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Experts: Texas Executed an Innocent Man

By Jeralyn, Section Innocence Cases
Posted on Tue May 02, 2006 at 11:35:10 PM EST
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Death penalty proponents like to say that it has never been established that an innocent person has been executed in the United States. That may no longer be the case. Arson experts have found that Texas executed a man whose crime may not have been a crime at all. The fire for which he was executed appears to have been an accidental one. Junk science and inadequately trained experts are the culprit.

Update: Don't miss JR's comment below. S/he is the son of one of the experts in the case and provides a lot more information.

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    Experts: Texas Executed an Innocent Man | 8 comments (8 topical)
    Re: Experts: Texas Executed an Innocent Man (none / 0) (#1)
    by ltgesq on Tue May 02, 2006 at 11:02:58 PM EST
    But the people responsible will never admit it. Since a court won't pronounce innocence on behalf of a dead man, the death supporters will never stop claiming no innocent man was ever executed.

    Re: Experts: Texas Executed an Innocent Man (none / 0) (#2)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Tue May 02, 2006 at 11:59:44 PM EST
    I'm really glad you posted about this. See, one of those experts is my father, John Lentini, so many of these cases are somewhat personal to me, as he would spend hours upon hours going over reports at our kitchen table, finding error after error that simple scientific analysis could have prevented. In addition to the tragic conviction and execution of Cameron Todd Willingham, I would also like to note two of the other cases that have happened over the past few decades where a miscarriage of justice had to be overturned or was barely prevented: -Weldon Wayne Carr, convicted by then-prosecutor Nancy Grace in 1993 for killing his wife. The state argued that he had incapacitated his wife, then laid a trail of accelerant-soaked newspaper along the stairs and set the house on fire to cover his crime, and in the process of fleeing the scene broken his spine by jumping from the second story window. The paper they found was actually burned wallpaper, and hadn't been treated with any flammable substance (a trained dog detected an accelerant, but no forensic analysis found any to be present). link Carr had been eligible for the death penalty, and was sentenced to life in prison. He was freed in 2004. -Beverly Jean Long, who was tried but acquitted on charges that she killed and burned her husband. Her husband had actually died accidentally when he filled a kerosene heater called a "smudge pot" with gasoline and caused an explosion. The evidence presented against her at trial was completely unfounded in any forensic field (the state's investigative witness was not trained in fire investigation, mispronounced common terminology, and had no grasp of basic concepts). link My father ended up working this one pro bono, since Ms. long couldn't afford to pay. These are only two, but there were (and still are) decades of cases where unscientific "evidence" and faulty theories were used to obtain convictions. Until the Oakland wildfires in the early-90s, there hadn't been any detailed studies of fires known to be accidental. What was learned following those wildfires turned decades of fire investigation on its head. In the case of Cameron Todd Willingham, a man was executed without an iota of forensic evidence suggesting he had actually committed a crime. This is what is so imperative about what the Innocence Project is seeking to do--we simply do not know how many people convicted of arson may in fact have been completely exonerated if the science available today had been available when they were charged. For more information about the developments in the field over the past 20 years, check out this NPR interview my dad did about a year ago

    Re: Experts: Texas Executed an Innocent Man (none / 0) (#3)
    by roxtar on Wed May 03, 2006 at 03:44:05 AM EST
    See also, State of Nevada v. Warner. I was privileged to work on this case, in which the case against the defendant was dismissed after 12 years and several interlocutory appeals. A summary is here.

    Re: Experts: Texas Executed an Innocent Man (none / 0) (#4)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Wed May 03, 2006 at 05:53:37 AM EST
    (shameless self-promotion) I've posted much more about the Willingham case over at Dailykos), including portions of the original report sent to Gov Perry about the case, prior to his decision to not grant a stay of execution.

    Re: Experts: Texas Executed an Innocent Man (none / 0) (#5)
    by chew2 on Wed May 03, 2006 at 08:23:21 AM EST
    Thanks TL and KR for the links, Especially this item:
    But Carr's conviction was overturned in 1997 when the state Supreme Court found the trial judge improperly admitted unreliable evidence that a trained dog had detected a fire accelerant at the scene. The court also strongly rebuked then-prosecutor Nancy Grace -- now host of Court TV's "Closing Arguments" -- of engaging in "inappropriate and, in some cases, illegal conduct in the course of the trial." This included, Carr's appeal said, an illegal search of Carr's home to allow one of Grace's expert witnesses to view the crime scene and allowing, before the trial, a CNN television crew to enter Carr's home while filming a feature on her.
    Re: Experts: Texas Executed an Innocent Man (none / 0) (#6)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Wed May 03, 2006 at 09:48:46 AM EST
    "a trained dog detected an accelerant, but no forensic analysis found any to be present". Are we really so far advanced from the witch trials at Salem? I am continually amazed that courts accept "testimony" from animals. Oh yeah. It's actually "expert testimony" by their handlers.

    Re: Experts: Texas Executed an Innocent Man (none / 0) (#7)
    by svolich on Wed May 03, 2006 at 10:20:53 AM EST
    I've posted much more about the Willingham case over at Dailykos
    You might want to post the same information someplace like RedState too. There are a few topics that the blogosphere can agree on no matter how far left or right - genuinely non-partisan issues. CFR restrictions on speech, Kelo property seizures and Cory Mays' self defense claim come to mind. I think this is another.

    Re: Experts: Texas Executed an Innocent Man (none / 0) (#8)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Thu May 04, 2006 at 07:55:37 AM EST
    Scott Peterson. Where is the DNA to convict him. It seems to me that Nancy Grace was indirectly involved and wrote a book about it and profited from it as well. As among many other's except the juriors. Why Didn't the juriors write a book. Because there is nothing to write about they could not give one iota except personal dislike for Scott Peterson who is a innocent man. Judging by lack of evidence Scott Peterson is innocent. What's being done about Scott Peterson.

    Experts: Texas Executed an Innocent Man | 8 comments (8 topical)