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Todd Willingham
and daughter |
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.
Click here to read the full article
Source:
huffingtonpost.com, September 2, 2011
