The US Supreme Court gave death row inmate Troy Davis a rare chance to prove himself innocent of the murder of the 1989 murder of off-duty Savannah police officer, Mark McPhail. For more than 20 years, Davis has contended he is innocent of the crime and has begged for a chance to present the evidence. On Tuesday, a Federal Judge ruled that his evidence was not convincing.

Here’s what the AP said:

The NAACP, Amnesty International and dignitaries such as former President Jimmy Carter and Pope Benedict XVI have rallied behind Davis. A year ago, the U.S. Supreme Court granted Davis a federal hearing to put his innocence claim to the test — a chance afforded no other American in at least 50 years.

U.S. District Judge William T. Moore Jr. said the evidence presented by Davis’ attorneys at a June hearing wasn’t nearly strong enough to prove he’s innocent.

“Ultimately, while Mr. Davis’s new evidence casts some additional, minimal doubt on his conviction, it is largely smoke and mirrors,” the judge said.

The ruling sets the stage for Georgia officials to resume planning Davis’ execution, though his attorneys vowed to appeal.

NOTE: Lyle Denniston at SCOTUSblog has a terrific analysis of the judge’s ruling, for those interested in such things.

NOTE 2: For background on the original Supreme Court ruling on Davis and links to his story as a whole, go to this earlier WLA post on the matter.

Later this week, I’ll have a new story on the mess that is LA County probation and some additional information on the circumstances surrounding the heartbreaking death of Zac Champommier.

But for now, here’s a round-up of weekend news that I thought you’d find of interest.

IF DEATH ROW INMATE TROY DAVIS PROVES HIS INNOCENCE, THEN WHAT?

Last summer the U.S. Supreme Court granted Georgia death row inmate, Troy Davis, a new hearing before a federal judge in which Davis and his attorneys would be able to to try to prove Davis’s innocence of the 1989 murder of an Atlanta police officer. [Back story on Davis's case here.] It is, as the AP points out, “a chance afforded no American facing execution in nearly half a century.”

But the AP also discusses the fact that it isn’t at all clear what is to happen even if Davis and company persuade the judge that Davis didn’t do the crime.

Some experts say the judge could order a new trial. Others say the judge could make a recommendation to the Supreme Court that Davis be freed from prison. There’s also a possibility the judge could find Davis innocent, yet rule he’s powerless to spare Davis’ life.

“There is some ambiguity,” said John H. Blume, a Cornell Law School professor who specializes in death penalty appeals. “Whenever you’ve got something this new, that hasn’t happened all these years, you’re really making your best guess.”

Read the rest.

REASON # 4598 WHY SO MANY PEOPLE ARE GOING ELSEWHERE FOR NEWS OTHER THAN TO THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA

For weeks, I have found myself in a state of quietly growing rage at the way the so-called journalism establishment has taken endless snide little potshots (and some not-so-little shots) at Michael Hastings and his scoop-of-the-season Rolling Stone article, “The Runaway General,” in which then-General Stanley McChrystal and his aides made the smart-mouthed remarks that cost the general his job.

And so who did the ever vigilant Washington press corps attack after the release of excellent Hastings article? Why Hastings of course.

Thus it was relief to read Eric Alterman’s scathing round-up of nearly all the instances of what Rolling Stone’s Matt Tabbai had earlier and accurately described as Hysterical Backstabbing Jealous Hackfest 2010!

Here’s a representative clip:

But almost as impressive as the article itself—and, of course, the commotion it caused in the administration’s Afghan policy resulting in McChrystal’s firing and his replacement by Gen. David Petraeus—has been the Washington journalistic establishment’s reaction to it. Reporter after reporter has complained that by accurately reporting what McChyrstal and his aides said in explicitly on-the-record conversations to a reporter with a tape recorder and/or notepad in his hand, Hastings has violated the tenets of professional journalism. (A few of the reporters did this, it should be added, after stealing his work for their own websites.)

