The Case Against Rick Perry; Part One; the Execution of an Innocent Man

Current Rasmussen polls show Texas Governor Rick Perry leading the Republican field with 29 % of the GOP vote, with second place Mitt Romney at 18%. As a newcomer who was vigorously courted prior to entering the race, Perry is likely at the peak of his popularity. I predict that as he becomes better known, and especially as some of his negatives become apparent, his support will fall off.

There are three major reasons not to hand the GOP nomination to Governor Perry. The first of these, the fact that he presided over a serious abuse of the justice system which resulted in the execution of a man who was almost certainly innocent, is discussed below.

On December 23, 1991, a fire at the Corsicana, Texas home of .Cameron Todd Willingham resulted in the deaths of his three daughters. Willingham himself escaped the home with only minor burns. Willingham's wife was not home at the time of the fire. Prosecutors charged that Willingham set the fire and killed the children in an attempt to cover up abuse of the girls. However, there was never any history or evidence of child abuse and Willingham's wife had told prosecutors that he had never abused the children. Willingham was convicted of murder, and after 12 years on death row, he was executed. for the murder of his three young children by arson.

In 2009, David Grann published an exhaustive essay in the New Yorker that documented the story of this crime in detail. The essay did not have the flavor of a propaganda piece, but presented the opinions and statements of all the participants .
The primary evidence leading to Willingham's arrest and conviction resulted from police inspections after the fire, based on forensic evidence that supposedly proved the fire was intentionally started using some form of liquid accelerant, thereby proving arson. However, as Grann shows, the evidence was, in fact, completely invalid.

Fire investigator Gerald L Hurst reviewed the case documents, including the trial transcriptions and an hour-long videotape of the aftermath of the fire scene. Hurst said in December 2004 that "There's nothing to suggest to any reasonable arson investigator that this was an arson fire. It was just a fire.” “The whole case was based on the purest form of junk science," Hurst later said. It became clear that the charge of arson was based on erroneous and invalid concepts, and this was shown to be the case prior to Willingham's execution.

In addition to the arson evidence, a jailhouse informant named Johnny Webb claimed that Willingham confessed to him that he set the fire to hide an injury or death of one of the girls, caused by his wife, although none of the girls at the time of death were found to have physical injuries still distinguishable after the effects of the fire. Webb later told a reporter for The New Yorker, "it's very possible I misunderstood what he said. Being locked up in that little cell makes you kind of crazy. My memory is in bits and pieces. I was on a lot of medication at the time. Everyone knew that.". At Willingham's trial, Webb offered an explanation for the individual, distinguishable burns that were found on the forehead and arm of one of the children, stating that Willingham confessed to burning her twice with a piece of "wadded up" paper in an effort to make it appear as though the children were "playing with fire" Webb was later diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Even the prosecutor described Webb as "an unreliable kind of guy", yet after Webb's testimony the prosecutor successfully got him released from prison early.

In addition to the invalid arson evidence, and the unreliable statements from the jailhouse informant, evidence was also presented that Willingham was an unsavory character with a large skull head tattoo, and a background that may or may not have included spousal abuse.

One of the prosecutors admitted that an "undeniably flawed forensic report" was used to convict Willingham, but claimed that other reasons established guilt.

After years on death row, Cameron Todd Willingham’s final recourse was to appeal to Rick Perry, the governor of Texas. In his final hours, Willingham and his attorneys tried frantically to show the governor of Texas, Rick Perry, a new scientific report proving his innocence. Governor Perry chose to ignore this evidence and refused to grant a stay of execution, saying through a spokesperson that "The Governor made his decision based on the facts of the case." Governor Perry said that the "supposed experts" were wrong, and setting up a straw man, claimed that the supposed contrary evidence was anti-death penalty "propaganda".

Willingham was executed on February 17, 2004. After reading Grann's report in the New Yorker, it seems clear that that none of the evidence used to convict Willingham was valid, and that an innocent man was executed.

Five years after Willingham was executed, the State of Texas ordered an unprecedented re-examination of the case. In August 2009, eighteen years after the fire and five years after Willingham's execution, a report conducted by Dr. Craig Beyler, hired by the Texas Forensic Science Commission to review the case, said that investigators ignored the scientific method for analyzing fires described in NFPA 921, Guide for Fire and Explosion Investigations and relied on "folklore" and "myths". The report found that "a finding of arson could not be sustained", and that key testimony from a fire marshal at Willingham's trial was "hardly consistent with a scientific mind-set and is more characteristic of mystics or psychics”.

As the commission prepared to hear testimony from Beyler, Governor Perry quickly fired and replaced three of the nine commission members in an apparent attempt to change the commission's findings. Perry denies these allegations. Rick Perry aide Mary Anne Wiley said the commission's $30,000 hiring of fire scientist Craig Beyler was a waste of taxpayer money.

The final report confirmed what five other leading arson experts had found -- what passed for arson analysis had no scientific basis. The report concluded that the original arson investigators relied on now-outdated science in concluding that the fire was intentionally set. This was a fire; it was not arson. In response to charges that he allowed the execution of an innocent man, Perry was quoted as stating "he was a wife beater."

There was one more piece of activity that smacks of a cover-up. Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott ruled that the state's Forensic Science Commission (FSC) does not have authority to review evidence regarding the possible innocence of Willingham, because evidence that was tested or offered into evidence prior to September 1, 2005 is beyond the scope of the FSC's legal jurisdiction.

The execution of an innocent person has long been regarded as a nightmare by most persons including supporters of the death penalty.

John Stuart Mill was an eloquent defender of capital punishment, arguing that executing a murderer was proof of the value of life. However, for Mill, there was one clear exception, “that if by an error of justice an innocent person is put to death, the mistake can never be corrected.”

Former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor has said that the “execution of a legally and factually innocent person would be a constitutionally intolerable event.”

The process by which a governor may grant clemency is considered the last gatekeeper to the executioner, and has been called by the U.S. Supreme Court “the ‘fail safe’ in our criminal justice system.” This is a serious duty. With his cavalier attitude toward critical new evidence, his unwillingness to take his profound responsibility seriously, Rick Perry failed a critical test.

This can be contrasted with Illinois Governor George Ryan, an advocate of capital punishment who suspended the death penalty in 2000, after thirteen people on death row in Illinois were exonerated, declaring that he could no longer support a system that has “come so close to the ultimate nightmare—the state’s taking of innocent life.”

Choosing who shall live and who shall die is a serious matter, requiring an obligation to use restraint when there is doubt. We want leaders whom we can trust to exercise power responsibly. The Willingham case clearly shows that Rick Perry lacks the virtues of both charity and justice. His ethical shortcomings result in him not being the sort of man we want to select for President of the United States.

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