Reginald Blanton is scheduled for execution in Texas on Tuesday, October 27, 2009. On Oct 24, Anna Terrell, the mother of Reginald Blanton, spoke at the 10th Annual March to Abolish the Death Penalty at the Texas Capitol in Austin. She was allowed to see her son for the first time in over a year on Friday, October 26.

Call Governor Rick Perry at 512 463 1782 or send him an email through his website urging him to stop the execution of Reginald Blanton to allow him more time to prove his innocence.

Watch Part One on YouTube.

Part Two on YouTube.

Reginald’s older brother speaks

From the AC 360 Blog.

Program Note: Watch Randi Kaye’s full report – including her interview with David Martin tonight on AC360° at 10 p.m. ET.

A photograph of Cameron Todd Willingham.

Randi Kaye| BIO
AC360° Correspondent

I came to Texas this week to look deeper into a story I’ve been covering for a few years now for AC360°.

It’s the story of Cameron Todd Willingham, a father of three who was executed in February 2004 for setting a fire that killed his three daughters. But what if he didn’t set it? What if he just got a lame defense? Is it possible?

We wanted to know why he was convicted of “arson homicide” even though since the trial nine leading arson experts have said the fire showed no evidence of arson. So why was he executed?

We went straight to one of Willingham’s defense attorneys, David Martin, for some answers. We met at his Waco office, hours away from where the fire took place in the tiny town of Corsicana. Martin’s office was true Texas. It felt more like a ranch than a law office. We sat down in a couple of over-sized chairs (everything is bigger in Texas, you know) and talked about the case.

I asked Martin how it was possible that the prosecution put two experts on the stand who said the fire was arson, and yet Martin didn’t put anyone on the stand to refute their arguments. Why no expert to say the fire wasn’t arson in Willingham’s defense?

Martin told me, “We couldn’t find one that said it wasn’t arson.”

As a court-appointed attorney, Martin said money was hard to come by and he only had enough funds to hire one expert. And it turned out that the expert ended up agreeing with the prosecution’s experts about the fire being arson so he never put him on the stand.

“You’re just going to abracadabra an arson investigator up to put on the stand? You have to get money,” Martin said.

So who did Martin end up putting on stand in Willingham’s defense? A felon who was in prison with Willingham and the family’s babysitter.

Martin told me that he thought Willingham was guilty from day one and he believed that the patterns on the floor of the house showed that an accelerant had been used. If he thought he was guilty, could he have given him a good defense?

He said he tried everything he could to defend Willingham. He explained it this way, “you don’t have to believe somebody to defend them. You think Bailey and Cochran believed Simpson? No!”

Martin seemed to be enjoying our back-and-forth so I thought I’d press him on one last issue. Getting a lawyer from https://www.barrydeaconlaw.com/wrongful-death/ in such cases is a good idea.

A juror told me just last week that she was having doubts about whether or not Todd Willingham really set the fire and was losing sleep over it all these years later. Willingham was convicted in 1992 and spent 12 years on death row before he was executed in 2004.

Martin’s response to this? “She doesn’t need to have no doubts in my mind. He really was guilty and it doesn’t matter how many people talk about it. The evidence is irrefutable.”

But what about the fact that this juror also told me her family was friendly with one of the prosecution’s key witnesses, Stephen Phillips. She said she told both the prosecution and the defense about this connection but was still chosen to be on the jury.

I asked Martin if that would be grounds for a mistrial. Without missing a beat, he told me absolutely not. He said it wasn’t a conflict of interest because “In a small town like Corsicana, lots of people knew Doug Fogg,” and “look at the evidence that was presented at trial. Would any reasonable mind conclude after the presentation of the evidence that he was not guilty?”

Before our interview was finished, Martin went on to call Todd Willingham a “monster” and a “sociopath”. He said Willingham was his own worst enemy and that he had so many conflicting accounts of the fire that the jury didn’t believe him. The Vukelja & dePaula auto accident lawyers can deal with such cases and he;[ victims get out of such situations.

