Katherine Cesinger, his spokeswoman, said, “Nothing the Austin court does can change the fact that Todd Willingham was convicted in a trial court with the appropriate jurisdiction, and sentenced to death by a jury of his peers for murdering his three young daughters.”
The case, she noted, had worked its way through the appeals process and even reached the Supreme Court over the course of more than a decade. The governor has described Mr. Willingham as “an absolute monster who killed his own kids.”
Closing the hearing, former Gov. Mark White said that “the frailty of the system has been demonstrated clearly and overwhelmingly by the testimony brought forth in this court today.”
In an interview, Mr. Scheck said, “What we’ve proven is there was no crime” in the Willingham case.
“I would expect that at the end of the day, what we’ll get is an opinion that an innocent man was executed in Texas,” he added.
Even if that should happen, its impact will be minimal, said Kent Scheidegger, the legal director of the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, a group that supports the death penalty.
“It’ll be trumpeted on the Death Penalty Information Center site,” he said, referring to a group that opposes capital punishment. “Nobody on the other side of the aisle is going to give it any credence.”
To one person attending the hearing, however, it was anything but meaningless. Eugenia Willingham, Mr. Willingham’s stepmother, said during a break in the proceedings that it was an important day.
“This is what he wanted us to do,” she said of her stepson. “He wanted us to stand up for him.”
Appeals court stops hearing in Texas arson case
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Todd Willingham
and daughter |
A state appeals court halted a hearing Thursday that was to determine whether Texas wrongfully executed a man based on faulty arson evidence.
The court granted an emergency stay and ordered District Judge Charlie Baird not to rule on the case. The order gives Innocence Project lawyers seeking to clear Cameron Todd Willingham's name until Oct. 22 to respond.
Willingham was executed in 2004 after being convicted of setting fire to his Corsicana home, killing his three daughters. If he is exonerated, it would mark the first time an official in the nation's most active death penalty state has formally declared someone was wrongfully executed.
Navarro County District Attorney R. Lowell Thompson, whose office convicted Willingham in 1992, sought the stay after Baird declined to recuse himself. Thompson has questioned Baird's impartiality, noting he received an award this year from the Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty.
Thompson said he was pleased with the order.
"I don't mean any disrespect to the judge, but I am going to follow procedures," Thompson said.
Innocence Project co-founder Barry Scheck said he is confident the stay will be lifted next week, permitting Baird to issue a ruling on Willingham's guilt or innocence.
"We have great law on our side," Scheck said.
The appeals court order came at the end of an afternoon of testimony in which two fire experts said the blaze that killed Willingham's three daughters was an accident, not arson.
Florida-based fire expert John Lentini ridiculed the findings and testimony of a deputy fire marshal who concluded Willingham set the house fire that killed his 2-year-old daughter and 1-year-old twins. That fire marshal, Manuel Vasquez, has since died.
"The bottom line is all of the evidence is consistent with an accidental fire," Lentini said.
The State Fire Marshal's Office continues to stand behind the arson finding.
Lentini referred to Vasquez as "misinformed" and "totally off the wall" and said his conclusions were "completely without merit, completely unreliable."
Later, Baird seemed to hint at which way he was leaning when he asked fire expert Gerald Hurst, "If we can say it wasn't arson, can we say what it was?"
Hurst replied that he believed the fire was an accident, probably caused by faulty wiring.
San Antonio lawyer Gerry Goldstein also presented evidence that a jailhouse snitch who testified in the original trial that Willingham had confessed later changed his story. Goldstein presented an affidavit showing the informant had recanted.
Their testimony was not challenged by anyone because Thompson had left to seek the stay.
Eugenia Willingham, the stepmother of the executed man, told reporters she was grateful for the chance to present new evidence in court.
"I just don't think there are words," she said, her eyes welling.
The hearing was part of an unusual court of inquiry hearing that was granted by Baird, who began the proceeding by declining to recuse himself.
John Bradley, a district attorney who chairs the Texas Forensic Science Commission that is looking into whether fire investigators in the case committed professional misconduct, blasted Baird's decision in an e-mail to The Associated Press.
Lawyers and experts for the Innocence Project and Willingham swarmed the courtroom about 30 minutes before the hearing, lining up extra chairs behind the counsel table, readying multimedia presentations and shutting window blinds to make their videos easier to see. About 10 attorneys, including former Texas Gov. Mark White, and Willingham's relatives sat on one side.
Outside the courthouse, a small group of protesters from the Texas Moratorium Network carried signs and wore T-shirts proclaiming Willingham's innocence.
Stacy Kuykendall, Willingham's ex-wife, declined an invitation from Baird to testify at the hearing. She told reporters last week that Willingham confessed his guilt to her shortly before his execution - although Innocence Project lawyers say she has gone back and forth over the years on whether he confessed. Willingham publicly maintained his innocence.
"Unfortunately, every time the anti-death penalty advocates renew their crusade against capital punishment using this case, old wounds are opened up for her," wrote Johnny Sutton, Kuykendall's attorney, in a letter to Baird. "Todd Willingham is not a victim but a convicted murderer whose case was reviewed by numerous courts, including the United States Supreme Court. The true victims are Amber, Kameron and Karmon, and we need to remember them."
Willingham was executed after Gov. Rick Perry turned down his final appeal despite evidence from a renowned fire expert that there was not enough evidence to support the arson determination.
Testimony from fire investigators was the primary evidence against Willingham. The defense did not present a fire expert because the one hired by Willingham's attorney also said the fire was caused by arson.
Source:
Bradenton.com, October 15, 2010
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