And about that work-stealing issue that Alter mentions: I flagged it at the time, but was astonished to find that few others seemed to notice. Here’s what Alterman says on that matter:

The other decidedly comical aspect of the journalistic establishment’s reaction to the piece they so disdain was the eagerness a few of them showed in trying to steal it. Not only did website after website post the highlights of the general’s shocking quotes before Rolling Stone did, but two of them—Politico and Time—stole it outright, posting the results of months of research and tens of thousands of dollars of investment on their own sites without even bothering to ask permission from the people responsible for them.

Asked by an NPR reporter whether this behavior “cros[ed] a line,” Bill Grueskin, who is dean of academic affairs at the Columbia University School of Journalism, replied, “I think they crossed the line in the same way that a bank robber who goes into a bank and takes money out of the cashier’s drawer crosses a line.” New York Times media reporter David Carr titled his column on the controversy “Heedlessly Hijacking Content,” and termed it “a clear violation of copyright and professional practice, and it amounted to taking money out of a competitor’s pocket.”

And do keep in mind that these people who excoriated Hastings (but thought nothing of stealing his work), are the same folks who regularly beat their breasts about the icky “non-professionalism” of bloggers.

Right. Sure. Whatever you say, boss.

A YEAR OUT OF PRISON BRUCE LISKER MEETS WITH ONE OF HIS JURORS

On LA Observed, Photojournalist Iris Schneider has been doing an occasional and quite wonderful series on Bruce Lisker, who was released from prison nearly a year ago after serving 24 years for murdering his mother, Dora Lisker. Monday Schneider posted her latest installment in which she accompanied Lisker when he met with Lorraine Maxwell, one of the twelve jury members who convicted him when he was 17-years-old of the 1983 murder.

Earlier installments are here, here and here.

THE LA TIMES GETS AERIAL EXPERT’S REPORT THAT CONTRADICTS OFFICIAL ACCOUNT OF HOW THE STATION FIRE MIGHT HAVE BEEN STOPPED

The LA Times’ Paul Pringle has gotten his hands on a very credible report that suggest that the official account of the way the disastrous Station Fire was handled may be troublingly inaccurate.

OBAMA TELLS CONGRESS: HANDS OFF FEDERAL RACE TO THE TOP FUNDS

The NY Times editorial board rightly approves of Obama’s threat to veto any spending bill that slashes money from his Race-to-the-Top school reform program. Find the cuts elsewhere people.

CLAY SHIRKY EXPLAINS WHY THE (INTERNET) KIDS ARE ALRIGHT

If you don’t recognize the name of web prognosticator/author/astonishingly fine thinker Clay Shirky, suffice it to say that, if you are interested in the whole Future of News thingy, he’s the guy you want to read. He has a brand new book out, Cognitive Surplus: Creativity and Generosity in a Connected Age, which is already selling at a rapid clip.

To get a glimpse of what’s inside, read his essay in Saturday’s Wall Street Journal titled “Does the Internet Make You Smarter?”

Or better yet, read the interview in the Guardian in which the self-described techno-luddite interviewer admits she finds herself hanging on Shirky’s every word.

WAS IT JUDICIAN MISCONDUCT WHEN A TEXAS JUDGE CLOSED THE DOOR (LITERALLY) ON A LAST MINUTE DEATH ROW APPEAL?

The Texas State Commission on Judicial Conduct will decide this week whether or not to sanction Judge Sharon Keller for her actions on the afternoon of September 25, 2007 when, as the presiding judge of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, she refused to allow her court clerk’s office to stay open slightly after 5 pm to receive an appeal from from public defenders asking for a last minute stay of execution based on a Supreme Court decision that had been handed down earlier that day.

As a consequence, the request for the stay—which it is believed likely would have been granted—wasn’t received and the inmate, Michael Wayne Richard, was executed at 6 pm that same day.

The Dallas Morning News has more as does the Wall Street Journal.

But first you might want to re-read the full back story on this. (WLA posted on the story back in 2007.) It’s…disturbing.

Among other things, Keller could have and should have referred Richard’s lawyers to the judge whom she knew was assigned to hear after hours appeals—but she didn’t bother.

