The Dallas Morning News is the first to get Governor Rick Perry to speak publicly about the wrongful execution of Todd Willingham. No surprise from Perry. He rejects the scientific analysis and thinks Willingham was guilty. It is time for the people of Texas to elect a new governor. Perry has several opponents in the Republican primary and if he survives the primary, he will face the winner of the Democratic primary in November 2010.

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.

From the DMN:

Governor Rick Perry today strenuously defended the execution of a Corsicana man whose conviction for killing his daughters in a house fire hinged on an arson finding that top experts call junk science.

“I’m familiar with the latter-day supposed experts on the arson side of it,” Perry said, making quotation marks with his fingers to underscore his skepticism.

Even without proof that the fire was arson, he added, the court records he reviewed before the execution of Cameron Todd Willingham in 2004 showed “clear and compelling, overwhelming evidence that he was in fact the murderer of his children.”

These were the governor’s first direct comments on a case that has drawn withering criticism from top fire experts.

Death penalty critics view the Willingham case as a study in shoddy – or at least outdated – science, and they consider it the first proven instance in 35 years of an executed man being proven innocent after death.

“Governor Perry refuses to face the fact that Texas executed an innocent man on his watch. Literally all of the evidence that was used to convict Willingham has been disproven – all of it,” said Barry Scheck, co-director of the Innocence Project, a nonprofit group affiliated with the Cardozo School of Law in New York that has championed the case. “He is clearly refusing to face reality.”

Three independent reviews over the last five years, involving seven of the nation’s top arson experts, found no evidence the fire was set intentionally. The most recent is a report commissioned by the Texas Forensic Science Commission.

The author, renowned arson expert Craig Beylor, blasts the investigators who handled the Willingham case, finding that they misread the evidence and based their conclusions on a “poor understanding of fire science.”

The commission says it is reviewing the Beyler report and other evidence and will issue a conclusion next year.

The fire took place two days before Christmas 1991, and claimed the lives of Willingham’s three daughters: 2-year-old Amber, and 1-year-old twins, Karmon and Kameron.

State fire investigators and Corsicana fire officials maintained that burn patterns, cracked windows and other signs pointed to arson.

Willingham, 24 at the time and an unemployed auto mechanic, had only superficial burns. He said he’d run outside after Amber alerted him to the fire, looking for the others, and couldn’t reenter because the blaze grew so quickly.

He had a criminal record for burglary and grand larceny. He had once beaten his pregnant wife, and a jailhouse snitch said he’d confessed.

At trial, prosecutors told jurors that Willingham had intentionally left his daughters to die in a burning home.

But myriad scientists say that conclusion of arson was based on outdated training that, at the time of trial 15 years ago, had already been replaced by science-based methods that would have pointed to bad wiring or a space heater.

Willingham protested his innocence to the end. Strapped to a gurney awaiting lethal injection on Feb. 17, 2004, he asserted that “I am an innocent man — convicted of a crime I did not do.”

The Board of Pardons and Paroles, appointed by the governor, had rejected the appeal his lawyers had filed three days earlier. Hours before the execution, the lawyers appealed directly to Perry.

The appeal included a report from a widely respected fire expert, Gerald Hurst, that cast serious doubt on the arson finding.

Hurst, a Cambridge-educated chemist who was chief scientist for the nation’s largest explosive manufacturer, says the signs used as proof that an accelerant had been poured were almost certainly the result of “flashover” – an intense heat burst that causes an entire room to erupt in flame.

The effects of flashover can mimic arson.

In 2004, the Chicago Tribune asked three fire experts to evaluate the case. Their testing confirmed Hurst’s report. The case was recently featured in an extensive article in The New Yorker, launching a new round of questions.

Perry, in Washington for a campaign fundraiser today and a speech tomorrow to conservative activists, said during an hour-long session with reporters that he does not believe the state executed an innocent man.

“No,” he said. “We talked about this case at length. One of the most serious and somber things that a governor of Texas deals with is the execution of an individual.… We go through a substantial amount of oversight.”

In 2006, the Innocence Project, using state open records law, obtained records from Perry’s office regarding the last-minute appeal. The governor’s office provided no documents that acknowledged the contents of the appeal or its significance, Scheck’s office said – a “lack of action” that indicates the governor ignored critical analysis.

Perry, whose authority as governor is limited to delaying an execution for 30 days, said he reviewed the case extensively.

