Innocent Man to Be Killed in Cold Blood in Oklahoma Wednesday

Website for the Oklahoma Department
of Corrections Death Row Program,
so you can read who gets killed next

An invitation to a killing Wednesday; come just to be there, bring the whole family, hurry and be part of the fun. Here's the website for the Oklahoma Department of Corrections Death Row Program, so you can see who gets killed next. Sorry, no TV. The website does have pictures of the execution chamber, cool, and if you miss the fun of being in Oklahoma during the killing of Richard Glossip, there's two more executions scheduled for next month. Maybe your kids could meet one of the executioners afterwards.

Updated - Really, what is it about the American south that delights in cold-blooded executions of innocent men?

Richard Glossip will join a long line of such victims of state murder on Wednesday at 3:00 p.m., barring a last minute reprieve from Governor Mary Fallin (R-Trash).

As for the distinguishing qualities of the south that delights in cold-blooded killing? Careerism, convenience and religion.

Police, prosecutors, judge and the rest of the murder machine will sleep well Wednesday and Thursday nights, no one can reach the indecent.

Now, if the Oklahoma City detectives who engineered this travesty are killed, I would have no problem. These people are human garbage.
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Oklahoma also has a for-profit prison, Cimarron Correctional Center that bills itself as "creative, flexible and adaptable," and operated by the publicly traded Corrections Corporation of America (CXW) on the New York Stock Exchange. 

About those four 'inmates' killed at Cimarron this month, get your priorities in order, jackass: CXW closed at $30.08 yesterday, down 14.18% over 30 days. 

Plenty of more inmates where those four came from. Investors in CXW with the wrong position lost money. This is Oklahoma.
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The Innocence Project calls the Glossip killing tomorrow a "deadly mistake."

This is no mistake, it's murder perpetrated with malice aforethought by Oklahoma police detectives and prosecutors hiding behind badges and titles, a compelling argument for eliminating the qualified and near absolute immunity for police and prosecutors respectively.

The office of the prosecutor is imbued in American society with the license to lie, as are the police. What is finally becoming clear is these people also have the license to kill, and they use this entitlement repeatedly.

"Richard Glossip was convicted of murder solely on the testimony of Justin Sneed, who confessed to committing the murder himself, but claimed Richard had hired him to do it. There is no evidence to support this claim—no DNA, no fingerprints, no other witnesses—just Sneed's word. By implicating Richard, Sneed avoided the death penalty and now is serving a life sentence in a medium-security prison," notes Susan Sarandon in a Move-on petition to help an attorney working pro bono.

Sneed's own daughter wrote to the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board last October to say that she "strongly believe[s]" Richard is innocent. "For a couple of years now, my father has been talking to me about recanting his original testimony," she wrote. She feels her father's conscience is "getting to him." (The Intercept)

The Innocence Project's Barry Scheck, Sen. Tom Coburn (U.S. Senator for Oklahoma from 2005-2015 and U.S. Representative for Oklahoma’s Second Congressional District from 1995-2001), Barry Switzer, Head Football Coach, The University of Oklahoma (1973-1988) John W. Raley, Jr., U.S. Attorney, Eastern District of Oklahoma (1990-1997) sent a letter to Oklahoma Gov. Fallin seeking a last-minute stay.

Dear Governor Mary Fallin:

We urge you to stay the execution of Richard Glossip so that deep concerns about his guilt can be addressed.

On September 16, unless you act, the State of Oklahoma will put Mr. Glossip to death for the murder of Barry Van Treese. Justin Sneed—who by his own admission beat Van Tresse to death with a baseball bat—will not meet that fate.

Why this stunning difference?

Sneed testified at Glossip’s trial and said that Glossip persuaded him to do the killing. In return, Sneed was allowed to plead guilty and avoid a death sentence. Sneed’s testimony is the only evidence that connects Glossip to this horrendous crime. There’s no DNA evidence, no other forensic or physical evidence, no other witnesses. Just Sneed’s word.

