Upcoming Executions
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Innocence
The death penalty puts innocent people at risk of execution.
Todd Willingham
Todd Willingham was wrongfully executed under Governor Rick Perry on February 17, 2004.

From the Fort Worth Star Telegram:

Conclusions made by arson investigators in the Corsicana case that ended with a man’s execution were wrong by today’s standards, Tarrant County Medical Examiner Nizam Peerwani said Friday.

But whether there is enough evidence to conclude that Cameron Todd Willingham was guilty or not guilty of killing his three daughters in 1991 is a question for the courts to decide, Peerwani said during a seminar at the Texas Wesleyan law school.

Peerwani, appointed by Gov. Rick Perry in December to the state Forensic Science Commission, ticked off flaws in the arson report that helped lead to Willingham’s conviction and execution.
Among them, he said, investigators were wrong to conclude that the fire that swept Willingham’s home had multiple starting points and that patterns indicated that an accelerant had been used, Peerwani said. By current standards of science, none of things that the arson investigators cited indicate arson, he said. But standards in the early ’90s were evolving, he said.

The forensic science commission is scheduled to meet in November to review the arson investigation.

“Texas is home to more verified wrongful convictions than any other state in the nation,” Peerwani said.
It is good, then, that the criminal justice system is willing to admit and correct mistakes, he said.
“It means the system is working,” he said.

Peerwani’s speech was one session at the seminar, Innocence and the Road to Exoneration.

Mike Ware, head of the Dallas County Conviction Integrity Unit, specialists from the Innocence Project and legal professors from across the country discussed issues contributing to the estimated 1 to 3 percent of people under the control of the justice system who are wrongfully convicted.Four of the more than two dozen people who have been exonerated in cases from Dallas County also spoke.

Contradictory testimony

Willingham was accused of setting the fire that killed his daughters — 2-year-old Amber and 1-year-old twins Karmon and Kameron — on Dec. 23, 1991, but he maintained his innocence, including in a Death Row interview with The Associated Press shortly before his execution in 2004.

Willingham was home alone with the children after his now ex-wife, Stacy Kuykendall, left for work. He was asleep, he testified, but was awakened by Amber’s cries and saw smoke pouring through the house. Willingham said he groped through the smoke, trying, without success, to find his children as burning debris fell. He found the front door and escaped.

Authorities later said Willingham gave inconsistent accounts of what happened. Also, fire investigators concluded that accelerant was splashed on the floor and near the doorsill, presumably to block rescue attempts.

Peerwani questioned how much credence should have been given to an inmate who heard Willingham say he burned his children by dousing one of their arms and the area around her with lighter fluid and then setting fire to the fluid.

Also, Peerwani questioned the value of contradictory eyewitness testimony from neighbors. Some said Willingham did not seem sufficiently upset by the deaths. He never tried to rescue his daughters and was more concerned about his car burning up than about them, some neighbors said.
Other witnesses said Willingham was so distraught that he had to be restrained from trying to enter the house.

Peerwani’s observations were only a few in a parade of flawed cases discussed during the seminar. Several scholars outlined structural deficiencies in the legal system that they considered impediments to reaching sound verdicts.

Mark Godsey, a University of Cincinnati law professor, said he has seen juries so swayed by expert testimony from the state that they overlook opposing evidence.
Often, just because forensic evidence is presented by the state, juries think it comes from NASA, Godley said.

“There is a long history in this country of people being convicted on faulty science,” Godsey said.

From the Austin American-Statesman:

A special court of review did not rule Friday on Judge Sharon Keller’s motion to void a rebuke over a 2007 death-row appeal that never got filed in her court, the Court of Criminal Appeals.

The review court had said it would try to decide by Friday whether to dismiss the charges against Keller or proceed with her appeal of the rebuke by the State Commission on Judicial Conduct. The agency found that Keller violated her judicial duties by closing her court to an after-hours appeal from inmate Michael Richard, who was executed later that night for rape and murder.

The three-judge panel, formed to hear Keller’s appeal of the rebuke, may rule next week, said Osler McCarthy, spokesman for the Texas Supreme Court.

Keller appeared before the special court last month to push for dismissal now, avoiding a three-day trial at the end of November over whether the rebuke was justified.

The October 14 scheduled execution of Gayland Bradford has been stayed. From the Austin American-Statesman:

A convicted killer set to die next week for the shooting death of a Dallas grocery store security guard more than two decades ago has won a reprieve from the U.S. Supreme Court.

Justice Antonin Scalia on Friday ordered a delay in the punishment of 42-year-old Gayland Bradford until the court decides whether to review an appeal in his case.

Bradford was set to die Thursday in Huntsville for the December 1988 shooting death of 29-year-old Brian Williams.

Bradford’s attorney argued to the court that the trial court appointed an inexperienced and underqualified lawyer to handle some of Bradford’s earlier appeals.

Bradford was 20 at the time of the shooting and on parole for robbery.

Sandrine Ageorges-Skinner will be one of the speakers at the 11th Annual March to Abolish the Death Penalty on October 30th at the Texas Capitol in Austin. Sandrine is a French national married to Hank Skinner, who is on Texas death row and is seeking to have DNA tested that could prove his innocence.

On October 13, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in the case of Hank Skinner to determine if he may seek testing of DNA evidence through a civil rights lawsuit. If he is not allowed to test the DNA evidence, then Texas may execute an innocent person.

Hank Skinner received a stay of execution from the U.S. Supreme Court on March 25, 2010 only hours before his scheduled execution.

On March 18, 2010, Sandrine spoke at a press conference (watch video) to appeal for Governor Rick Perry and the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles to stop the execution of Hank Skinner. The press conference was held by Texas Moratorium Network and Students Against the Death Penalty in the Texas Capitol with her and with six exonerated former death-row inmates: Ron Keine, Juan Melendez, Shujaa Graham, Perry Cobb, Curtis McCarty and Derrick Jamison (see photo). Some of them had come within days and even hours of being executed. The exonerees said they supported a moratorium on executions and called on Gov. Perry and Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles to stay the upcoming execution of Hank Skinner to allow testing of the DNA evidence.

Video of Sandrine Ageorges-Skinner, wife of Hank Skinner, appearing on CNN’s Larry King Live to speak about stay of execution received by Hank Skinner on March 24, 2010.

The annual march is organized by several Texas anti-death penalty organizations, including the Austin chapter of the Campaign to End the Death Penalty, Texas Moratorium Network, the Texas Death Penalty Abolition Movement, Texas Students Against the Death Penalty, Texas Death Penalty Education and Resource Center, Death Penalty Free Austin, and Kids Against the Death Penalty.

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