It is not that Michael Richard was a sympathetic character. He wasn’t. But as the Dallas Morning news wrote three years ago of the case:

When the state takes the life of a condemned criminal, it must do so with a sense of sobriety commensurate with its grave responsibility. Hastening the death of a man, even a bad one, because office personnel couldn’t be bothered to bend bureaucratic procedure was a breathtakingly petty act and evinced a relish for death that makes the blood of decent people run cold.

Yep.

A FEDERAL JUDGE QUESTIONS ULTRA LONG SENTENCES FOR THOSE WHO DOWNLOAD CHILD PORN

In Monday’s New York Times A.G. Sulzberger has an interesting story about Brooklyn Federal Court Judge Jack B. Weinstein who has thrown out two convictions for a guy who has downloaded thousands of child porn images from the internet. Weinstein believes the mandatory minimums for what the porn downloader—a married father of three—has done are far too high.
Here’s a representative clip:

There is little public sympathy for collectors of child pornography. Yet across the country, an increasing number of federal judges have come to their defense, criticizing changes to sentencing laws that have effectively quadrupled their average prison term over the last decade.

Last week, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit vacated a 20-year child pornography sentence by ruling that the sentencing guidelines for such cases, “unless applied with great care, can lead to unreasonable sentences.” The decision noted that the recommended sentences for looking at pictures of children being sexually abused sometimes eclipse those for actually sexually abusing a child.

Read the rest. It’s a complex and emotion filled issue, with no absolutely black and white answer. But the questions it raises are important.

I tend to agree with Judge Weinstein, as I see does my favorite sentencing guru, Doug Berman.

Yet, as I said above, it is not a simple issue.

LIBRARY WORKERS AND OTHERS STAGE A FATHER’S DAY “READ IN” AT MAYOR’S HOUSE TO PROTEST CUTS

According to According to the Librarians’ Guild and Save the Library campaign, the budget for city libraries has been cut by more than $20 million, and more than 150 library workers have been laid off as the city tries to reduce its projected half-billion-dollar budget deficit.

Library advocates say that when added to the hiring freeze and retirements, this latest round cuts the library staffing by a full one third, (!!!)which, they say, is one of the largest cuts to a city department.

CBS News reports:

“We have overcome disasters including earthquakes, we have risen from arson fires, but the Villaraigosa Disaster will haunt our library system for generations,” Roy Stone, president of the Librarians’ Guild, said. “The mayor has led this effort and he is succeeding in destroying one of the most important services provided to our residents.”

Libraries are essential resources, right after those dealing with public health and public safety.

Meanwhile, certain city agencies are not having their budgets slashed much at all. In fact, one is actually getting additional bucks.

More on that story tomorrow.

It’s already been a very productive week for the US Supreme Court, and a surprisingly level-headed one.

The three issues of note are the following:

SLIGHTLY SANER DEPORTATION RULES IN MINOR DRUG CASES

Since 1996, the US has been merrily deporting permanent legal residents for minor drug convictions. This week SCOTUS ruled unanimously against such deportations for offenses that are ” at odds with the ordinary meaning of ‘aggravated felony.’”

Here’s a clip from what Adam Liptak wrote for the NY Times:

Lower courts had said that Jose Angel Carachuri-Rosendo, a permanent resident of the United States who had lived here since 1983, when he was 5, was subject to mandatory deportation for a second drug offense, this one involving possession of single tablet of a prescription drug.

The question in the case was whether that second offense amounted to an “aggravated felony.” If it did, the government had no choice but to deport him under the immigration laws. If it did not, the attorney general had the discretion to show leniency.

In 2004, Mr. Carachuri-Rosendo was sentenced by a Texas state court judge to 20 days in jail for possession of less than two ounces of marijuana. The next year, he was sentenced to 10 days in jail for having a single tablet of Xanax, an anti-anxiety drug, without a prescription.

Those were both misdemeanors under state law. But federal authorities argued that a second drug offense counted as an aggravated felony under federal law, making Mr. Carachuri-Rosendo ineligible for discretionary relief from deportation.

David Savage of the LA Times explained the underlying issue well:

[Carachuri-Rosendo's] case illustrated the potentially harsh effect of a 1996 federal law that was intended to rid the nation of immigrants who were criminals and violent offenders. Previously, immigrants could ask for leniency if they had a job, a family or other ties in this country.