“I get a document that has all of the court process. It gives you all of his background, all of the court machinations on the legal side of it, and the recommendation of both my legal side and the courts. It’s pretty extensive amount of information,” he said. “I have not seen anything that would cause me to think that the decision that was made by the courts of the state of Texas was not correct.”

Below is the complete video that aired on Nightline on Sept 17, 2009. The top video is part one, followed by part two. Judge John Jackson makes some very disturbing comments in part two, claiming that Willingham was likely a devil worshipper because he liked heavy metal music. Judge Jackson even makes the bizarre, absurd statement that he believes the burn patterns on the floor appear to be in the shape of a pentagram, which Jackson sees as more evidence that Willingham was likely to be a devil worshipper.

Watch part one of the video of the Nightline report on Todd Willingham on YouTube.

Watch part two of the video of the Nightline report on Todd Willingham on YouTube.

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.

Below is the full video in one piece from TMN’s facebook page.

All three judges on the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals who are up for re-election in 2010 voted with the majority not to give a new trial to Charles Dean Hood, whose judge and prosecutor were having an affair during his 1990 trial. The vote on the CCA was 6-3. The three judges who did vote to send the case back to a lower court to explore the merits of his claim were Judges Cathy Cochran, Charles Holcomb and Tom Price.

The three judges up for re-election in 2010 are Michael Keasler, Cheryl Johnson and Lawrence Meyers. They all were among the six on the all-Republican court, including disgraced Presiding Judge Sharon Keller, who said Charles Dean Hood is not entitled to a new trial despite the fact that his judge and prosecutor were having an affair during his 1990 trial. So far, no Democrat has announced plans to run for the CCA in 2010. Where are the Democrats?

More from the Statesman:

In a 6-3 ruling, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals refused to consider Hood’s appeal, saying details of the affair were not properly raised by his lawyers.

State law gives death row inmates one appeal, known as a petition for a writ of habeas corpus. Subsequent filings, such as the petition Hood’s lawyers filed last year, cannot be considered unless they contain facts that were not available to lawyers exercising “reasonable diligence” in the first appeal.

Hood’s lawyers failed to meet that standard, the court’s unsigned opinion stated without elaboration.

Wednesday’s ruling contradicted findings by state District Judge Greg Brewer of Collin County, where Hood was prosecuted. Brewer, assigned by the Court of Criminal Appeals to review the latest appeal, determined that Hood’s lawyers demonstrated “extraordinary” diligence in confirming rumors that then-District Judge Verla Sue Holland and Thomas O’Connell Jr., the former district attorney of Collin County, had been having a sexual relationship before and during Hood’s trial.

The judge and prosecutor strove to keep the affair secret, Brewer said, revealing the relationship only when forced to testify under oath in 2008.

But prosecutors argued that rumors of the affair were known to Hood’s lawyers during his first round of appeals.

“Our argument is that they had this information and should have raised it in the earlier writ,” prosecutor John Rolater, the chief of Collin County’s appellate division, told The Associated Press.

Hood’s appeals lawyer criticized the ruling.

“No one would want to be prosecuted for a parking violation, let alone for capital murder, by a district attorney who is sleeping with the judge,” said Greg Wiercioch with Texas Defender Service. “Mr. Hood is entitled to a new trial before an impartial judge and a fair prosecutor.”

Judges Cathy Cochran, Charles Holcomb and Tom Price dissented, saying they would have sent Hood’s appeal to a lower court to explore the merits of his claim.

Holland is no longer a judge. She served on the Court of Criminal Appeals from to 1997 to 2001. Eight of the court’s nine current judges served with her.

Hood was convicted of killing Ronald Williamson and Tracie Wallace in their Plano home. Hood’s bloody fingerprint was found in the house.

Hood still has an appeal pending before the court on a different issue.

Today, Texas is set to execute Stephen Moody, who has sworn an affidavit saying that the person convicted as his accomplice and sentenced to life in prison is innocent. Governor Perry should stop today’s execution while an investigation is underway into whether Moody’s convicted accomplice, Calvin Doby, is innocent. Executing someone in a case where his in-court testimony could exonerate an innocent person could irreparably harm the interests of justice and could ensure that an innocent person remains in prison for a crime he did not commit.

Call Governor Perry at 512-463-1782 and urge him to stop today’s execution of Stephen Moody by using his authority to grant a 30-day stay of execution. If you live in the U.S., you can use the form on Perry’s website to email him. We suggest you both call him and email him.

Stephen Moody’s attorneys have been quoted in the media saying they do not plan to file an appeal to try to stop today’s execution, because Moody has said he wants to die and because “it is his wishes and we have to honor them.”

