Innocent man may have been executed, Texas panel told

Kansas City Star ^ | April 19, 2005 | STEVE MILLS

[seacapn]

AUSTIN, Texas - (KRT) - With its criminal justice system the subject of intense scrutiny for a crime lab scandal and a series of wrongful convictions, a Texas state Senate committee heard testimony Tuesday about the possibility that Texas had experienced the ultimate criminal justice nightmare: the execution of an innocent person.

Fourteen months after Cameron Todd Willingham was executed in the nation's busiest death chamber, a renowned arson expert and Willingham's lawyer told the Senate Criminal Justice Committee that they believed Willingham might well have been innocent but found nobody willing to listen to their claim in the days before the execution in February 2004.

[seacapn]

Um...what?

If this guy ends up exonerated and there is an anti-DP backlash as a result, Texas will have some explaining to do.

[Taggart_D]

Willingham's lawyer told the Senate Criminal Justice Committee that they believed Willingham might well have been innocent

So What....are they trying to say the guy didn't get a trial? Give me a break.

[pikachu]

Two days before Christmas in 1991, Willingham poured a combustible liquid on the floor throughout his home and intentionally set the house on fire, resulting in the death of his three children. According to autopsy reports, Amber, age two, and twins Karmon and Kameron, age 1, died of acute carbon monoxide poisoning as a result of smoke inhalation. Neighbors of Willingham testified that as the house began smoldering, Willingham was “crouched down” in the front yard, and despite the neighbors’ pleas, refused to go into the house in any attempt to rescue the children. An expert witness for the State testified that the floors, front threshold, and front concrete porch were burned, which only occurs when an accelerant has been used to purposely burn these areas. The witness further testified that this igniting of the floors and thresholds is typically employed to impede firemen in their rescue attempts. The testimony at trial demonstrates that Willingham neither showed remorse for his actions nor grieved the loss of his three children. Willingham’s neighbors testified that when the fire “blew out” the windows, Willingham “hollered about his car” and ran to move it away from the fire to avoid its being damaged. A fire fighter also testified that Willingham was upset that his dart board was burned. Willingham told authorities that the fire started while he and the children were asleep. An investigation revealed that it was intentionally set with a flammable liquid. His claims of heroic effort to save the girls were not borne out by his unscathed escape with little smoke in his lungs.

From

[GovernmentShrinker]

I didn't read the rest of the article, due to registration requirement, but I think it's really important to distinguish between innocent of the crime for which the death penalty was imposed, and totally innocent. A lot of these cases involve someone who was a lifelong criminal with plenty of convictions and was present while a crime was being committed, but may or not have actually pulled the trigger. Or someone so well-known in his neighborhood as frequent crime committer, that witnesses who knew him mistakenly assumed it was him that they saw, when actually it may have been someone else of similar appearance. Now when someone who is TOTALLY innocent gets mistakenly executed for a crime they didn't commit, that's a huge problem, but when some career thug gets fried for some crime other than one of the many he actually did commit, I'm not going to lose any sleep over it.

[Centurion2000]

Oh well.

[Condor51]

I read the entire article and IMHO the operative word here is "might". There's zero new evidence that he was 'innocent'. Plus all the libs involved in this and the Chicago Tribune have an agenda, and it sure isn't to put people on death row.

And their use of the word "might", is like me saying I "might" be elected POTUS. The odds are highly against it, but I "might".

[randog]

Hmmm...interesting tactic--DP foes want to be able to examine case evidence without the hassle of the state watching over them or offering a counter opinion. Gosh, I wonder what conclusions they'll come to?

[Abathar]

These are the same kind of people who swear that the planes that flew into the WTC were remote piloted and a missile hit the Pentagon, anti-death penalty and say anything to bring their cause to light. I am all for giving them every chance at trial, but you have to have some solid proof, not an opinion.

[Condor51]

Here, never worry about "registration" again (pay sites don't work)

Bugmenot

[BJungNan]

So What....are they trying to say the guy didn't get a trial? Give me a break.

You sound as if you think all it takes is a trial. You should move to China. They will love you as a citizen.

Innocent people are found guilty by U.S. courts. That is fact. And in this case, the innocent person was put to death. That is a crime.

[Publius6961]

My personal comfort with the pro-death penalty position is as simple as it is morally necessary.

No human activity can be perfect.
No human institution is perfect.

If imperfection is enough to forbid human institutions, no society could ever exist.

If I am willing to expose my own life to the possibility of imperfection in the application of the death penalty, I feel justified in embracing it as just punishment for certain crimes.
As a society, we collectively must embrace it under the same conditions.

[BJungNan]

Thanks for the bugmenot link. Great!

[azhenfud]

The Chinese have a policy - execute and cremate. If one wants to stand up for the criminal's rights, they hand them the urn of ash and say "Mei wenti".

[sonofagun]

Willingham's lawyer told the Senate Criminal Justice Committee that they believed Willingham might well have been innocent

Well...

Isn't that what he is supposed to say being the guy's lawyer and all?

[TheDon]

Agreed.

[getsoutalive]

I have no problem with the death penalty. But, I believe that the burden of proof for these cases should be higher. I don't think that "beyond a reasonable doubt" is good enough if the punishment is death.

[cvq3842]

No one wants to see innocent people put to death.

But I want to hear a lot more of this story before I go jumping to conclusions.

Thanks for posting.

[hopespringseternal]

Innocent people are found guilty by U.S. courts. That is fact.

Irrelevant truth. So what? If you even had the slightest inkling of a perfect system, share your enlightenment with the rest of us.

And in this case, the innocent person was put to death. That is a crime.

Complete and utter BS. The chance this clown was innocent is so small that claiming his innocence can only amount to massive intellectual dishonesty. It doesn't take twenty years to execute someone without reason. By the time the switch is pulled, the case has been checked and rechecked dozens of times.

Are innocent people occasionally sentenced to death? Of course. Are innocent people executed? In spite of the ardent fantasies of anti-death penalty activists, apparently not. If an innocent person were executed, anti-death penalty whackjobs wouldn't have to resort to a whole pile of half-truths and deceptions to insinuate that this or that guy may, possibly have been innocent if you essentially ignore all the facts of the case.

[edcoil]

I think the issue is in Texas you need two felonies at the same crime to get the death penalty. Remember the guy who got off death row because DNA proved he did not rape and kill his daughter - he only killed her so he was spared the DP and was given life.

[BJungNan]

Irrelevant truth. So what? If you even had the slightest inkling of a perfect system, share your enlightenment with the rest of us.

The perfect system is one that leaves open the possibility that society will be able to correct its mistake. That really is not a perfect system. But it is a whole lot better than the one we have now.