The new law, by contrast, required the deportation of any noncitizen convicted of an aggravated felony. But Congress did not carefully define this term. Since then, immigration judges have been deciding which crimes fit the definition.

Finally, a small shred of sanity on this repeatedly abused and abusive law.

SUPREMES EASE FILING RESTRICTIONS IN SOME DEATH PENALTY CASES

Michael Doyle for McClatchy has the details of how the court gave a second chance to a Florida death row inmate whose incompetent jerk of a lawyer failed to research the deadlines for filing Habeas appeals so missed his client’s. (It probably didn’t help that the lawyer managed to avoid even contacting his client for three full years):

The court’s 7-2 ruling means that convicted cop killer Albert Holland will have another opportunity to make his case. The decision opens the door for other inmates who can show they’ve missed deadlines because of their lawyers’ “egregious” mistakes.

“In this case, the (lawyer’s) failure seriously prejudiced a client who thereby lost what was likely his single opportunity for federal habeas (corpus) review of the lawfulness of his imprisonment and of his death sentence,” Justice Stephen Breyer wrote.

JUSTICES AGREE TO HEAR CALIFORNIA’S PRISON OVERCROWDING CASE

This case won’t go forward until the fall, but it is big news that the Supremes have agreed to hear the matter of whether or not the federal three judge panel that has ruled California must reduce its prison population by 46 thousand people, can really make that ruling legally.

Here’s some of what Denny Walsh of the Sac’to Bee reports:

After earlier deciding that overcrowding is the primary cause of health care that is so bad it amounts to cruel and unusual punishment, a special three-judge panel in January ordered the inmate population of the state’s 33 adult prisons slashed by roughly 40,000 within two years.

The panel stayed its order pending the Schwarzenegger administration’s appeal, which was joined by a group of Republican lawmakers.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and corrections Secretary Matthew Cate acknowledge the prisons are jammed well beyond their intended capacity. But, they insist, health care has improved and is no longer unconstitutional, population reduction can be achieved in a slower and more orderly fashion so as not to put citizens at risk, and the three judges lack authority to impose their will on the state.

It will be the high court’s first look at such a panel’s power under the Prison Litigation Reform Act to cure a constitutional violation by whatever means it deems necessary.

Yeah, well, while we’re at it, how to we go about getting one of those handy-dandy three judge panels to apply a little “whatever means necessary” to our probation mess?

ANESTHESIOLOGISTS CENSURE LEGAL INJECTIONS

Without any fanfare, the American Board of Anesthesiologists has decided to censure physicians who take part in executions by legal injection.

The Washington Post has the story.

A national physicians organization has quietly decided to revoke the certification of any member who participates in executing a prisoner by lethal injection.

The mandate from the American Board of Anesthesiologists reflects its leaders’ belief that “we are healers, not executioners,” board secretary Mark A. Rockoff said. Although the American Medical Association has long opposed doctor involvement, the anesthesiologists’ group is the first to say it will harshly penalize a health-care worker for abetting lethal injections. The loss of certification would prevent an anesthesiologist from working in most hospitals.

About half of the 35 states performing executions, including Virginia and North Carolina, require a doctor to be present…..

Read on.

CRIMINALIZING THE SALE OF VIOLENT VIDEO GAMES TO MINORS

Over the weekend, an LA Times editorial explained very succinctly why the California law (struck down by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals) that wants to make it a crime to sell violent video games to minors is well intentioned but constitutionally wrong-headed.

Here’s a clip:

Less than a week after the Supreme Court refused to carve out an exception from the 1st Amendment for videos depicting real violence against animals, it has agreed to consider California’s argument that it should withhold constitutional protection from virtual violence against people. The justices will review a sensible decision by a federal appeals court striking down a state law punishing the sale of “violent video games” to minors. We hope a majority of the court recognizes that the principle in the two cases is the same — that even offensive speech is protected by the 1st Amendment.

The measure struck down by the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals was well intentioned but the wrong response to the exposure of children to games such as Grand Theft Auto….

Read on.