Moody’s attorneys of truck accidents in Miami should file an appeal to try to stop today’s execution or ask Governor Perry to issue a 30-day stay of execution. By not filing an appeal or asking for a stay, they are complicit in the state’s use of the death penalty at a time when we know from the case of Todd Willingham that the Texas death penalty system is unable to prevent innocent people from being executed. It does not matter that their client would prefer to die rather than spend life in prison, which he apparently considers worse. Texas has executed an innocent person, and has therefore lost any remaining moral and ethical authority to continue executions until the question of whether Todd Willingham was innocent has been fully addressed by the state of Texas.

Stephen Moody’s execution will be the first execution in Texas since the state-funded report by Dr Craig Beyler to the Texas Forensic Science Commission that the fire in the case of Todd Willingham case was not arson. Governor Perry and the State of Texas should stop all executions because Beyler’s report makes it clear that Texas and Perry allowed an innocent person to be executed. The Texas death penalty system must be suspended while it is determined whether an innocent person has been executed.

Stephen Moody’s attorneys should be helping stop all executions in Texas by trying to stop their own client’s execution. They might also need to take the help of family law appeals process in Michigan area to bring justice to their client. If they believe that they are somehow obligated to follow their client’s wishes to die, then they should arrange for someone to talk to him so that they can convince him that his execution will only serve to further the false illusion that Texas is capable of administering the death penalty in a manner that prevents the execution of innocent people such as Todd Willingham. Even though Stephen Moody does not maintain he himself is innocent, his execution allows the death penalty in Texas to continue at a time when all executions should be stopped because Texas has probably already executed a person who was innocent – Todd Willingham.

Moody should also not die while an investigation is underway into the possible innocence of his alleged accomplice. Moody needs to be alive to be able to testify in court that the person convicted as his accomplice had nothing to do with the crime.

From the Houston Chronicle:

In a self-described act of conscience just days before he’s to be executed, killer Stephen Moody has declared in a sworn statement that his presumed accomplice in the 1991 robbery-murder of a Houston drug dealer is innocent.

The accomplice, Calvin Doby, 47, who has served 17 years of a life sentence, consistently has argued that he was with his wife and newborn son on the night Joseph Hall was robbed and killed.

“My conscience will not let me remain silent any longer,” Moody said in an affidavit sworn last week on Texas’ death row. “It is not right that Calvin Doby has suffered in prison all these years for something he did not do.”

The affidavit is the basis of an appeal by Doby filed Wednesday in state district court. Prosecutors have 15 days to respond.

Moody, who fired a shotgun blast into his victim’s chest, is scheduled to be executed Sept. 16.

He has refused to grant interviews for this report.

Moody’s attorney James Rytting said his client has few legal options to fight his execution and has no desire to file a petition with the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles — a move he considers an empty gesture.

Earlier this year, Moody petitioned a local judge to set his execution date as soon as possible, contending confinement on death row was “cruel and unusual punishment.”

The lead prosecution witness in both trials was ex-convict Melvin Ellis, who testified that Doby instigated and planned the crime. Shortly after sunset on Oct. 19, 1991, Moody and Doby burst into Hall’s home, demanding money, testimony revealed.

Hall’s girlfriend, Rene Psenka, testified that she was in the bathroom when Moody appeared with a sawed-off shotgun and ordered her not to move. She then heard Hall plead for his life. After Moody entered the bathroom a second time, again ordering her not to move, Psenka jumped through an open window and sought safety at a neighbor’s house.

Eyewitness mistaken?

Neighbors told authorities they heard a gunshot and saw two men flee. The pair, testimony indicated, then returned to Ellis’ house.

In his affidavit, Moody said another man — not Doby — was his partner in the crime. He said Ellis, who was taking a number of psychiatric medications at the time, was mistaken in thinking he saw Doby in the getaway car.

Moody said he had not seen Doby for a month before the killing.

In an interview at Angelton’s Scott Unit, Doby said he met Moody when they shared adjacent prison cells in the mid-1980s.

“At the time of the crime,” Doby said, “I was at home with my wife and our newborn. I was on parole. We were struggling.”

Doby previously served time for aggravated robbery and escape and Moody for burglary and auto theft.

Doby’s attorney, Jack Zimmerman, said Moody first contended Doby was innocent five years ago, but the killer’s case was at a sensitive point and his attorneys would not let him make a formal statement. Only after Moody’s state and federal appeals had been exhausted was he in a position to swear an affidavit without jeopardizing his case.

Moody is to be the 17th Texas person executed this year.