Did Sneed tell the truth? We don’t know, but we do know that he told many lies in this case because his story changed many times.

When he was first questioned by detectives, Sneed said he didn’t know anything about the murder. Then he said he didn’t kill Mr. Van Treese. Then he admitted that he did but said it was an accident, he only meant to rob him and knock him out. Then, after the detectives told him that they didn’t believe he acted alone, that they had Glossip in custody, and that it would be better for him if he gave them another name, Sneed finally said that Richard Glossip got him to kill Barry Van Treese. After getting what they were looking for, the police assured Sneed that this story would help him avoid the death penalty.

That last version led to a deal with the prosecution: Sneed—the admitted killer—testified against Glossip in exchange for a life sentence. As a result, Glossip faces death by lethal injection.

Why would anybody trust this testimony, given by a man like Sneed under the circumstances in which he gave it? But if Sneed was lying about Glossip’s involvement —as he unquestionably lied in his various contradictory statements—then Oklahoma is about to execute an innocent man.

The writers of this letter have a wide range of professional backgrounds and political perspectives. But we share a deep concern about the integrity of the criminal justice system in Oklahoma and throughout the United States. We are particularly concerned about the danger of executing an innocent man.

Could that really happen? In the United States, in 2015?

Yes, it could. It almost certainly has happened—the cases of Cameron Todd Willingham and Carlos Deluna in Texas are troubling examples—and it may well happen again, perhaps as soon as September 16.

The National Registry of Exonerations lists 115 defendants who were sentenced to death and later exonerated and released after new evidence of innocence was discovered. Of those 115 innocent defendants who had been sentenced to death, 29, a quarter of the total, were convicted after another person who was himself a suspect in the murder gave a confession that also implicated the innocent defendant.

Richards Glossip’s case is a classic example. Faced with the prospect of execution, anybody would be tempted to lie and shift the blame to someone else if that’s what it takes to stay alive. But Justin Sneed isn’t just anybody. He’s a man who beat another person to death for money and then lied about it to try to save his own skin.

Last year a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences estimated that 4.1 percent of defendants who are sentenced to death in the United States are innocent, one in 25 or more than 300 death-sentenced defendants since 1973. Most of them, like most of all defendants who are sentenced to death, have not been exonerated or executed. They remain in prison or have died of other causes.

But with that error rate among death sentences, there’s no doubt that we have put innocent people to death. We don’t know how many or who they all are, but it has happened.

We also don’t know for sure whether Richard Glossip is innocent or guilty. That is precisely the problem.

If we keep executing defendants in cases like this, where the evidence of guilt is tenuous and untrustworthy, we will keep killing innocent people.

Oklahoma has come close to executing innocent defendants. Ron Williamson’s story is well known from John Grisham’s book, The Innocent Man. He came within five days of execution. Fortunately, a federal judge ordered a new trial. Four years later Williamson was exonerated by DNA tests—which also identified the real killer, who was later convicted of the murder.

Most cases like this are weeded out by the courts, usually before a death sentence is ever imposed. That might have happened here if Glossip’s defense attorneys had made the problems in the case clear to the judge and jury, but they never did.  As a result, a juror in Glossip’s first trial recently came forward and said, “I feel that this situation needs to be looked at and at the VERY least given a 60 days stay to make for certain that all the stones are unturned and everything is looked at with a fine tooth comb.”

Unfortunately, Governor, in this case you are the last state official with the power to prevent a deadly mistake.

Sincerely,


Sen. Tom Coburn (U.S. Senator for Oklahoma from 2005-2015 and U.S. Representative for Oklahoma’s Second Congressional District from 1995-2001)

Barry Switzer, Head Football Coach, The University of Oklahoma (1973-1988)

John W. Raley, Jr., U.S. Attorney, Eastern District of Oklahoma (1990-1997)

Barry Scheck, Co-Director of the Innocence Project

Samuel Gross, Professor of Law, University of Michigan and Editor, National Registry of Exonerations

Update on the Death Watch - Let's lynch this black guy on September 21

Troy Anthony Davis -
Innocent Dead Man Walking

In Memoriam: Troy Anthony Davis, 1968 - 2011

New report: No stay yet.