THE DEADLY ALL AMERICAN CANAL ON 60 MINUTES

While Arizona’s new stop-’n'-search immigration law stays in the news, 60 Minutes reports on the All-American Canal, a sort of national moat that runs 85 miles along the California/Mexico border. More than 550 people have died as they tried to cross the canal going northward.

Read and watch more here.

(Oh, yeah, and Conan O’Brien does his first post NBC-breakup interview on 60 Minutes too.)

IF LAUSD WANTS YOU AND ME TO VOTE FOR A NEW PARCEL TAX, WHY AREN’T THEY BOTHERING TO CAMPAIGN FOR THE THING?

Neon Tommy’s Madeleine Scinto decided it was high time that someone asked that question——and some other questions too. What she learned is very curious.

Here’s how her story opens:

Since Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) board members voted to put a $100 parcel tax on the June ballot, saying the district desperately needs the money in light of a $640 million budget deficit, Neon Tommy decided to investigate exactly what kind of campaigning the board members and other proponents have been doing.

After all, Measure E, along with all parcel taxes in California, requires a two-thirds majority to pass. It is not an easy feat, especially in this type of economy as California faces a 12 percent unemployment rate.

“But there hasn’t been a word out of the school district,” said David Tokofsky, a former LAUSD school board member. “There hasn’t been an explanation and defense or rationalization as to why the district wants to increase taxes in horrible economic times.”

Read the rest.

Two stories about justice & injustice—and wrongful convictions

AN LAPD LIEUTENANT TALKS ABOUT A FLAWED CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM

My friend LAPD Lieutenant Sunil Dutta has written an Op Ed for the Ventura Star that is very much worth reading. Dutta is a scientist and scholar of music and poetry turned police officer and he has a uniquely wise and philosophic view of policing—a profession he loves but, of which, he is also at times thoughtfully critical.

In this particular essay, Sunil used the Willingham arson case as a jumping off point.

Here is a clip or two:

Corrupt officers can destroy people’s faith in policing and cause incalculable harm to those with whom they come in contact. However, a major shortcoming in policing, something far more dangerous, has never been completely addressed seriously by our criminal-justice system. My scientific temperament picked up this issue within a short time after I joined LAPD, and a fear has always persisted in my subconscious that major harm could result from our reliance on two fallible tools: eyewitnesses and shoddy forensic science.

Last month, what I feared was confirmed in the most ghastly way…..

[BIG SNIP]

People, especially in law enforcement, have a hard time comprehending such stories. Don’t we live in a free society where criminals have too many rights and the police’s hands are tied up by too many regulations? Every cop knows at least a few criminals who walk around free — because we can’t charge or convict them.

Yet, we have innocent people railroaded through our “justice” system, all the way to lethal injections and electric chair. Why?

The answer lies both in our human and institutional natures. As humans, we tend to believe whatever fits our self-interest, discarding facts that tend to challenge our hypotheses. The errors of deduction can, therefore, multiply in an investigation when shoddy science is applied or where we rely solely on eyewitnesses. As Willingham’s case demonstrates, the combination can sometimes be fatal.

Read the rest.

PROSECUTORS RETALIATE AGAINST INNOCENCE PROJECT STUDENTS

Okay, one couldn’t make this kind of thing up. The NY Times story below has the details.

For more than a decade, classes of students at Northwestern University’s journalism school have been scrutinizing the work of prosecutors and the police. The investigations into old crimes, as part of the Medill Innocence Project, have helped lead to the release of 11 inmates, the project’s director says, and an Illinois governor once cited those wrongful convictions as he announced he was commuting the sentences of everyone on death row.

But as the Medill Innocence Project is raising concerns about another case, that of a man convicted in a murder 31 years ago, a hearing has been scheduled next month in Cook County Circuit Court on an unusual request: Local prosecutors have subpoenaed the grades, grading criteria, class syllabus, expense reports and e-mail messages of the journalism students themselves.

The prosecutors, it seems, wish to scrutinize the methods of the students this time. The university is fighting the subpoenas.

[SNIP]

Among the issues the prosecutors need to understand better, a spokeswoman said, is whether students believed they would receive better grades if witnesses they interviewed provided evidence to exonerate Mr. McKinney.