Sound like a defense attorney to you? Or does David Martin sound more like a prosecutor? Martin said it’s not his job to “swallow” whatever story his client tells him, but he insisted he did his best to keep Todd Willingham off death row.

Former Texas Governor Mark White has recently been in the news because he has changed his mind on the death penalty and now believes that a sentence of life without the possibility of parole is an acceptable substitute for the death penalty as a way “to make certain we didn’t have unfortunate execution of an innocent person”, (NPR, October 21, 2009, “Former Texas Governor Rethinks Death Penalty“).

Our question to Mark White, “Do you still think that someone convicted under the Law of Parties but who himself did not kill or intend anyone to be killed deserves the death penalty?” “Governor White, do you regret signing off on the execution of somone who did not kill anyone?”

One of the people executed when Mark White was governor was a person who had been convicted under the Law of Parties, but who did not himself kill anyone or intend that anyone be killed. Doyle Skillern was executed on January 16, 1985. Skillern’s case is similar to the cases of Kenneth Foster, Jr and Jeff Wood, in that all three of them, in their separate cases many years apart, were sitting in a car when a co-defendant killed someone. Skillern’s co-defendant, Charles Sanne, testified that he (Sanne) was the triggerman, and that fact was not in dispute, as you can read in Skillern’s appeal in the U.S. Fifth Circuit. The appeal also explains that

the charge emphasized that capital murder requires that the accused “intentionally kills or causes the death of another” while in the course of robbing another, paragraphs 6 and 7 of the charge permitted the jury to find Skillern guilty of the triggerman Sanne’s killing, under the Texas law of criminal responsibility, as a conspirator in a robbery attempt equally guilty of the murder by his coconspirator if the killing “was committed in furtherance of the unlawful purpose [of the robbery] and was one that should have been anticipated as a result of the carrying out of the conspiracy.”

From The Nation – Texan Executed for Killing:

Doyle Skillern, condemned to die for a murder in which the confessed triggerman may soon go free, was executed by lethal injection for the 1974 slaying of Patrick Randel, an undercover narcotics officer. Skillern, 48, died at 12:23 a.m. CST in the Huntsville, Tex., death chamber. Both Gov. Mark White and the U.S. Supreme Court had rejected a reprieve. Testimony showed that Skillern waited in a car while Charles Sanne, 51, shot Randel. Sanne was sentenced to life in prison.

Would Governor White testify in favor of a bill in the next session of the Texas Legislature that would ban executions of people convicted solely under the Law of Parties? In the last session of the Texas Legislature, such a bill was authored by Rep Terri Hodge and it passed the entire Texas House but died in the Senate after Governor Perry threatend to veto it if it reached his desk. The bill would have banned executions of people convicted solely under the Law of Parties.

Tonight on CNN Anderson Cooper 360, Randi Kaye sits down with Todd Willingham’s trial attorney David Martin, the one who made such a fool of himself last week on CNN. He likely will try to look less crazy tonight, but he will probably continue his unethical behavior of attacking his former client and revealing confidential attorney-client communications.

Here is what happened after David Martin’s last appearance on CNN. One blogger named him the “Worst Defense Lawyer In The World”.

Last Friday morning, we posted the video from last Thursday’s CNN AC 360 program when Todd Willingham’s trial lawyer was on the program and made remarks that we thought violated his attorney-client obligations, which bind a lawyer even after his client has died. Now, some attorneys have begun posting about David Martin and some also seem to agree that Martin violated his ethical obligations as an attorney to his former client.

After reading this blog post, if you are think David Martin should be investigated, click here to download a grievance form and send it to the Office of the Chief Disciplinary Counsel, State Bar of Texas.

Yesterday, TMN sent an email to attorney and blogger Mark Bennett with a link to the CNN video and asked if he saw an ethics violation. He replied by posting his thoughts on his blog here.

