Willingham

More evidence emerges that Texas almost certainly executed an innocent man. Todd Willingham-Yet another reason why our error-prone justice system should never have to the power over life and death.

february 27, 2014 (nytimes)

In the 10 years since Texas executed Cameron Todd Willingham after convicting him on charges of setting his house on fire and murdering his three young daughters, family members and death penalty opponents have argued that he was innocent. Now newly discovered evidence suggests that the prosecutor in the case may have concealed a deal with a jailhouse informant whose testimony was a key part of the execution decision.

The battle to clear Mr. Willingham’s name has symbolic value because it may offer evidence that an innocent man was executed, something opponents of the death penalty believe happens more than occasionally. By contrast, Justice Antonin Scalia wrote seven years ago that he was unaware of “a single case — not one — in which it is clear that a person was executed for a crime he did not commit.”

Mr. Willingham was convicted on charges of setting the 1991 fire in Corsicana, Tex., that killed his three children, and was sentenced to death the next year. The conviction rested on two pillars of evidence: analysis by arson investigators, and the testimony of a jailhouse informant, Johnny Webb, who said that Mr. Willingham had confessed the crime to him.

Mr. Willingham was convicted and executed in the killings. Associated Press

The arson investigation has since been discredited; serious questions were raised about the quality of the scientific analysis and testimony, which did not measure up to the standard of science even at the time. But the prosecutor who led the case shortly before Mr. Willingham’s execution argued that even though the arson analysis had been questioned, the testimony of Mr. Webb should be enough to deny any attempt for clemency.

In recent weeks, as part of an effort to obtain a posthumous exoneration from the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles and Gov. Rick Perry, lawyers working on Mr. Willingham’s behalf say they have found evidence that Mr. Webb gave his testimony in return for a reduced prison sentence. Evidence of an undisclosed deal could have proved exculpatory during Mr. Willingham’s trial or figured in subsequent appeals, but Mr. Webb and the prosecutor at trial, John Jackson — who would later become a judge — explicitly denied that any deal existed during Mr. Webb’s testimony.

In September, lawyers from the Innocence Project in New York filed an official request with the board to exonerate Mr. Willingham, citing the flawed fire science and Judge Jackson’s subsequent actions in the Webb case: efforts to cut Mr. Webb’s prison time and to downgrade the charges after the Willingham trial. The Innocence Project also contends that prosecutors suppressed an effort by Mr. Webb to recant his testimony.

But recantations in criminal cases are relatively common, said Walter M. Reaves Jr., a criminal defense lawyer who has worked on Mr. Willingham’s case, so the biggest open question has been whether Judge Jackson and Mr. Webb had made a deal. Judge Jackson, who has retired from the bench, continued to insist there was no deal, even in an interview last year.

What has changed is that investigators for the Innocence Project have discovered a curt handwritten note in Mr. Webb’s file in the district attorney’s office in Corsicana. The current district attorney, R. Lowell Thompson, made the files available to the Innocence Project lawyers, and in late November one of the lawyers, Bryce Benjet, received a box of photocopies.

As he worked through the stack of papers, he saw a note scrawled on the inside of the district attorney’s file folder stating that Mr. Webb’s charges were to be listed as robbery in the second degree, not the heavier first-degree robbery charge he had originally been convicted on, “based on coop in Willingham.”

Mr. Benjet recalled a “rush of excitement,” he said, and thought, “This is what we’ve been looking for.”

The Innocence Project submitted the note, which is not dated or signed, in a new filing to the board asking that it be included as part of its September request for a pardon.

Barry Scheck, co-founder of the Innocence Project, called the note a “smoking pistol” in the case.

“We’re reaching out to the principals to see if there is an innocent explanation for this,” he said. “I don’t see one.”

Judge Jackson did not respond to several requests for comment.

Mr. Thompson, the district attorney, said that while he willingly complied with the request for the Webb files, he had no opinion as to what happened during the Willingham trial in 1992. “I wasn’t even a college graduate yet,” he said.