Read the rest. It’s jaw-dropping.

A former federal judge writing for the Huffington Post thinks so too.

And here is the Medill Innocence Project’s own account.

The Willingham innocence case is back in the news yet again.

Eighty-eight minutes before Tod Willingham was executed in 1994, Texas Governor Rick Perry was faxed a report by a respected arson expert suggesting that Willingham might be innocent. Perry either ignored or did not read the report and Willingham was put to death anyway.

Now, a decade and a half later, Governor Perry is up for reelection in a tightly contested primary race. And so, likely fearing some belated political blow-back, Perry seems to be doing all he can to bury any and all mention of Cameron Tod Willingham, his execution, and his extremely inconvenient possible innocence.

For instance, last week, Perry refused to release the documentation showing whether he or his staff ever looked at that arson report that pleaded for a stay of execution for Willingham.

At the end of September, Perry tossed out the head of the Texas Forensic Science Commission, which had gained his ire by by hiring an arson expert to look at the Cameron Todd Willingham case.

Yesterday, the ousted head of the commission went public with how pressured he had been by the governor’s lawyers and others to stop the Willingham investigation.

Now, as the Fort Worth Star-Telegram puts it, Perry’s hatchet has fallen again on the Commission:

The governor has now replaced all four of his appointees, including the chairman, to the nine-member Texas Forensic Science Commission. His actions came as the commission was investigating its highest-profile case, involving the possibility that an innocent man was executed in 2004.

Because of the reshuffling of members, an Oct. 2 meeting of the commission, at which it planned to hear from an arson expert, was indefinitely postponed.

The out-of-state expert had prepared a report that said the forensic evidence in the case of Cameron Todd Willingham, accused of murdering his three daughters in a fire, was faulty and that the blaze that killed the children was not a result of arson.

Just two days before the scheduled meeting, the governor began his purge, informing three members that their services were no longer needed. Last week he dismissed his fourth appointee, leaving many to wonder if his sudden moves were politically motivated because he had signed off on the Willingham execution five years ago — and he has a tough primary race coming up in March.

Newspapers like the Dallas Morning News have told Perry to back off.

The report on CNN’s 360 with Anderson Cooper embedded above is also scathing.

There will be more developments, I’m sure.

This is about the Willingham arson story I wrote about early last month, in which three different sets of arson investigators came to the conclusion that Todd Willingham had not set the fire that killed his children and for whose murders he was convicted. This meant that Texas had likely executed an innocent man. A new, more encompassing report was supposed to be issued by a Texas commission in 2010. But now there is a rather disturbing piece of news about the fate of that report.

I’ll let Scott Hensen of the Texas Watchdog blog, Grits for Breakfast, tell you:

Outrageous!

It’d be hard to make this up; it seems more like caricature or some tale from days of yore out of Tammany Hall, but it’s actually today’s news: Governor Rick Perry has ousted the head of the Texas Forensic Science Commission, which had displeased him by soliciting what turned out to be damning expert opinion regarding the Cameron Todd Willingham case (in which supposedly expert arson testimony used to convict Willingham and justify his execution was later debunked by modern science). The case has drawn national attention since the release of expert testimony solicited by the commission followed by the publication of a widely cited New Yorker article last month.

As the new chair, Perry chose (of all people) Williamson County District Attorney John Bradley, who prides himself on being one of the most outspoken proponents among Texas prosecutors of a sort of neoconservative, tough on crime philosophy. The Statesman called Bradley “a tough-on-crime politically connected conservative.” I’ve certainly heard him called worse! (Hi John!)

Bradley’s first act as chair? To cancel a hearing Friday where the Commission was scheduled to hear a report from experts they’ve paid tens of thousands of dollars to analyze the science behind Todd Willingham’s conviction. No word on whether or if the public hearing might be rescheduled…..

Read the rest here. And the Grits site has plenty of links.

In December 21, 1991. the house that Cameron Todd Willingham shared with his wife and his three little girls, burned to the ground.