My position is that a) all facts the lawyer learns in the course of representation is privileged; and b) this privilege survives the end of representation and the client’s death. So, for example, the fact that the defense team did its own pseudoscientific experiment would be privileged and not something that the ex-lawyer would be free to reveal (without the client’s permission).

Todd Willingham’s appellate lawyer, Walter Reaves, has also now responded to what David Martin said on CNN,

as a lawyer you ought to have some duty to not damage your client. At the very least, Mr. Martin is damaging Todd’s reputation, and his ability to obtain some relief in through the forensic commission. The fact that he aligning himself with Gov. Perry ought to tell you something.

At least three other lawyers have now also posted their thoughts on David Martin. Here is one on her blog “Preaching to the Choir”.

I have nothing nice to say about David Martin after watching this appalling performance, so perhaps I should not say anything at all. Except, I have no duty of loyalty to David Martin. But I do feel a duty of loyalty to my profession. I happen to think that defending people is one of the most noble things you can do. I can go on quite a tear about how we defenders of the constitution are the true patriots and the most noble actors of all in the criminal justice system. I take my job seriously. Very seriously. My clients trust me with their lives, just as Todd Willingham had to trust David Martin. As much as I rail against prosecutors and cops who bend the rules or cut corners, no one offends me more than the defense attorney who does not live up to my high ideals for the profession. From what I’ve seen in this video, David Martin is the kind of defense attorney I don’t ever want to be.

Here is another, Scott Greenfield, who says

Let’s assume, for the sake of argument, that Martin has no grossly improper motive, like he’s been promised a judgeship by Perry if he does everything in his power to undermine the evidence of Willingham’s innocence. If Martin truly believes what he’s saying to be true, his statements are the most irresponsible, unethical, improper I have ever heard from the mouth of a criminal defense lawyer. Outrageously wrong. Utterly disgraceful.

Here is a third, Jeff Gamso:

So we know that Martin was spouting bullshit. (He claimed to have just returned from “chasing cows,” so maybe there’s a reason.) We also know that at least one thing he talked about, the lighter fluid experiment, is covered by the work-product privilege. It’s a secret. He had no business telling anyone. A clear violation of his ethical obligations.

And then there’s the matter of going on the air to declare his client guilty. Why in the world would he do that? To garner business? Unlikely. That’s not the way you attract clients. For the glory of national television? Some people just can’t resist. Whatever the reason, he was wrong. Whatever he was thinking, he wasn’t thinking enough. That duty of loyalty. That obligation not to disadvantage. That lack of judgment. That putting his own interests before his client’s.

We hope many other lawyers speak up and that some of them file a complaint with the Texas Bar against David Martin.

Eileen Smith of Texas Monthly has also written about Martin, saying in her blog “In the Pink”:

Willingham’s trial lawyer David Martin is such a caricature of what people think of Texans that I was mortified watching it. Haven’t we been the posterior region of enough jokes this year, what with all the secession talk and Dancing With the Stars? And I’m not even a native Texan. So really, you guys should be extra-extra mortified.

Right from the start of the interview, you just know it’s going to be bad. For one, Martin is wearing a cowboy hat that’s about to fall off his head. And two, the guy’s drunk as a Honduran skunk.

Anderson Cooper: “David, you always believed that your client was guilty. Now after a half dozen experts have come forward to say there’s no way the fire was arson, you still say he was guilty. Why?”

Martin: “Uh, Anderson, excuse my informal attire, we’ve been out checking cows… uh… tell me your question again?”

Anderson: “About a half dozen fire experts around the country have looked at this case now, and say the evidence that was used… simply is not accurate…”

Martin: “Ohhhh, no, that’s not what I glean from these reports here…”

Sign the petition to Governor Rick Perry and the State of Texas to acknowledge that the fire in the Cameron Todd Willingham case was not arson, therefore no crime was committed and on February 17, 2004, Texas executed an innocent man.

We plan to deliver the petition at the 10th Annual March to Abolish the Death Penalty on October 24 at 2pm in Austin at the Texas Capitol.