Stayed by U.S. Supreme Court at the last minute.

Watching Live feed outside the outrage.
"The state is in charge of a crucifixion. We are charged with a resurrection."
-Al Sharpton #TroyDavis

Government doen't get any bigger than when it murders innocent Americans. Who said that? Rick Perry? Some anonymous rightwinger shouting from the GOP presidential debate crowd? No, no one said that.

By the Brad Blog:

In August of 2007, Troy Anthony Davis was just weeks away from his then scheduled execution in the state of Georgia when The BRAD BLOG ran the following article, including an exclusive interview with Larry Young, the "forgotten victim" in the Davis case who now, like 7 of the 9 witnesses in the case, has recanted his testimony. Young says, as you'll read, that he was left to bleed while the police coerced him into identifying Davis as the assailant, even though he had never seen him before.

One of the only witnesses to not retract his testimony is Sylvester "Redd" Coles, who was with Davis before the 1989 murder of Savannah Police Officer Mark Allen MacPhail who Davis has been convicted of killing. During a party in June of 2009, Coles reportedly claimed to have been the actual assailant.

Davis' execution was delayed in 2007 as new evidence was presented, but he is now, once again, scheduled to be killed at 7pm local time on Wednesday, pending a grant of clemency by the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles (BPP) who are the sole authorities able to commute his death sentence to life in prison with or without the possibility of parole.

Since Emily Levy's exclusive article below ran on August 3rd, 2007, citing both the Indigo Girls and the Pope in calling for Davis to be spared, a host of dignitaries, such as President Jimmy Carter, former FBI Director William Sessions, former far-right Republican U.S. Congressman Bob Barr of Georgia, and former Georgia Supreme Court Chief Justice Norman Fletcher have all asked the BPP to grant clemency to Davis.

Moreover, among witnesses heard during today's impassioned hearing before the board was Brenda Forrest, a juror who voted to sentence Davis to death at his 1991 trial. According to to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution tonight, Forrest "now says she has doubt about her verdict and is asking the board to grant clemency. Two other jurors who voted to sentence Davis to death have signed affidavits asking the board to spare Davis from execution."

In her affidavit, Forrest says "she learned information that makes her no longer believe the case against Davis was ironclad. 'I feel, emphatically, that Mr. Davis cannot be executed under these circumstances,' she said."

The BPP has adjourned for the evening, having postponed deliberation until tomorrow on the fate of the man who has maintained his innocence without fail for 20 years now. (It had only been 17 years at the time of Levy's original article for The BRAD BLOG). In light of the possibility of the ultimate Big Government abuse of power being exercised against a citizen on Wednesday, it seems an appropriate moment to revisit Levy's original, and disturbing, exclusive ... . See Emily Levy's piee in 2007 Interview With 'Forgotten Victim' Larry Young, as We Await Georgia's Decision on the Fate of Troy Anthony Davis

Rick Perry's Execution of the Innocent Is a Moral Disqualification

Rick Perry - so tough he killed an innocent man

Update: BREAKING: U.S. Supreme Court Grants Stay of Execution to Duane Edward Buck
The personal inadequacies of Rick Perry that drove him to preside over the killing of an innocent man, launching a cover up in 2008 by firing members of the Texas Forensic Science Commission in possession of and about to make public evidence demonstrating that there is no scientific basis for claiming the executed man committed a crime [the evidence in fact exonerated the execution victim, Cameron Todd Willingham] provoked a significant reaction in Rick Perry: Kill more people.

Message: I am so tough.

"At the end of the day I am always going to be erring on the side of life," said Perry in defence of his impenetrable position on another issue, mandatory HPV vaccinations.

Why?

But for the innocent man Cameron Todd Willingham, Perry did not err on the side of life; he knowingly presided over the execution, and fired the government officials who would scientifically establish Rick Perry as what he is: Co-conspirator in the state murder of Cameron Todd Willingham.

