Patterico's Pontifications

5/2/2006

Was an Innocent Man Executed in Texas?

Filed under: Crime,General — Patterico @ 8:33 pm



I take anything in the L.A. Times with a grain of salt, and if Henry Weinstein is writing it, I take it with a few stiff shakes of the salt shaker. Still, I am disturbed by the possibility that there might be something to this story about a potentially innocent man in Texas, who was executed for starting a fire that arson experts now say could have been started accidentally.

17 Responses to “Was an Innocent Man Executed in Texas?”

  1. Patrick, the Chicago Tribune also has a story today, plus a photo gallery, links to earlier stories and even the original fire report. [Link fixed. — Patterico]

    Tim McGarry (034d49)

  2. This doesn’t per se make it true, but the Dallas Morning News takes it seriously. They provided a link to the Arson Review Committee’s report, as well.

    aphrael (3bacf3)

  3. Don’t put the salt shaker away yet. There’s a lot more to the story: http://www.clarkprosecutor.org/html/death/US/willingham899.htm The Chicago Tribune and The Innocence Project (aka Barry Scheck) have an anti-death penalty agenda. I believe Mr. Scheck’s experts in this case just as much as I believed his experts in the O.J. Simpson case.

    nk (57e995)

  4. I believe the death penalty should not be banned and this case doesn’t change my opinion. However, this case does raise real questions about arson experts. I hope that, ultimately, it will improve arson investigations and enable defense lawyers to more effectively represent defendants in arson prosecutions.

    DRJ (3c8cd6)

  5. I am almost always opposed to the death penalty but his behaviour sure looks guilty.

    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

    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. One of Willingham’s neighbors testified that the morning following the house fire, Christmas Eve, Willingham and his wife were at the burned house going through the debris while playing music and laughing.

    At the punishment phase of trial, testimony was presented that Willingham has a history of violence. He has been convicted of numerous felonies and misdemeanors, both as an adult and as a juvenile, and attempts at various forms of rehabilitation have proven unsuccessful.

    The jury also heard evidence of Willingham’s character. Witnesses testified that Willingham was verbally and physically abusive toward his family, and that at one time he beat his pregnant wife in an effort to cause a miscarriage. A friend of Willingham’s testified that Willingham once bragged about brutally killing a dog. In fact, Willingham openly admitted to a fellow inmate that he purposely started this fire to conceal evidence that the children had been abused

    .

    I hate the idea of falsified evidence but this guy was diagnosed as a sociopath.

    LibraryLady (21f12d)

  6. LL, Comment #5:

    The LAT and the Tribune do slant the story to practically make it look as though it was “falsified evidence” but in fact all they have is disagreement among experts — even less than than that, actually, conflicting expert opinion. And it is only opinion. There is no compelling reason for us to believe Mr. Scheck’s “experts” and to disbelieve the Texas Fire Marshall. Their conclusions and their standards for coming to those conclusions are things that they came up with themselves. Knowing the anti-death penalty bias of the people involved, I am very much inclined to disbelieve them. Looking at a putative “father” who was trying to save his car while his children were being burned alive, and the totality of all the other evidence, I am very much inclined to believe that the jury reached the right conclusion in the case.

    nk (47858f)

  7. “Could have been” doesn’t mean “was.” What they now say is that some fires that look like they were started with accelerants weren’t. Not that they knew it at the time, and it’s still the way to bet. Does not prove innocence. The rest of the record, should there be any, would shed more light on the situation.

    If there is no other strong evidence, then maybe they’ve got a point. But Texas doesn’t yet use the “Patterico Test” in deciding sentences.

    What I find ironic is Berry Scheck’s involvement in using DNA evidence in appeals, after trashing the whole idea in the OJ mess.

    Kevin Murphy (0b2493)

  8. But, OK. Let’s asume the guy was totally innocent. Dr. Kimball and all that. Three things to decide:

    1) Is there a social benefit to use of the death penalty. Liberal scholar Cass Sunstein thinks that each execution prevents at least 18 subsequent murders, largely by deterrence. That would be a strong argument for, if true.

    2) Is avoidance of all error so important that this overrides any possible benefit?

    3) To what degree do Texas’s procedures inform us about California’s? Would California’s system have caught this error?

    Kevin Murphy (0b2493)

  9. What I find ironic is Berry Scheck’s involvement in using DNA evidence in appeals, after trashing the whole idea in the OJ mess.

    That’s because his group is the Innocence Project, not the “Innocence, But Only If You’re Truly Innocent” Project.

    Xrlq (f52b4f)

  10. Is this where I should point out that the prosection in a death-penalty state has a “let’s have us an execution” agenda when three children die in a fire?

    Our criminal justice system has to start doing more finding out what really happened rather than finding a handy target to hang the blame on.

    htom (412a17)

  11. Kevin – it’s hard for me to discuss this in entirely logical terms. I find the principle that the state may erroneously put me to death, and that I could be completely innocent and still unable to prevent it, to be a terrifying principle.

    I can reluctantly approve of a death penalty system in which we have an extremely high degree of certainty that there is no error; but a system without that certainty strikes me as being a license for abuse of power by the state.

    aphrael (e0cdc9)

  12. XRLQ:

    That’s because his group is the Innocence Project, not the “Innocence, But Only If You’re Truly Innocent” Project.

    Good one.

    DRJ (3c8cd6)

  13. Kevin, Comment #7:

    Click the link in comment #3 for a round-up of the case.

    nk (bfc26a)

  14. Aphrael, #11: Please click the link in comment #3 and see, if you were a juror in the case and heard both the prosecutor’s arson expert and Mr. Scheck’s arson experts as well all the other evidence, whether you would not also have voted as the jury did. BTW: It’s just a site I found. I have no connection to it whatsoever.

    nk (bfc26a)

  15. Good post, LibraryLady.

    If that’s true, that he was more concerned about his car and his dart board than his children then, quite frankly, this diminishes my ability to get passionately worked up about his execution.

    Were there no laws to the contrary and I was standing with a father whose children were burning to death and he was trying to protect his car, I might be tempted to smash his face in and only stop when his brains were on the pavement. Alas, that would be illegal. And there were more important immediate considerations such as the children’s plight.

    Joe Sock Puppet (5d90a2)

  16. NK – i’m sorry, I have no idea how I would have reacted as a juror, and the evidence presented on that link is not sufficient to enable me to answer that question. In general I’m uncomfortable second-guessing jurys because, unless I sit through the trial, I don’t have the information they do; so how can I accurately imagine how I would see the case?

    aphrael (e0cdc9)

  17. “Innocence Project” vs: “Innocence, but only if you are truely Innocent Project” would
    limit the number of defendants eligible
    and still include Marie Schoonover,
    absolutely innocent and doing life for
    a crime that was not even committed.
    I would like communications with Barry
    Scheck concerning this. The case was
    filed in the Oklahoma Supreme Court
    monday,May 22, # 103374 and it is on
    my web site knightsindirtyarmour.com/
    TheSupremeCourt.html.

    John Schoonover U.S.N. Ret. (ba19ca)


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