Time magazine just put up a new story “Why Did Texas Gut Its Forensics Commission?”.

For the entire longer story click here.

Here is an excerpt:

But, in the past week, a brouhaha over his refusal to reappoint three members of an obscure forensic-science commission has political observers wondering if Perry, who is facing a potentially bruising GOP primary battle, has made a political misstep.

A well-placed source has confirmed to TIME that Perry ignored the written pleas from several members of the Texas Forensic Science Commission, including two of his own appointees, to reappoint the board’s well-respected chairman, Austin lawyer Sam Bassett. Bassett’s departure has resulted in a delay in an important investigation of evidence in a death-penalty case that critics say will prove an innocent man was executed on Perry’s watch. …

Sarah Kerrigan, a forensic toxicologist who was appointed by Texas attorney general Greg Abbott, told TIME that she had circulated a letter she had sent “three or four weeks ago” in support of Bassett to Perry among the commission’s members and she was aware of similar letters written by Watts and Levy. (The governor appoints four members of the forensics board; the state attorney general appoints two and the lieutenant governor appoints three. In this case, Bassett, Levy and Watts were all Perry appointees. Bassett was first named to the commission in 2005 and reappointed in 2007.) …

Kerrigan says the members believe it is important for continuity to keep Bassett on board in order to wrap up not only the Willingham report, but also preside over several important roundtables aimed at improving forensics standards — part of a nationwide initiative prompted by a report on forensic shortcomings by the National Academy of Sciences. Bassett told TIME he was dismayed and puzzled by Perry’s decision. “I certainly hope this change is not about political concerns,” Bassett says.

Some political observers speculate that Perry’s actions may have something to do with the potentially bruising March 2, 2010, Republican gubernatorial primary in which he is set to face off against U.S. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison. The Senator has already raised forensic accuracy as an issue. “I am for the death penalty,” Hutchison told the Dallas Morning News in response to Perry’s actions, “but always with the absolute assurance that you have the ability to be sure, with the technology that we have, that a person is guilty.” It is a stance Bassett agrees with. He supports the death penalty in some cases but adds, “We just have to make damn sure we are relying on the best quality evidence possible.”

Sign a 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.

CNN.com is running a headline on their front page, “Critics: Governor part of execution cover-up”, on the right under “Latest News”.

It links to a video that is a version of the story that ran on Anderson Cooper and Headline News over the weekend, but now it is linked to on the front page of CNN.com. (We saw it on the front page after midnight on Oct 6.)

Sign a 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.

CNN is running the story about Rick Perry’s cover-up in the Todd Willingham case on the front page of CNN.com.

Did Texas execute innocent man?. The report includes an interview with Texas Moratorium Network’s Scott Cobb.

CNN’s Randi Kaye looks at whether politics is behind the delayed hearing on a controversial Texas execution.

Sign a 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.

From the Fort Worth Star-Telegram:

A man who spent almost 10 years on Death Row before his capital murder conviction was overturned died Saturday in a one-vehicle rollover crash in Cherokee County in East Texas. [Note from TMN: Ricardo Aldape Guerra also died in a car crash in 1997 four months after his release after spending 14 years on Texas Death Row for a crime he did not commit.]

Michael Roy Toney died one month after his release from jail after the state’s decision not to retry him in the 1985 bombing deaths of three people in a Lake Worth trailer.

A spokeswoman for O’Melveny & Myers, the California law firm that handled Toney’s successful appeal, said Sunday night in a written statement that lawyers are saddened by his death.

“Our thoughts are with his family and many friends who supported him in his fight for justice,” the statement said.

The accident occurred at 11:05 a.m. as Toney, 43, drove south on Farm Road 347 in a 2000 Ford F-250 pickup, according to the Texas Department of Public Safety. The truck veered off of the east side of the road and rolled.

Toney, who was not wearing a seat belt, was ejected, the report said.

A local judge pronounced Toney dead at the scene.

A supporter of Toney wrote in an e-mail Sunday that Toney was driving to his house in Rusk when he rounded a curve and “didn’t make it.” The truck rolled on top of him, the message said.

On Death Row, Toney relentlessly protested his 1999 conviction for the bombing, one of Tarrant County’s most notorious crimes. On Thanksgiving 1985, Angela Blount, 15; her father, Joe Blount, 44; and her cousin Michael Columbus, 18, died when a bomb in a briefcase exploded.

Susan Blount, Angela’s Blount’s mother, who survived the blast, said when contacted by the Star-Telegram on Sunday night that she had not been notified of Toney’s death. She said she still believes that Toney was guilty of the bombing.

