Perhaps we have become accustomed to picking up the morning newspaper and reading another story of a wrongfully convicted person freed because DNA proved the person did not commit the crime in question. As a general rule, there is no question a crime was committed, but rather the issue is who was responsible for its commission. Until now.
A recently-released report conducted for the Texas Forensic Science Commission, which investigated an alleged arson allegedly committed by Cameron Todd Willingham in Corsicana in 1991, pointedly states there was no crime at all.
That's right, we are beyond the idea of convicting the wrong person for the crime. Now we have moved on to convicting innocent people for having committed no crime at all. Pretty impressive, huh?
According to the report conducted by Craig Beyler of Hughes Associates, Inc, an international fire science firm, there was no evidence whatsoever to support the claim the fire was caused by arson, rather than an accident as Willingham claimed. According to the report, the Texas state fire marshall had "limited understanding" of fire science, and "seems to be wholly without any realistic understanding of fires and how fire injuries are created."
In other words, the fire marshall knows as much about fires as I do. You know, I have a saying I like to use. "If I did my job as well as so-and-so did theirs, I'd be disbarred." I don't think its a stretch to apply it here.
As it turns out, based on this fire marshall's "collection of personal beliefs that have nothing to do with science-based fire investigation," Willingham was convicted of the 1991 fire that took the lives of his own children. He was executed by lethal injection in February, 2004 after never wavering in his claim of innocence.
Wow. That's a scary jump. Not only did the wrong guy get executed, but for a crime that wasn't actually a crime.
Posted by: Joe | September 11, 2009 at 03:34 PM
That is scary!!
I've enjoyed reading your blog! Please check out a favorite blog of mine - Professor Leonard Birdsong, a law professor and Harvard law grad, based out of Orlando, FL. http://birdsongslaw.com
Posted by: John Knutton | September 14, 2009 at 08:48 AM
Taking risk sometimes is the only way to make things better.
Posted by: nursing covers | July 05, 2011 at 02:03 AM