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The study will have to wait until the new board is cons uted and the new commissioners have a chance to review the study entrusted to their discretion and professionalism.
http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/10/01/...obe/index.html
Shakeup in Texas execution probe draws criticism, questionsStory Highlights
NEW: One replaced panel member says shakeup could stall the probe
Gov. Rick Perry replaces 3 members of Texas Forensic Science Commission
Panel probing whether Todd Willingham's execution for kids' deaths was justified
Perry's office calls replacements routine, says Perry believes Willingham was guilty
By Matt Smith
CNN
DALLAS, Texas (CNN) -- An investigation into claims that faulty evidence led Texas to execute a man in 2004 was at a "crucial point" when the state's governor replaced three of its members this week, one of the three said Thursday.
A family photo shows Cameron Todd Willingham with his wife, Stacy, and daughters Kameron, Amber and Karmon.
1 of 3 Gov. Rick Perry's shake-up of the Texas Forensic Science Commission came two days before it was to hear from the author of a scathing report in the case of Cameron Todd Willingham. That Friday session has been postponed indefinitely in the wake of Perry's new appointments.
Willingham was put to death for killing his three daughters in a fire that arson investigators said had been deliberately set.
Yet death-penalty opponents say an impartial review of the case could lead to an unprecedented admission -- that the state executed an innocent man.
Three reports, including one commissioned by the Forensic Science Commission, have concluded that arson was not the likely cause of the 1991 fire.
Perry's office described the governor's replacement of commission members as routine, saying the terms of Chairman Sam Bassett and commissioners Alan Levy and Aliece Watts had expired. But Levy said he told the governor's office "that it would be disruptive to make the new appointments right now."
"The commission was at a crucial point in the investigation," he told CNN on Thursday.
Asked about the future of the Willingham investigation, he said, "I don't know if it will ever be heard."
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Levy, a top prosecutor in Fort Worth, said he had asked to remain on the commission, but received no response from the governor's office. Sam Bassett, the panel's former chairman, said he also asked to remain on board.
Perry spokeswoman Katherine Cesinger said the governor "thanks the former appointees for their service." Asked whether the governor wants to see the Willingham investigation go forward, she said, "That's a decision of the commission."
"The governor has made his position on this case clear, and has said that he has not seen anything that would cause him to think that the decisions made by the courts of Texas was not correct," Cesinger said. "Beyond that, the business of the commission is up to the commission."
Perry refused to issue a last-minute stay of execution for Willingham in 2004 and has said he remains confident that Willingham was guilty. So have authorities in Corsicana, south of Dallas, who prosecuted him for his daughters' deaths.
The lead investigator in the case, Corsicana Police Sgt. Jimmie Hensley, dismissed subsequent reviews of the case as "Monday-morning quarterbacking" by experts unfamiliar with the whole of the evidence.
"I'm firmly a believer that justice was served," he told CNN this week.
But Craig Beyler, the expert hired by the Forensic Science Commission to investigate the Willingham case, concluded that the ruling at the heart of Willingham's conviction -- that the fire that killed his daughters was set deliberately -- "could not be sustained" by modern science or the standards of the time.
Beyler's report also said that the state fire marshal who testified in Willingham's trial approached his job with an at ude "more characteristic of mystics or psychics" than with that of a detective who followed scientific standards.
Wednesday's personnel moves raised concern among Willingham's relatives, who worked to avert his execution and to clear his name after his death.
"It sounds like someone made Governor Perry mad," his stepmother, Eugena Willingham, said after hearing the news during an interview with CNN at her home in Ardmore, Oklahoma.
"I think it's going to delay things," she added. "It makes me wonder why."
Neither Bassett nor Levy would say whether they believed political considerations were behind their replacement, though Bassett said in a written statement that the investigation should go on.
"In my view, we should not fail to investigate important forensic issues in cases simply because there might be political ramifications," he said.
Others were sharply critical of Perry on Thursday.
