![\"\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/9\/2011\/08\/Screen-Shot-2011-08-15-at-4.24.21-PM1.png\" "\\"Rick's")
<\/a><\/p>\nCameron Todd Willingham lived with his wife and three daughters in a Texas working-class neighborhood until disaster struck.<\/p>\n
When a fire broke out one morning, his oldest daughter awakened her father by yelling for help.\u00a0 \u201cDaddy!\u00a0 Daddy!\u201d\u00a0 The fire ravaged their small home so quickly that the firefighters weren\u2019t able to save the children.\u00a0 All three daughters died from smoke inhalation.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy little girl was trying to wake me up and tell me about the fire,\u201d he said. \u201cI couldn\u2019t get my babies out.\u201d<\/p>\n
The whole community mourned with the family and even took up a collection to help pay for the funerals.\u00a0 That is, until fire investigators claimed that Cameron himself had set the home ablaze to murder his own children.\u00a0\u00a0 He was arrested, charged, and given the opportunity to plead guilty to spare his own life.\u00a0 He refused and was sentenced to death.\u00a0 Like many death row inmates, he steadfastly maintained his innocence until the day he died.<\/p>\n
So far, the story sounds unremarkable.\u00a0 A sad but typical story of death and lies.<\/p>\n
In 2009, the New Yorker changed the conversation.\u00a0 In a long, well-reported article about Willingham\u2019s case and his appeals to the courts, writer David Grann suggested the evidence used to convict Willingham was easily refuted and new evidence may very well have established his innocence.\u00a0 He described the Texas Court of Appeals as \u201cupholding convictions even when overwhelming exculpatory evidence came to light.\u201d<\/p>\n
For example, a presiding judge on the court was later charged with judicial misconduct for \u201crefusing to keep open past five o\u2019clock a clerk\u2019s office in order to allow a last-minute petition from a man who was executed later that night.\u201d\u00a0 Gov. George Bush pardoned people he believed were incarcerated wrongfully, even after the Court of Appeals upheld their convictions.<\/p>\n
<\/em><\/p>\n In other words, the court didn\u2019t seem predisposed to give Willingham a fair hearing.<\/p>\n Despite the long odds, Dr. Gerald Hurst, an Austin scientist and fire investigator, reviewed Willingham\u2019s case pro bono<\/em> and concluded \u201cno evidence of arson.\u201d Other fire investigators reached the same conclusion.\u00a0 Grann writes:<\/p>\n Without having visited the fire scene, Hurst says, it was impossible to pinpoint the cause of the blaze. But, based on the evidence, he had little doubt that it was an accidental fire\u2014one caused most likely by the space heater or faulty electrical wiring. It explained why there had never been a motive for the crime. Hurst concluded that there was no evidence of arson, and that a man who had already lost his three children and spent twelve years in jail was about to be executed based on \u201cjunk science.\u201d Hurst wrote his report in such a rush that he didn\u2019t pause to fix the typos. <\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n His report was rushed to the Court.\u00a0 However, four days before Willingham\u2019s scheduled execution, his attorney told Willingham that the Texas Court of Appeals and Gov. Perry did not delay the execution. The process was cloaked in secrecy, and no explanation was given.\u00a0 Resigned to his fate, Willingham told his parents, \u201cPlease don\u2019t ever stop fighting to vindicate me.\u201d He refused to walk into his execution room, was carried into the room, and killed by lethal injection.<\/p>\n The entire sad story, located here<\/a>, is worth a read.<\/p>\n Let it be said that Willingham should be no one\u2019s hero or poster boy.\u00a0 Before he died, he uttered expletives to his former wife and tried to give her a rude gesture, but his hands were bound.\u00a0 Plus, he admitted that he hit his wife, even when she was pregnant.\u00a0 A man who helped prosecute the case paints a picture of a terribly flawed man.\u00a0 One he claims could not have been innocent<\/a>.<\/p>\n Yet, the question remains.\u00a0 Did he set that fire?<\/p>\n In 2009, Steve Mills of the Chicago Tribune<\/em> investigated the case and believed that the fire was accidental, after all.\u00a0 He concluded<\/a>: \u201cOver the past five years, the Willingham case has been reviewed by nine of the nation\u2019s top fire scientists\u2014first for the Tribune<\/em>, then for the Innocence Project<\/a>, and now for the commission. All concluded that the original investigators relied on outdated theories and folklore to justify the determination of arson. The only other evidence of significance against Willingham was twice recanted testimony <\/sup>by another inmate who testified that Willingham had confessed to him. Jailhouse snitches are viewed with skepticism in the justice system, so much so that some jurisdictions have restrictions against their use.\u201d<\/p>\n But Willingham\u2019s is more than a tragic story of justice denied.\u00a0 Rather, it\u2019s a ghost that could haunt Gov. Perry\u2019s Presidential aspirations, especially as voters understand the extent of his role in what very well could be the first execution of an innocent man in modern American history.<\/p>\n First, he denied the stay of execution.<\/strong> Gov. Perry\u2019s denial of Willingham\u2019s petitions can be understood \u2013 and forgiven \u2013 if he had carefully reviewed the post-execution evidence relating to the mistakes that had undoubtedly been made in the case.\u00a0 However, in response to allegations that an innocent man had been killed, Gov. Perry responded, \u201cHe was a wife beater.\u201d A Perry spokesperson said the Governor was aware of a \u201cclaim of a reinterpretation of (the) arson testimony,\u201d but Perry maligned the investigators by calling them \u201clatter-day supposed experts.\u201d He also suggested they were aligned with death penalty opponents. Mills, however, disputes this claim by pointing out that \u201cthe nine scientists and investigators involved, all of whom have found the original investigation flawed, have worked for both defense lawyers and prosecutors, as well as for attorneys in civil litigation. All are considered among the field\u2019s leaders. Some are viewed as prosecution-oriented.\u201d<\/p>\n Second, he pressured the commission investigating the Willingham case to cease its investigation. <\/strong>In 2005, the Texas state legislature created the Texas Forensic Science Commission to review forensic complaints, and the Willingham case was among the panel\u2019s first.\u00a0 Samuel Bassett, an attorney from Austin, was the chair of the Commission at the time and claims that Gov. Perry\u2019s top legal advisors were unhappy with the course of their investigation. Not only did they call the investigation a \u201cwaste of money\u201d they also pressured the commission to drop the matter entirely<\/a>. <\/strong><\/p>\n