“If this is Michael Toney who died, then I can finally say it is over with,” she said. “And I don’t have to worry about Michael Toney anymore.  . . .  It is going to take me some time to process this.”

The case went unsolved for 14 years until a Parker County jail inmate told authorities that Toney confessed while serving time there on unrelated charges. The prisoner soon recanted, saying he made up the story to win early release.

No physical evidence connected Toney to the bombing. He was convicted largely on the testimony of his ex-wife and former best friend, who said they saw him plant the bomb.

Another prisoner, who also later recanted, testified that Toney told him that he was paid $5,000 to plant the bomb but that he left it outside the wrong trailer.

Later, Toney’s defense team uncovered 14 documents that Tarrant County prosecutors withheld from his defense during the trial, including records suggesting that investigators may have crafted witnesses’ accounts.

His attorneys have called Toney’s conviction one of the most “egregious cases” they have seen.

In December, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals overturned Toney’s conviction, saying his trial was unconstitutional because Tarrant County prosecutors improperly withheld evidence. However, from this source you’ll get in contact with e best attorneys near you.

The Tarrant County district attorney’s office recused itself from the case. In September, the Texas attorney general dropped the charges against Toney but retained the option to retry the case after further evaluation of the evidence.

Toney was released from jail Sept. 2.

An official with Autry Funeral Home in Jacksonville confirmed Sunday that it is handling Toney’s funeral but that no dates have been set.

On Sunday, a supporter wrote in an e-mail that in his one month of freedom Toney was painting his house in Rusk. He had also bought a pickup and gotten a dog from an animal shelter.

“Michael really enjoyed living out in the country, and he was a country boy at heart,” the e-mail said. “His future looked very promising.”

CNN is reporting that the Governor of Ohio has stayed Thursday’s scheduled execution in his state and won’t reschedule it until March, which means that Ohio has a de facto moratorium on executions. Meanwhile Texas plans to continue executions even though it has become known that Texas executed an innocent person in 2004. The Governor of Ohio is acting sensibly in response to a death penalty crisis in Ohio, while the governor of Texas is attempting to cover up the greatest death penalty crisis in the history of capital punishment – the proven execution of an innocent person.

Watch CNN video “Is Texas Governor Rick Perry Trying to Cover Up Execution of Innocent Man on His Watch”.

From CNN:

A legal tug-of-war over Ohio’s execution procedures grew more confused Monday as Ohio’s governor granted a temporary reprieve to a murderer scheduled for lethal injection this week.

Lawrence Reynolds is on death row for killing his neighbor in 1994 during a robbery in suburban Cleveland.

The action came just hours after the state’s attorney general’s office asked the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene and allow Thursday’s execution of Lawrence Reynolds Jr. after a federal appeals court blocked it.

Gov. Ted Strickland announced he would delay Reynolds’s execution until next March at the earliest.

Reynolds was sentenced to die for beating and strangling Loretta Mae Foster, his 67-year-old neighbor, during a robbery in suburban Cleveland.

The flurry of activity came after a failed attempt to execute another death row inmate raised serious questions about the state’s lethal injection procedures.

“Additional time is needed to fully conduct a thorough and comprehensive review of an alternative or backup lethal injection protocol that is in accordance with Ohio law,” Strickland said in his announcement.

Darryl Durr, a death row inmate scheduled to be put to death in coming weeks, also was given a reprieve until at least April 2010.

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Execution problems prompt reprieve for inmate
The state was expected to ask the Supreme Court for dismissal of the pending appeal. No explanation was offered as to why Ohio’s executive branch switched its position.

The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati blocked Reynolds’ execution Monday, citing problems over accessing the veins of Romell Broom in a failed execution attempt last month.

Strickland delayed Broom’s execution after technicians tried for two hours on September 15 to find suitable veins to insert the chemicals. That execution has not been rescheduled.

Reynolds’ lawyers have argued the state’s lethal injection protocols violate the Constitution’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

Broom will get a hearing before a federal judge next month. His lawyers argue allowing a second execution attempt would be unconstitutional.

Judges on the appeals court were at odds over the Reynolds appeal.

“Given the important constitutional and humanitarian issues at stake in all death penalty cases, these problems in the Ohio lethal injection protocol are certainly worthy of meaningful consideration,” wrote Judge Boyce Martin.

Judge Jeffrey Sutton dissented.

“Why assume an execution protocol is unconstitutional when one of the humane features of the protocol — that the state will not continue trying to access a usable vein beyond a sensible time limit — is being followed?

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.