In most countries this would be a disqualification for high elected office.

In Texas capital punishment of the innocent or guilty is practically a prerequisite for elected high office as in the case of Rick Perry's 234 executions committed during his tenure, pandering to the crude bloodlust of many Americans and what Amanda Marcotte calls the "mean-spirited ignorance that rules Texas politics."

Erwin Knoll, the former editor of The Progressive Magazine, wrote once in calling for non-violence from the African National Congress (with whom Knoll made common cause as the ANC fought US-Israeli-supported Apartheid in South Africa) that violence deafens the ears and blinds the eyes to the suffering of others.

Yes, violence does accomplish sensory, cognitive and human dullness.

But don't look for network and cable infotainment shows to carry screaming headlines on why Rick Perry is stonewalling the American people on killing an innocent man. There is no popular demand.

And there are few in American government as Illinois Gov. George H. Ryan who in an inspiring moral stand "in January of 2000, after 13 people sentenced to death row were found to have been wrongfully convicted ... took the unprecedented step of declaring a moratorium on executions. ... Gov. Ryan said, 'Until I can be sure, with moral certainty, that no innocent man or woman is facing a lethal injection, no one will meet that fate.'" [Stop Capital Punishment Now]

No such human mettle exists in Rick Perry, who parades his piety and religiosity hand-in-hand with his corruption and unrepentant killing of an innocent.
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By Amanda Marcotte

When Rick Perry threw his hat into the ring for the Republican presidential nomination, it set off such a collective cringe among liberal Texans that it likely scored on the Richter scale. Being a native Texan with basic respect for modern civilisation means living in a constant state of low-grade humiliation, as the state's size provides an uninterrupted stream of news stories highlighting the cranks and Bible-thumpers who win state and local offices – but a presidential campaign means exponentially expanding the amount of national and international attention paid to the streak of mean-spirited ignorance that rules Texas politics. With Rick Perry, this means a whole lot more coverage of the fact that Texas is the "killingest" state in the entire union, having executed more than four times as many prisoners as the next contender in this gruesome contest.

Of course, we of the non-barbaric sort do hope that all this attention paid to Rick Perry's willingness to execute anyone on death row – no matter how obviously screwed over by an imperfect and often unjust judicial system – could somehow provoke enough national shame that we actually do away with the death penalty. Which we really need to do, not because we have any great love for vicious murderers, but because the death penalty is a known destroyer of a fair and sober-minded justice system.

Once you have the right to kill people, the voters start expecting semi-regular bloodshed as proof that you're doing your job, creating incentives for prosecutors and politicians to cut corners to get those voter-pleasing cadaver numbers up. Each new generation of prosecutors and politicians feels pressure to "best" their predecessor in the number of executions carried out, lest they face accusations of being soft on crime. Which explains why they soon find themselves where Rick Perry stands, having executed 234 people, many of whom had highly corrupt trials and at least one of whom is most likely innocent.

For those who haven't read the tale of Cameron Todd Willingham, I implore you to read the New Yorker article recounting the case of a man executed for killing his three children based on shoddy evidence and prosecutorial willingness to introduce Willingham's love of Iron Maiden and Led Zeppelin as evidence in order to stoke the prejudices of a Bible Belt jury that was high on fundamentalist tall tales about the Satanic influence of rock music. When presented with an opportunity to spare Willingham's life, Perry declined, and in 2004, Willingham was executed by lethal injection. His case has come to symbolise the circus atmosphere around capital murder cases, and the way that the eagerness to see someone pay the ultimate price for the loss of innocent human life causes law enforcement and politicians to make a mockery out of the idea of justice.

Since Rick Perry, by his own admission, has never lost sleep over the execution of a likely innocent man, you can bet justice doesn't stand a chance when it comes to cases where the fact of homicide is indisputable. The public's desire to get blood for blood – especially if they can view the accused as an outsider – turns concerns about due process to dust for anyone whose job depends on a high conviction rate. Subsequently, death penalty cases where the prosecution won a clean conviction without relying on shoddy evidence or a jury's unfair prejudices are the rare gems in a sea of corruption. The case of Duane Buck, scheduled to be executed this week, demonstrates how the death penalty is more about hustling prisoners to the execution chamber to score points with the public than it is securing just and safe outcomes.

