ABC Nightline: Texas executed an INNOCENT man! How much more proof is needed?

You gotta see the video. The local fire investigator will scare you. The prosecutor, now a judge, will scare the living hell out of you.

You can't watch this Nightline and still buy into the whole death penalty thing.

Governor Perry doesn't get a do-over.

I think I need a fucking shower.


http://abcnews.go.com/nightline


A Life Cut Short: Todd Willingham
Cameron Todd Willingham, who went by Todd, with his wife, Stacy. The couple's three children died in a fire Dec. 23, 1991, at the family's Corsicana, Texas, home. Willingham was accused of arson and tried for murder.
Watch the full story tonight on "Nightline" at 11:35 p.m ET

They want blood, and nothing will change that.

RIP to Mr. Willingham.

Flaws in the system that lead to innocent deaths are the only thing that gives me pause about my support for the death penalty.

:cry:

We've got a missing Yale girl. Oops, they've got the killer.

Anybody seen any sharks lately?

Look, look.

It's shiny and sparkly.

Ooooo ...

people that were on the fence, tended to favor the DP. As a matter of fact, I still believe that there are some people out there who really deserve the DP as punishment. However, the DP is not infallible and it is prone to error since it is run my mere, mortal men, and not GOD (although there are plenty of State justice systems who like to pretend they are just that) and this incident, or more appropriately, this travesty only drives home that point.
Until the system can be eliminated 100% of human error (which it obviously never can) the DP needs to be abolished. Not to mention the fact that states like Texas have some of the highest crime rates in the country despite the fact that they have a veritable express lane for the DP.

Smiling smugly as he dismisses all evidence that he sent an innocent man to his death.

What an unbelievable unjustice! The guy was convicted based on bad science and the fact that he was a fan of Iron Maiden, and even though it has turned out that the science was discredited (not to mention that Maiden fans do not "worship the devil"), these smug jerks STILL think what they did was right.

They killed a man because they do not understand fires and they certainly do not understand heavy metal.......it is the same mentality that Inquisitors have, not men of the law.

And he's sittin' in Texass, lookin' like smilin' Bob.

Frank Sheaffer is so right - the facts simply do not matter to these monsters. The arson investigator sees pentagrams everywhere, and distrusts science... And that "man" is an expert witness, whose opinions carry the force of law.

:cry:

society that is run by laws does not!

RIP Todd Willingham.

states that have the death penalty. Furthermore the criminal justice system is hardly perfect and innocent people do get convicted. Even if one person is executed for a crime they didn't commit that is one too many. Do away with the death penalty. It won't bring anybody back. I still think prison with no parole should be the case with convicted murderers.

...in Texas. There is no justice in this world.

If you're on your way home from buying pot and you drop off a friend at a liquor store and he gets into a fight and kills someone: welcome to death row.
If you catch a ride to the corner store with a friend and that friend picks up a stranger who asks to stop at a convenience store and open fires on the clerk while you're pumping gas: welcome to death row.

Some people on death row in Texas were home with their families at the time a murder goes down. Because they were in the car early that day or at a party with the criminal, they can be charged under law of parties. It's a kill-em-all-let-god-sort-em-out thing. Step 1. Round up everyone who could've been involved. Step 2. Execute group one.

Seriously: I won't give rides to people I don't know in Texas.