Oh yeah? What do you think about the article you just posted?
'Nuff said.
Crackingham. Willingham. Are you guys related?
I remember this case. The guy was a piece of scum and there was little doubt he was guilty. The world is better off without him.
I see their namesake television show got cancelled.
Since this guy is already dead... I guess they should've started this investigation a little earlier than they did.
In the words of the immortal Homer.... Doh!!!!
"Crazed glass" was but one of the indicators of arson. This was not the only piece of evidence in this case, was it?
The article is remarkably lacking in details.
So, not an objective panel, then.
"The whole system has broken down," Barry Scheck, co-founder and director of the Innocence Project
Barry Sheck? Jeez. Helped OJ find the real killers yet, Barry?
At some point it's going to happen; it'll be proved that a man was executed on the basis of testimony or evidence that will be found to have been false. It may even happen that it will be proved that an innocent man was executed. And that's when there will be a serious push in America to abolish the death penalty.
Great lesson about intuition(faith?) versus science and the potentially deadly consequences.
That hardly exonerates Willingham.
No problem with science improving forensics in this area. However "the prisoners are the victims" groups will use it as yet another excuse in their attempt to ban the death penalty where it is most assuredly warranted: Premeditated first degree murder.
I just read the article..why didn't they interview the prosecutors??..there has to be more to the story than what they are reporting..oh wait..this is the msm..never mind..
Does anyone have a link to more info than just that presented in this article? On the face of it, this man was convicted and executed for being home with children when a fire broke out. I can't believe that is all the evidence of a murder.
At Willingham's trial, the fire marshall 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. He further testified that these areas are typically set on fire to impede firefighters in their rescue attempts.
Other testimony showed that Willingham deliberately set the fire to kill his children. Neighbors testified that Willingham came outdoors as the house began smoldering, before flames were visible from the outside. He first pushed his car away to protect it from being burned, then "crouched down" in the front yard. Despite their pleas, Willingham refused to go into the house to attempt to rescue the children, they said. A firefighter testified that Willingham showed no grief over his children's deaths, but became upset upon discovering that his dart board was burned. A neighbor also testified that on the day after the fire, Willingham and his wife were going through the debris while playing music and laughing.
The report calls on the criminal justice system to require arson investigators to have backgrounds in the science of fire and that criminal defense lawyers be afforded money to hire independent fire investigators. It also urges that participants in the justice system, particularly prosecutors, who decide whether to bring charges, be educated about scientific advances in fire investigation.
"There is no crime other than homicide by arson for which a person can be sent to Death Row based on the unsupported opinion of someone who received all of his training `on the job,'" the report states.
At the news conference Tuesday, Lentini said the analysis of the testimony by fire investigators in the Willis and Willingham cases shows that "over and over and over again, they repeated the mythology. ... These guys didn't know what they were talking about."
They also mention another case where the evidence was the same and the defendent released because arson experts concluded there was no evidence that the fire was intentionally set.
The report assessing the two cases notes that even though the interpretations of the physical evidence in the Willis case were the same as in the Willingham case, authorities in Texas have declined to say that Willingham was wrongly convicted and executed. The report said the "disparity of the outcomes in these two cases warrants a closer inspection."
In the letter to the commission, Scheck said, "Willis cannot be found `actually innocent' and Willingham executed based on the same scientific evidence."
If the government is going to impose a death penalty, they better be pretty damn sure that they are executing a guilty man. And using one expert that works for the state (who turned out to be incompetent) as the sole arson expert (no funds were provided to the defendent so he could hire his own expert) doesn't qualify as far as I'm concerned.
This is old news. The left has been pushing this as the key case of an innocent man being executed. Too bad they don't have any evidence to support it other than a couple of experts who weren't at the trial. One interesting fact, he saved his pickup truck before he tried to 'save' his kids.