As for Mr. Webb, he said, the robbery that put him in a cell with Mr. Willingham was not his only brush with the law. “I’ve also prosecuted him,” he said. “The D.A. before me prosecuted him, and the D.A. before him prosecuted him.”

Mr. Scheck said that the Willingham case suggested a fundamental weakness in the justice system: If Mr. Webb’s testimony “was really based on a deal and misrepresentation, then the system cannot be regulated,” he said. Under those circumstances, “you cannot prevent the execution of an innocent person.”

Even if the board ultimately agrees with Mr. Willingham’s advocates, the final decision will rest with Governor Perry (who has called Mr. Willingham “a monster” who killed his children) or with his successor in 2015.

Mr. Willingham’s stepmother, Eugenia Willingham, said: “I’m real thrilled that all this has come to light. We’ll see what happens. I can’t help but be hopeful.”

His cousin Patricia Cox said that if an exoneration does occur, the family has no plans to press for damages. “We’re not asking compensation,” she said. “We’re asking justice.”

Cameron Todd Willingham Exoneration Was Written But Never Filed By Texas Judge

May 19, 2012 Source : http://www.huffingtonpost.com

Cameron Todd Wilingham

A Texas judge who reviewed the controversial 2004 execution of Cameron Todd Willingham planned to posthumously exonerate the father who was put to death for killing his three daughters in a house fire.

Scientific experts who debunked the arson evidence used against Willingham at his 1992 trial and a jailhouse witness who recanted his shaky testimony convinced District Court Judge Charlie Baird in 2010 that “Texas wrongfully convicted” him. But Baird’s order clearing Willingham’s name never became official, because a higher court halted the posthumous inquiry while it considered whether the judge had authority to examine the capital case.

While waiting for permission to finish the case from the Third Court of Appeals, Baird put together the document that “orders the exoneration of Cameron Todd Willingham for murdering his three daughters,” because of “overwhelming, credible and reliable evidence” presented during a one-day hearing in Austin in October 2010.

“You can’t do anything for Willingham except clear his name,” Baird told The Huffington Post. “When they tried Willingham, I’m convinced that everyone worked in good faith. The problem is that up until the execution, everything had changed so dramatically that you realized the science relied upon at trial was not reliable enough to take a man’s life.”

Baird’s intended order never came to light because the court of appeals criticized his handling of the case and prevented him from resuming work on it before he left the bench at the end of 2010 after choosing not to seek re-election. No one asked him for it after the court of appeals blocked him, he said.

Baird, now an attorney in private practice, said he was moved to share the document with HuffPost after reading about Carlos DeLuna, a Texan who a Columbia University team said this week may have been wrongly executed in 1989.

The 18-page unissued order closely examined the arson evidence presented during the trial, including claims that investigators found patterns on the floor where an accelerant was poured and traces of it on the porch. But Baird said he was persuaded by other experts that the initial investigative techniques were out of date.

The judge faulted Gov. Rick Perry and the state Court of Criminal Appeals, because they “ignored” exonerating evidence in 2004.

Baird, a Democrat, is now running for district attorney in Travis County, which includes Austin. The Willingham opinion is undated. Baird said he wrote it in the weeks after the Oct. 14, 2010, hearing. District court planner Kasey Hoke and court administrator Debra Hale told HuffPost they remember him preparing it in late 2010.

With Baird pushed to the sidelines that year, the fire that tore through Willingham home in Corsicana on Dec. 23, 1991, remained on the books as a triple homicide. Willingham escaped the burning house, but his three daughters — a 2-year-old and 1-year-old twins — were trapped inside and died from smoke inhalation. (His wife was out running errands for Christmas.)

Investigators concluded the blaze had been deliberately set with an accelerant. Two weeks after the fire, they arrested Willingham, a 23-year-old high school dropout with a rap sheet that included shoplifting and driving under the influence.

