Junk Science scores another victim
The kind of science that’s erroneously convicting innocent people for things like drunk driving and sexual assault knows no limits, and has now infected arson investigators too. In one of the most chilling stories I’ve read lately, Texas has executed a man who went to his lethal injection deathbed swearing his innocence of the death of his three children in a fire that was mistakenly characterized as arson. The man’s three children died in the fire where he was described as “hysterical” trying to rescue them, suffering burns on his body with his hair on fire. The evidence against him consisted primarily of testimony from arson investigators using assumptions and techniques that have since been completely repudiated in the scientific community.
For example, the prosecution claimed that an accelerant was used on the fire, based on evidence of “crazed glass”, tiny web-like cracks in glass that for many years has been regarded as indicating the presence of an accelerant. As it turns out, scientists today know that this same effect occurs when hot glass is doused with water. Guess what happens when a firetruck shows up at a fire?
An entire team of independent arson investigators took a look at this case and declared that there was nothing in the evidence that would indicate arson. “It was just a fire”.
None of this helped Cameron Todd Willingham, even after an execution-day presentation to Texas governor Perry of the report from the independent investigators. Even in the face of this evidence, no one bothered to stop the train that had long ago left the station, and so Willingham took a lethal injection and died, proclaiming to the very end that he did not kill his three kids.
You can read the chilling account of this story here.
Technology is readily available to help solve these difficult cases. But people still have to be willing to listen …
RP
May 3rd, 2006 at 3:04 pm
[…] An update on an earlier post about the sad case of Todd Cameron Willingham, executed by Texas in 2004 for a crime experts now say he did not commit. Four of the nation’s top arson investigators were asked to indendently review the evidence used to convict Willingham of the alleged arson that resulted in the deaths of his three daughters. He went to his death proclaiming his innocence. In their report released Tuesday, the investigators concluded that evidence relied on by prosecutors to convict Willingham was the type of evidence “routinely associated with accidental fires”. […]