Item First:
Watch the
Frontline show on Cameron Todd Willingham. It will be air on PBS tomorrow, October 19, at 9 PM (check local listings and all that.)
Preview Part II
on YouTube
Now Item Second:
I finished The Skeptical Juror and The Trial of Cameron Todd Willingham. It's been through a couple of edits, and I have another pass to make through it to incorporate some more changes I've already decided upon. With those qualifications, the book is complete from beginning to end. I challenged myself to write it in one week. It took me three. Though it took me three times as long as I had aimed for, I'm pleased with my effort and the result.
We plan to release the book to our printing firm on Wednesday. It would be foolish of me to turn it out before the Frontline show. I would rather discover an error just before sending the book out rather than just after. The book should be available on Kindle within a week or so, and hopefully available in print from Amazon in less than two weeks.
The book will tell the story as it's never been told before, and as it is unlikely to be told again. It tells the story from the perspective of the jury room. You will get to examine the evidence just as it was presented to the actual jury. You will have an opportunity to find the flaws in the evidence, even if you are not a fire expert. The flaws were there. The actual jury did not notice them. A skeptical jury might have. I argue that not only should Willingham never have been executed, I argue he should not have been convicted.
Now Item Third:
I present
this article from AP reporter Jeff Carlton. I've certainly seen his name around as I've been working on the Willingham book. This article is about the behavior of Rick Perry's hand-picked chairman for the Texas Forensic Science Commission that is to look into, among other cases, the case of Cameron Todd Willingham. Sometimes, as in this case, it is simply best to allow those you disrespect to dig their own graves.
AUSTIN, Texas — A Texas prosecutor accused of bias for describing an executed man as a "guilty monster" defended his comments Friday, while his colleagues on a commission investigating the case said he might have jeopardized the integrity of their inquiry.
Williamson County District Attorney John Bradley said lawyers trying to clear Cameron Todd Willingham's name are using the case to further their effort to abolish the death penalty. He also argued that he has a First Amendment right to state his opinion.
"We are being used, and we should recognize that," Bradley said. "When do we get to respond to those lies? Who is going to correct the record?"
Willingham was convicted in 1992 of capital murder in the deaths of his three daughters and executed in 2004.
Bradley chairs the Texas Forensic Science Commission, which is investigating whether fire investigators committed professional misconduct in determining arson caused the 1991 Corsicana house fire that killed Willingham's daughters. At least nine fire experts have said the fire was an accident, not arson.
Other commission members said Bradley's remarks to The Associated Press, in which he described Willingham as a "guilty monster," raise questions about the impartiality and integrity of their inquiry.
"There is a difference between correcting the record and making the type of statement we are talking about," said Sarah Kerrigan, the laboratory director at the Sam Houston State regional crime lab.
But Bradley then referred to the Innocence Project's effort to clear Willingham as "politics and a circus sideshow."
"Texans deserve to have a prosecutor's voice included in the discussion of forensic science, a voice that can include concern for the victims of crime and not just the perpetrators of crime," said Bradley, who was appointed to the chairmanship last year by Gov. Rick Perry.
Stephen Saloom, the policy director of the New York-based Innocence Project, said Bradley shows "a critically important lack of objectivity" in his approach to Willingham.
"His job here is not to be the DA and the friend of the governor," Saloom said.
Bradley, who raised his voice repeatedly, dismissed Saloom as a "New York lawyer" making "personal attacks rather than legal arguments."
Bradley's leadership has been questioned since last year, when the governor sacked three members of the forensic commission just days before it was to review reports that cast doubt on the arson finding. Perry installed Bradley, a conservative ally, as the new chairman. Bradley canceled the subsequent meeting and since has sought to close the inquiry.
On Thursday, two fire experts testified at a special court of inquiry hearing unrelated to the forensic panel's inquiry, saying the Willingham fire was an accident. The judge overseeing that hearing has the power to declare Willingham innocent.
An Austin appeals court, however, granted an emergency stay that will prevent the judge from ruling for at least one week and could end the proceeding altogether.
If the judge clears Willingham, it would mark the first time an official in the nation's most active death penalty state has formally declared that someone was wrongfully executed.
The commission took no action Friday on Willingham. However, members are trying to arrange a November meeting that would hear live testimony from fire experts who have studied the case. Bradley continued to criticize the effort to clear Willingham after the meeting.
"I think it's pretty ridiculous to have this court of inquiry at the same time we're doing this," Bradley told reporters. "I think the public can see it for the sham that it is."
Click
here to see Rick Perry's reaction on how things are working out with respect to keeping the Willingham case under wraps.