Willingham, maintaining his innocence, turned down a plea deal offering him life behind bars. At his August 1992 trial, the two fire investigators testified for the prosecution that Willingham torched his own home. The prosecution also called a jailhouse snitch, Johnny Webb, to the stand. Webb claimed that Willingham admitted in jail after his arrest that he killed his children. The jury convicted him in about an hour.

State and federal courts upheld Willingham’s conviction, and in 2003 the U.S. Supreme Court declined to get involved. During the appeals process, Baird was on the Circuit Court of Appeals that twice ruled against Willingham.

But doubts about Willingham’s guilt emerged. In 2000, Webb recanted his testimony. Forensic science had evolved since his trial, too. In 2004, Gerald Hurst, a chemist, released a report days before Willingham’s execution that said the testimony of the fire investigators was wrong and that the fire was accidental.

The report was rushed to Gov. Perry, but he denied a request for a reprieve, allowing the state to put Willingham to death by lethal injection on Feb. 17, 2004.

(The New Yorker and the Chicago Tribune had written extensively about Willingham’s case prior to Baird’s involvement.)

Baird’s proposed order — which drew upon Hurst’s report and the findings of other experienced arson investigators — came as a welcome surprise to Willingham’s relatives and attorneys, who continue to believe he was innocent.

“I’m very thankful he did this,” said Eugenia Willingham, Todd Willingham’s stepmother. “I’m sure this will have a good impact for Todd. I raised that boy and I believed him,” Willingham told HuffPost. “He adored those children. I never thought he could have done that.”

The fire occurred in Navarro County, but lawyers for Willingham’s family brought the case to Baird under a provision of the Texas Constitution that says all courts are open for people claiming harm to their reputation. Using the same arcane provision,Baird issued the state’s first posthumous exoneration in 2009 to Timothy Cole, who died in prison for a rape he didn’t commit.

R. Lowell Thompson, Navarro County’s district attorney, sought to derail the inquiry into Willingham, who was prosecuted by a predecessor. The prosecutor filed the petition with the court of appeals that froze Baird’s investigation and is critical of the former judge for writing the proposed order.

“it’s very surprising to me that he would enter some sort of opinion without hearing all the evidence, because none was presented by the state,” Thompson told HuffPost.

Baird said Thompson had the chance to argue his side, but left the court. Thompson said he departed because he wanted to get the court of appeals to step in immediately.

“I was doing my job and he thought he was doing the right thing,” said Thompson. “To me, it looked like he wasn’t applying the law.”

Some of the harshest criticism in Baird’s writing is directed at Perry. The governor’s role in refusing to postpone Willingham’s execution was closely examined by The Huffington Post during his presidential campaign.

“By 2004 there was no doubt that every single indication of arson had been debunked by the scientific community,” Baird wrote. “This fact was staring Governor Perry in the face; nevertheless, he refused to grant a reprieve.”

Perry has stood by decision when questioned previously about Willingham. His office didn’t flinch from the latest criticism.

“Nothing the Austin court could have done would change the fact that Todd Willingham was convicted and sentenced to death by a jury of his peers for murdering his three daughters,” said a statement from his spokeswoman Lucy Nashed. “He had full access to every level of the appeals process, and his conviction was reviewed and upheld by multiple levels of state and federal courts. … The governor reviewed all of the facts of the case and agreed with the jury, and state and federal courts that Willingham was guilty.”

With Baird’s opinion revealed, lawyers for Willingham’s family members continue pushing for a pardon that would clear his name. Last year, the Texas Forensic Science Commission issued a report saying the evidence from the fire investigators was no longer valid.

“It’s an awful shame that this opinion was sitting in his desk gathering dust and nobody could see it,” said Barry Scheck, a lawyer from the Innocence Project working for Willingham’s relatives. “This opinion will stand the test of time, because it faces the facts.”

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