The fire moved quickly through the house, a one-story wood-frame structure in a working-class neighborhood of Corsicana, in northeast Texas. Flames spread along the walls, bursting through doorways, blistering paint and tiles and furniture. Smoke pressed against the ceiling, then banked downward, seeping into each room and through crevices in the windows, staining the morning sky.

Buffie Barbee, who was eleven years old and lived two houses down, was playing in her back yard when she smelled the smoke. She ran inside and told her mother, Diane, and they hurried up the street; that’s when they saw the smoldering house and Cameron Todd Willingham standing on the front porch, wearing only a pair of jeans, his chest blackened with soot, his hair and eyelids singed. He was screaming, “My babies are burning up!” His children—Karmon and Kameron, who were one-year-old twin girls, and two-year-old Amber—were trapped inside.

At 6:20 p.m. on February 17, 2004, Cameron Todd Willingham was executed by lethal injection for deliberately setting the fire that caused his three daughters to be burned to death. The jury concluded that Willingham fully intended to kill his children.

In a remarkable article for this week’s issue of the New Yorker Magazine, journalist David Grann looks at the case against Willingham. The conclusions are heartbreaking and disturbing—particularly in what they suggest about the use of expert witnesses, in this case an arson investigator and a deputy fire marshal named Manuel Vasquez, who told anyone who asked that he believed himself never to be wrong, and who nearly always came down on the side of guilt.

Once, he was asked under oath whether he had ever been mistaken in a case. “If I have, sir, I don’t know,” he responded. “It’s never been pointed out.”

Using an elaborate set of “proofs,” Vasquez told the jury that Willingham had set the fire in the girls’ room using a liquid accelerant.

Throughout the proceedings, Willingham steadfastly maintained that he was innocent. He even rejected a deal offered by the prosecutors that would have kept him off of death row because it required him to admit to the crime the he insisted he did not commit.

Then in January 2004, a few weeks before Willingham was to be executed, Willingham’s lawyer along with his friend and supporter, a woman named Elizabeth Gilbert with whom he’d developed a platonic friendship through a prison pen pal program, talked acclaimed scientist and fire investigator, Dr. Gerald Hurst, into reexamining the file.

When Hurst subjected Vasquez’s conclusions to exhaustive examination , he concluded that Vasquez’s analysis of the Willingham fire was made of myth, gut-feeling and smoke. It did not conform at all with scientific knowledge about fire behavior.

Based on the evidence, Hurst wrote…

…..he had little doubt that it was an accidental fire—one caused most likely by the space heater or faulty electrical wiring. It explained why there had never been a motive for the crime. Hurst concluded that there was no evidence of arson, and that a man who had already lost his three children and spent twelve years in jail was about to be executed based on “junk science.” Hurst wrote his report in such a rush that he didn’t pause to fix the typos.

Willingham’s lawyer rushed copies of Hurst’s report to the governor of Texas and to the fifteen members of the Board of Pardons and Paroles, They were unmoved. It appears that they likely did not read the report.

Willingham was executed four days later.

When he was asked if he had any last words Willingham said,:

“The only statement I want to make is that I am an innocent man convicted of a crime I did not commit. I have been persecuted for twelve years for something I did not do. From God’s dust I came and to dust I will return, so the Earth shall become my throne.”

Last Tuesday, August 25, the findings of a team of state-hired experts released their initial 64-page report on the Willingham fire. The team, headed by Dr. Craig L. Beyler, found the same thing that Hurst had found in 2004. The 2009 Beyler team also concurred with the findings of a 2006 investigation by five fire-investigation experts hired by the Innocence Project.

Beyler wrote that Vasquez’s conclusions seemed to deny “rational reasoning” and were more “characteristic of mystics or psychics.”

The Chicago Tribune, which has been following the story closely since 2004, wrote the following after they reviewed the Beyler report, which they called “a withering critique”:

Among Beyler’s key findings: that investigators failed to examine all of the electrical outlets and appliances in the Willinghams’ house in the small Texas town of Corsicana, did not consider other potential causes for the fire, came to conclusions that contradicted witnesses at the scene, and wrongly concluded Willingham’s injuries could not have been caused as he said they were.