Innocence Project co-founder Barry Scheck compared the shakeup to the Watergate scandal's "Saturday night massacre," when embattled President Richard Nixon sought the removal of a special prosecutor probing his administration.
"Rather than let this important hearing go forward and the report be heard, the governor fires the independent chairman and two other members of this commission," Scheck said. "It's like Nixon firing Archibald Cox to avoid turning over the Watergate tapes."
The Innocence Project seeks to help prisoners who were wrongfully convicted. Its 2006 report on the Willingham case concluded that "an innocent man was executed." That report led to Beyler being hired by the Forensic Science Commission to review the case.
And Scott Cobb, president of the Texas Moratorium Network, said Perry "saw the writing on the wall" -- that the commission was "moving in the direction that he didn't want them to go."
Cobb said Bassett's replacement, John Bradley, is "one of the most hard-line prosecutors in the entire state," who had opposed efforts in the Legislature to restrict capital punishment.
"I really don't have a lot of confidence with him on this commission," Cobb said. On the other hand, however, "If he is convinced by the evidence, it would make an even bigger impact."
Perry is such a
The study will have to wait until the new board is cons uted and the new commissioners have a chance to review the study entrusted to their discretion and professionalism.
I read an article that call this Perry's equivalent to Nixon's Saturday Night Massacre.
Eh, I doubt it.
What article, please?
Here you go:I read an article that call this Perry's equivalent to Nixon's Saturday Night Massacre.
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/...g/6645910.html
If any justice occurs out of all this, it will be purely by accident.
Perry announces a pardon.
Via grits.
Ibid.Levy said he got a call about 4:30 p.m. Tuesday from someone in the governor's office. The person said the governor was "going in a different direction," Levy said.
"I felt like a decaying fish they were trying to dispose of," Levy said. "Since the job doesn't pay anything, I've been thrown out of better places."
Levy had high praise for the way Bassett ran the commission.
"Sam and I were the two lawyers. Everybody else was a scientist," Levy said. "The only thing that links us is Governor Perry, which of course isn't much of a link anymore."
Well, as long as we're being tough on crime...............
By going easy on the prosecutors who used bunk science for a capital conviction, and delaying the publication of a completed study that makes us look bad, maybe until after the TX primary?
That's tuff on crime how?
Perry denied the stay of execution. The science (allegedly) shows the prosecution relied on folk-knowledge level theories to convict provided by experienced, professional witnesses. In retrospect the denial of the stay would appear hasty.
We might have killed an innocent guy. At a minmum, the theory on which he was convicted -- on the basis of the best science the Forensic Commission could find -- appears to be wrong. Either way, it's a black eye for Texas justice.
Strikes me as pure CYA.
Last edited by Winehole23; 10-01-2009 at 05:38 PM.
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcont...1cf2d2edb.htmlPerry's challenger in the March Republican primary, Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, said that the case has not been handled properly.
"Why you wouldn't at least have the hearing that the former member suggested, to find out what the facts are, when a man has been executed and now the facts are in dispute - just like DNA has given more tools to determine the facts," she said. "I am strongly for the death penalty, but always with the absolute assurance that you have the ability to be sure - with the technology that we have - that a person is guilty.
Hutchison declined to say whether she believes Willingham was innocent.
"I answered your question," she said. "To the best of my knowledge, I've answered your question."
I don't think "Texas justice" is all that highly regarded externally to begin with. I'm not sure how much of a black eye it can take.
I have no idea whether this is actually true or not because I heard it on talk radio. But someone said that Texas is spending more money to go back and do DNA testing than any other state. If that's true, then I take it as an encouraging sign that someone (not neccissarily Perry) is making the good faith effort to boost Texas' integrity in the "justice" area.
True. But being the first state to admit executing an innocent man will be a black eye, even though the process that leads us to do so -- as CG pointed out -- is commendable.
Perry is a bag and spineless coward so it will never happen.
Perry might not be reelected. He might not even win the primary.
did the prosecutor falsify do ents, withhold evidence and suborn perjury during the trial?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/nat...xas-execution/
I miss GGA.
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