The Innocence Project: Guilty until Proven Innocent

The Innocence Project: Guilty until Proven Innocent
Capital punishment in the US is under the microscope and lawyers using the latest forensic science techniques have found justice wanting.

by Andrew Gumbel

Cameron Todd Willingham is the first and only man executed in the United States for suspected arson after his three children, all under the age of three, burned to death at their home in Corsicana, about an hour's drive south-east of Dallas, Texas, in December 1991.

...

When the fire marshals examined the aftermath of the fire, they too found some anomalies and began to wonder if Willingham hadn't set it deliberately. Particularly damning at his trial was the testimony of the deputy state fire marshal, Manuel Vasquez, who examined the burn patterns on the wood floor and the melted aluminium threshold piece, as well as the way certain pieces of glass has cracked into crazy patterns in the heat, and told the jury there was no way this was the result of an accident. Someone, presumably Willingham, had sprinkled fuel and set light to the building.

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Now, though, compelling evidence has emerged that Mr Vasquez did not in fact know what he was talking about. None of his testimony has passed muster with a panel of acknowledged arson experts, which has gone over it in detail. And without his testimony, the case against Willingham is left essentially baseless. Unlike most capital convictions, where a defendant's protestations of innocence raise the question of who else might have committed the crime, this case may well have constituted no criminal behaviour whatsoever, just one more ghastly element in an unspeakable family tragedy. That is certainly what Willingham asserted as he went to his death. "The only statement I want to make is that I am an innocent man, convicted of a crime I did not committed," he said. "I have been persecuted for 12 years for something I did not do."

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The backlash against capital punishment may be coming too late for Willingham, but his case remains a potent weapon in the hands of the Innocence Project and other campaigners. If Texas, of all states, is forced to acknowledge it killed an innocent man, then the death penalty may be on its way to extinction.

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0504-09.htm

maybe he should have thought about that before being a black man in rural Texas. it's his own fault, really.

EOE Equal Opportunity Executor

I have no conception how the these good self professed christian people can square capital punishment with their religious beliefs. Rather easily, it appears.