Shawn,
just in case you missed this one:
http://news.yahoo.com/news?
tmpl=story&u=/chitribts/20050420/ts_chicagotrib/texasmayhaveputinnocentmanto
deathpaneltold
Texas may have put innocent man to death, panel told
Wed Apr 20, 9:40 AM ET Top Stories - Chicago Tribune
By Steve Mills Tribune staff reporter
With Texas' criminal justice system the subject of intense scrutiny for a
crime lab scandal and a series of wrongful convictions, a state Senate
committee heard testimony Tuesday about the possibility that Texas had
experienced the ultimate criminal justice nightmare: the execution of an
innocent person.
Fourteen months after Cameron Todd Willingham was executed in the nation's
busiest death chamber, a renowned arson expert and Willingham's lawyer told
the Senate Criminal Justice Committee that they believed Willingham might
have been innocent but found nobody willing to listen to their claim in the
days before the execution in February 2004.
"This was a frustrating case, and it was frustrating because it appeared
that we could not get anybody to listen," said attorney Walter Reaves, who
represented Willingham.
"To say that this case was thoroughly reviewed," Reaves added, "I have my
doubts."
The execution of Willingham, convicted of the December 1991 arson fire that
killed his three young daughters, was a focus of a hearing into a proposed
innocence commission.
Governor's committee
Texas Gov. Rick Perry has, by executive order, set up his own committee.
But critics, including state Sen. Rodney Ellis, a longtime advocate of
criminal justice reform in Texas, and Barry Scheck, a co-founder of the New
York-based Innocence Project, told the senators that to be effective the
governor's panel needed to subpoena sworn testimony, obtain documents and
seek forensic testing. Ellis, a Houston Democrat, has sponsored legislation
to beef up the power of Perry's panel.
"Without subpoena power and the ability to order testing, I don't see how
the committee can get to the bottom of these cases," Scheck said after
testifying. "I haven't heard of a committee that didn't want all of those
things. If you want to find out the truth, you have to have the mechanisms
to do it."
A Tribune investigation of the Willingham case last December showed that he
was prosecuted and convicted based primarily on arson theories that have
since been repudiated by scientific advances--a fact backed up by testimony
Tuesday by one of those experts, Gerald Hurst.
According to Hurst and three other fire experts who reviewed evidence in
the case at the Tribune's request, the original investigation that
concluded the fire was arson was flawed, relying on theories no longer
considered valid. It is even possible the fatal fire at the Willingham home
in Corsicana, a small town about an hour south of Dallas, was accidental,
according to the experts.
Nonetheless, before Willingham died by lethal injection on Feb. 17, 2004,
Texas judges and Perry turned aside a report from Hurst in which he
questioned the arson evidence and suggested the fire was an accident.
"The state," Hurst testified Tuesday, "needs to take an interest in these
matters."
Willingham maintained his innocence until the end. Strapped to a gurney in
the death chamber last year, an angry Willingham said: "I am an innocent
man, convicted of a crime I did not commit."
The scientific advances that Hurst and the other experts cited in the
Willingham case played a role in the exoneration last year of another Texas
Death Row inmate, Ernest Willis. Hurst told the Senate committee that the
two fires were identical, and that an investigation is needed to determine
why Willingham died and Willis lived.
Many prosecutors oppose expanding the power of Perry's committee, called
the Criminal Justice Advisory Council. Barry Macha, the district attorney
in Wichita County, testified legislators should first give the governor's
panel a chance to work as designed.
But that drew a skeptical response from the committee chairman, state Sen.
John Whitmire.
Bush role in 2000 case
"The problem is, they're appointed by the governor," Whitmire, also a
Democrat from Houston, said of the council's members. "I would almost give
them subpoena power and the first time they abuse it, we'll all come back."
Scheck also pointed to the case of Claude Jones, executed in December 2000
for the murder of Allen Hilzendager, who was shot and killed in a 1989
liquor store robbery. In that case, Scheck said, counsel for then-Gov.
George W. Bush prepared a recommendation for Bush that did not mention that
Jones' request for a 30-day stay of execution was to allow DNA tests to be
done on a hair found at the scene. Bush denied the request for a stay.
Last year, the Tribune asked to see the recommendation in the Willingham
case to try to determine whether Perry was informed of Hurst's last-minute
analysis. But the Tribune's request was rejected by state officials who
said the documents are considered confidential.
Scheck told the Senate committee he believed the hair in the Jones case was
still in evidence and that an innocence commission with broad powers could
seek to test the hair to determine if Jones was guilty. Without that
ability, Scheck testified, the commission "would be hampered or powerless
in its ability to get to the bottom of this very important case."
----------
On Fri, 8 Apr 2005 12:58:02 -0700, Shawn Gordon <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:
>I'll leave out the mindless rambling and address this because it's the most
>typical liberal talking point. A baby is totally innocent, someone on
>death row is not, they've been convicted of a heinous crime by a jury of
>their peers, and have exhausted about 20 years of appeals. I guess that
>since you equate an innocent potential child with a violent criminal, then
>it explains your point of view, which if I understand correctly is to kill
>babies via abortion, kill potential babies, but let violent criminals live.
>
>Regards,
>
>Shawn Gordon
>President
>theKompany.com
>www.thekompany.com
>www.mindawn.com
>949-713-3276
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