Even hyper-conservative Senator John Cornyn, once Texas's attorney general, wanted Buck's case reviewed, due to a prosecutorial witness's claim that Buck was more likely to be violent in the future because he's black. That someone's race was overtly invoked as a reason to kill him during trial should be indicator enough that the death penalty has meaning for the public beyond alleviating concerns about violent crime. But evidence of racism invoked during the trial probably won't bother Perry: if he had a conscience about signing off on overtly unfair executions, it probably stopped bothering him somewhere much earlier in his run of 234 executions as Texas governor.

The death penalty is wrong not because murderers deserve better, but because the death penalty appeals to the worst instincts of humanity. We see innocent people die, and our lizard brains want to believe that it won't be right until someone pays for blood with blood. That desire starts to overrule all other priorities. Our desire for a fair trial system and our desire to treat people equally despite racial differences are the first to go. But given enough time, we're even willing to send a man to the death chambers for what appears to have been an accident. Three small children are dead, and we want someone to pay, no matter the innocence of the someone we select.

Perry's willingness to execute a man who was almost certainly innocent comes uncomfortably close to regressing to the days of human sacrifice. Sacrificing an innocent man won't prevent other houses from accidentally catching fire and killing the innocent people inside, but it's clear that Perry will not hesitate to pander to voters who cling to hopes that periodic blood-letting will somehow save us all.

- Amanda Marcotte co-writes the blog Pandagon. She is the author of It's a Jungle Out There: The Feminist Survival Guide to Politically Inhospitable Environments.

DNA clears innocent Texas man who spent 30 years in prison

Texas likes to kill innocent men, so this headline is a surprise, especially since this is a black guy. Prosecutors declared a Texas man innocent Monday of a rape and robbery that put him in prison for 30 years, more than any other DNA exoneree in Texas. Be well, Mr. Dupree, we're with you. May you find peace and justice in your future.

By Jeff Carlton

DALLAS –DNA test results that came back barely a week after Cornelius Dupree Jr. was paroled in July excluded him as the person who attacked a Dallas woman in 1979, prosecutors said Monday. Dupree was just 20 when he was sentenced to 75 years in prison in 1980.

Now 51, he has spent more time wrongly imprisoned than any DNA exoneree in Texas, which has freed 41 wrongly convicted inmates through DNA since 2001 — more than any other state.

"Our Conviction Integrity Unit thoroughly reinvestigated this case, tested the biological evidence and based on the results, concluded Cornelius Dupree did not commit this crime," Dallas County District Attorney Craig Watkins said.

Dupree is expected to have his aggravated robbery with a deadly weapon conviction overturned Tuesday at an exoneration hearing in a Dallas court.

There have been 21 DNA exonerations in Dallas since 2001, more than any other county in the nation. Only two states — Illinois and New York — have freed more of the wrongly convicted through DNA evidence than Dallas, according to the Innocence Project, a New York-based legal center representing Dupree that specializes in wrongful conviction cases.

Dallas' record of DNA exonerations is unmatched nationally because the county crime lab maintains biological evidence even decades after a conviction, leaving samples available to test. In addition, Watkins has cooperated with innocence groups in reviewing hundreds of requests by inmates for DNA testing. Watkins, the first black DA in Texas history, has also pointed to what he calls "a convict-at-all-costs mentality" that he says permeated the DA's office before he arrived in 2007.

Cameron Todd Willingham was not so LUCKY. Proven innocent, Texas Rick Perry killed him anyway. See FrontLine and The New Yorker (David Grann).

Dupree's 30 years in prison will surpass James Woodard, who spent more than 27 years in a Texas prison for a murder that he was cleared of in 2008.

