Texas Governor Rick Perry replaced the head and some members of the Texas Forensic Science Commission (TFSC) in September, and some are crying foul -- CNN, for example. Before the shake up, the TFSC had hired a consultant to investigate and report on the case against Cameron Todd Willingham who had been convicted and executed. And there's the lingering feeling among death penalty opponents that Governor Perry was trying to sweep the whole thing under the rug. Examples here and here.
The Willingham case
It happened a couple of days before Christmas in 1991. The wife left the house that morning while Mr. Willingham and the three children slept. A fire broke out, Mr. Willingham got out of the house with minimal injury, but the three children perished. Mr. Willingham was accused of deliberately starting the fire, and he was tried, convicted and executed.
Was Mr. Willingham guilty? At this point it's hard to say. The consultant hired by the TFSC reported that a State Fire Marshal made some conclusions that, based on the available evidence, would not be sound by today's standards. But Mr. Willingham's story had some holes in it, for example, he said escaped the fire through the kitchen door. However, the first firefighter on the scene said there was a refrigerator blocking that door. And there's this:
Fireman Franks also said that after the fire, Mr. Willingham came back to his house and poured a large bottle of British Sterling cologne on the floor from the bathroom to the room in which the twins had died and said that if any more samples were taken from the floor, those samples would have cologne on them.
What should a juror make of that behavior? Was he trying to contaminate the scene? There was a jailhouse snitch, too, who said Mr. Willingham confessed that he had deliberately set the fire to cover up an injury he caused to one of the kids.
The jury was convinced, but who knows what really happened? Anyone interested should read the consultant's report and the Corsicana Fire Department's response.
Texas Forensic Science Commission
Back to the shake up at the TFSC. The TFSC was created in 2005 by H.B. No. 1068. It established a nine member commission with the following duties:
Sec.4.DUTIES.(a) The commission shall:
(1) develop and implement a reporting system through which accredited laboratories, facilities, or entities report professional negligence or misconduct;
(2) require all laboratories, facilities, or entities that conduct forensic analyses to report professional negligence or misconduct to the commission; and
(3) investigate, in a timely manner, any allegation of professional negligence or misconduct that would substantially affect the integrity of the results of a forensic analysis conducted by an accredited laboratory, facility, or entity.
Put simply, the TFSC was created to oversee crime labs. And it was probably a legislative reaction to all the reports of bad science coming out of the crime labs in Houston and elsewhere in the state.
However, the TFSC seemed to have gone off track a little bit when it got involved in death penalty politics. Before the shakeup they had not established any policies and procedures to accomplish their legal duties. And the hiring of the consultant to scrutinize and try to disprove the Fire Marshal's testimony in the Willingham case may have been beyond their authorization.
It shouldn't have come as a great surprise, then, to see the shakeup. And the new presiding officer, Williamson County District Attorney, John Bradley, maintains his independence from the governor. And they will issue a report on the Willingham case, eventually.
So those of us out here in flyover country should just sit tight and wait for their report. Some mistakes were probably made in the investigation, but nothing is going to bring Mr. Willingham back to life, and the TFSC is not going to rule or even opine on his guilt or innocence. And there are plenty of other reasons to critize the Governor without trying to build up an issue on this case.
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