The state fire marshal on the case, Beyler concluded in his report, had “limited understanding” of fire science. The fire marshal “seems to be wholly without any realistic understanding of fires and how fire injuries are created,” he wrote.

The marshal’s findings, he added, “are nothing more than a collection of personal beliefs that have nothing to do with science-based fire investigation.”

Over the past five years, the Willingham case has been reviewed by nine of the nation’s top fire scientists — first for the Tribune, then for the Innocence Project, and now for the commission. All concluded that the original investigators relied on outdated theories and folklore to justify the determination of arson.

According to the Dallas Morning News, a final report will be issued in early 2010.

I have only told you the bare bones of the story. For the rest, read the New Yorker article.

Here, also, is a link to the full Beyler report.

On Wednesday afternoon, New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson signed a bill— passed last Friday in the NM State Legislature—that will abolish the death penalty in the state for the next ten years.

(The bill replaces the death penalty with life without possibility of parole.)

Interestingly, Richardson did so only after asking New Mexicans to weigh in on the issue—either by phone or by email.

As of noon on Wednesday, Richardson’s office told CNN, that it had received 10,847 phone calls, e-mails and walk-in comments from people who wanted to voice their opinions on the legislation.

It turned out that, in Richardson’s ad hoc poll, a repeal of the death penalty won by something of a landslide: 8,102 wanted the ban, and 2,745 thought the death penalty should stay put.

In addition, Richardson met Monday with more than 100 New Mexicans to discuss the issue, including law enforcement officers and the families of murder victims.

(By the way, while he has already signed the bill, you can still opine to or thank Governor Bill on the death penalty matter, even after the fact, by calling: 505-476-2225.)

New Mexico is only the second state to ban executions since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976. (It joins 14 other states that do not have capital punishment.)

Here are some clips from Richardson’s statement about why he signed:

Today marks the end of a long, personal journey for me and the issue of the death penalty.

Throughout my adult life, I have been a firm believer in the death penalty as a just punishment – in very rare instances, and only for the most heinous crimes. I still believe that.

[SNIP]

Regardless of my personal opinion about the death penalty, I do not have confidence in the criminal justice system as it currently operates to be the final arbiter when it comes to who lives and who dies for their crime. If the State is going to undertake this awesome responsibility, the system to impose this ultimate penalty must be perfect and can never be wrong.

But the reality is the system is not perfect – far from it. The system is inherently defective. DNA testing has proven that. Innocent people have been put on death row all across the country.

Even with advances in DNA and other forensic evidence technologies, we can’t be 100-percent sure that only the truly guilty are convicted of capital crimes. Evidence, including DNA evidence, can be manipulated. Prosecutors can still abuse their powers. We cannot ensure competent defense counsel for all defendants. The sad truth is the wrong person can still be convicted in this day and age, and in cases where that conviction carries with it the ultimate sanction, we must have ultimate confidence – I would say certitude – that the system is without flaw or prejudice. Unfortunately, this is demonstrably not the case.

And it bothers me greatly that minorities are overrepresented in the prison population and on death row….

There’s more here.

Certainly, Richardson made a political statement. But it is also a thoughtful one and represents, I suspect, the perspective of many other thoughtful people who have long favored the death penalty but who are made increasingly queasy by the now hundreds of people on death row and/or serving lengthy prison sentences—who have been found to be innocent after DNA technology was applied to their cases.

Richardson closes with the following:

More than 130 death row inmates have been exonerated in the past 10 years in this country, including four New Mexicans – a fact I cannot ignore.

From an international human rights perspective, there is no reason the United States should be behind the rest of the world on this issue. Many of the countries that continue to support and use the death penalty are also the most repressive nations in the world. That’s not something to be proud of.

In a society which values individual life and liberty above all else, where justice and not vengeance is the singular guiding principle of our system of criminal law, the potential for wrongful conviction and, God forbid, execution of an innocent person stands as anathema to our very sensibilities as human beings…..

Nicely put, Bill.

Kansas could possibly be next up to bat.

PS: Since fiscal issues are of prime concern in these bleak economic days, here’s a rundown on why the death penalty costs more than locking up someone for life.