Nationally, there are at least two other DNA exonerees who spent more time in prison, according to the Innocence Project. James Bain was wrongly imprisoned for 35 years in Florida and Lawrence McKinney spent more than 31 years in a Tennessee prison. Phillip Bivens was locked up for more than 30 years in Mississippi, but it wasn't immediately clear whether he or Dupree were in longer.

The DNA testing in Dupree's case also excluded a second defendant, Anthony Massingill, who was subsequently convicted in another sexual assault case and sentenced to life in prison. Massingill remains in prison but maintains his innocence. DNA testing in that second case is ongoing.

Dupree was charged in 1979 with raping and robbing a 26-year-old woman and sentenced in 1980 to 75 years in prison for aggravated robbery. He was never tried on the rape charge.

According to court documents, the woman and her male companion stopped at a Dallas liquor store in November 1979 to buy cigarettes and use a payphone. As they returned to their car, two men, at least one of whom was armed, forced their way into the vehicle and ordered them to drive. They also demanded money from the two victims.

The men eventually ordered the car to the side of the road and forced the male driver out of the car. The woman attempted to flee but was pulled back inside.

The perpetrators drove the woman to a nearby park, where they raped her at gunpoint. They debated killing her but eventually let her live, keeping her rabbit-fur coat and her driver's license and warning her they would kill her if she reported the assault to police. The victim ran to the nearest highway and collapsed unconscious by the side of the road, where she was discovered.

About five days later, two men whose descriptions did not match Dupree tried to sell the rabbit-fur coat at a grocery store two miles from the liquor store, according to court documents. The car stolen from the victims was found abandoned in the parking lot.

Dupree and Massingill were arrested in December because they looked similar to two suspects being sought in another sexual assault and robbery. The 26-year-old woman picked both men out of a photo array, but her male companion did not identify either defendant in the same photo array.

Dupree was convicted and spent the next three decades appealing. The Court of Criminal Appeals turned him down three times.

The Innocence Project, which took on his case in 2006, obtained DNA testing last summer on biological evidence taken from a vaginal swab. In July, shortly after Dupree's release, the test results cleared Dupree and Massingill.

The hearing is happening now because authorities needed additional testing to confirm that the 30-year-old biological material was a DNA match to the victim.

Texas Murders Innocent, Now Covers Up

Update: Dallas Morning News: "Gov. Rick Perry looks like a desperate man with his decision to jettison the chairman of the state's forensic science panel."

The state of Texas executed an innocent man, Cameron Todd Willingham, in 2004

Hey, if anyone wants to devise an index on the intelligence, scientific acuity and general enlightenment of American states, Texas is right down there with Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana. So, no surprise here.

David Grann's piece in the New Yorker on Cameron Todd Willingham is a must read, reporting that the equivalent of witchcraft was used to convict and murder Willingham though a range of Texas officials, including Gov. Rick Perry were presented with scientific information exonerating Willingham before Texas decided to kill him. Maybe the Texas folks just couldn't understand the material.

Now, after the state murder, when the Texas Forensic Science Commission was to review the findings of arson expert Craig Beyler, who was hired by the commission to investigate and subsequently released a report blowing the whistle on Texas, Rick Perry this week summarily fired three members of the Commission that was seen as poised to rule in effect that Texas had executed an innocent man.

From Jeff Carlton at the Huffington Post:

DALLAS — A report concluding a faulty investigation led to a Texas man's execution won't be reviewed by a state board as planned Friday after Gov. Rick Perry abruptly removed three people from the panel, forcing the meeting's cancellation.

Perry, who has said the execution was appropriate, replaced the head of the Texas Forensic Science Commission and two of its eight other board members Wednesday. The upheaval on the commission came just 48 hours before it was to consider a report critical of the arson finding leading to Cameron Todd Willingham's execution for the deaths of his three daughters in a 1991 fire.

Baltimore-based arson expert Craig Beyler, who was hired by the commission, concluded the arson finding was scientifically unsupported and investigators at the scene had 'poor understandings of fire science.' His report has bolstered arguments from advocacy groups that Willingham was innocent and wrongly executed.

Innocent Man Executed, Good Enough for Texas

Update: See also this morning's column by Bob Herbert, Innocent but Dead.

Update: What type of man would oversee an innocent being killed and then still defend it? One of the prosecutors, John H. Jackson, who ignores all the exculpatory evidence presented, seeing fit to further smear an innocent killed by the state of Texas. Jackson says Cameron Todd Willingham was "offered the opportunity to eliminate himself as a suspect by polygraph examination. Such opportunity was rejected in the most vulgar and insulting manner ..." Is this idiot kidding? Typical imbecility.

Cameron Todd Willingham is an innocent man and was murdered by the state of Texas in 2004 by lethal injection.

David Grann's new piece in the New Yorker on Cameron Todd Willingham is a must read for anyone vaguely concerned about justice and liberty in America. Shocking. But why the dearth of comment from rightwing libertarians?

Cameron Todd Willingham [at right with child] was killed because he was convicted of killing his three small children by intentionally setting his house on fire.

But the crime never happened, and Willingham refused a plea for a life sentence as he proclaimed his innocence until he was killed.

David Grann uncovers new exculpatory evidence and reviews the shabby evidence presented in court including:

- A photograph of an Iron Maiden poster and other music posters that hung in Willingham’s house that caused "Tim Gregory, a psychologist with a master’s degree in marriage and family issues" to testify that the images "displayed 'violence' and 'death.'" The same conclusion applies to Willingham’s "Led Zeppelin picture of a falling angel".

- The testimony of a bone-headed Texas state fire marshal knocked down in a just-released report by an expert, Craig Beyler, of Hughes Associates Inc, investigating the fire marshal's testimony and science. Reads the Chicago Tribune: "The state fire marshal on the case ... had 'limited understanding' of fire science. The fire marshal 'seems to be wholly without any realistic understanding of fires and how fire injuries are created,' he wrote. The marshal's findings, he added, 'are nothing more than a collection of personal beliefs that have nothing to do with science-based fire investigation.'

- Medical testimony on Willingham by doctors who had never met Willingham, like"James P. Grigson, a forensic psychiatrist," diagnosing Willingham as "extremely severe sociopath." Grigson in 1995, three years after Willingham’s trial "was expelled from the American Psychiatric Association for violating ethics. The association stated that Grigson had repeatedly arrived at a 'psychiatric diagnosis without first having examined the individuals in question, and for indicating, while testifying in court as an expert witness, that he could predict with 100-per-cent certainty that the individuals would engage in future violent acts.'"

An innocent man is killed. Good enough for Texas.

Please read David Grann's piece in the New Yorker on Cameron Todd Willingham.

Video: David Grann discusses the flaws of the Cameron Todd Willingham investigation.


See also:

- Questions About an Execution (NYT)

- Texas Executed An Innocent Man (an Innocence Project Media Advisory)

Dershowitz on Innocent Man Case

Scalia's Catholic Betrayal
by Alan M. Dershowitz

I never thought I would live to see the day when a justice of the Supreme Court would publish the following words:

This court has never held that the Constitution forbids the execution of a convicted defendant who has had a full and fair trial but is later able to convince a habeas court that he is ‘actually’ innocent. Quite to the contrary, we have repeatedly left that question unresolved, while expressing considerable doubt that any claim based on alleged ‘actual innocence’ is constitutionally cognizable.

Yet these words appeared in a dissenting opinion issued by Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas on Monday. Let us be clear precisely what this means. If a defendant were convicted, after a constitutionally unflawed trial, of murdering his wife, and then came to the Supreme Court with his very much alive wife at his side, and sought a new trial based on newly discovered evidence (namely that his wife was alive), these two justices would tell him, in effect: ‘Look, your wife may be alive as a matter of fact, but as a matter of constitutional law, she’s dead, and as for you, Mr. Innocent Defendant, you’re dead, too, since there is no constitutional right not to be executed merely because you’re innocent.’ ...