Cameron Todd Willingham was executed in Texas in 2004 for allegedly fire that killed his three young girls 13 years earlier. He has always protested his innocence, and the investigation of fire used to convict him, was questioned by experts in Willingham was executed. Since 2004, further evidence of the case led to the inescapable conclusion that Willingham was not fired he was executed.
The Forensic Science Commission of Texas issued its report on Cameron Todd Willingham sentences and Ernest Willis April 15, 2011 recommending more education and training for fire investigators and enforcement procedures to review cases of age.
On December 23, 1991, fire destroyed the Corsicana, Texas, Cameron Todd Willingham home shared with his wife and three daughters, killing three girls. Willingham, who was sleeping when the fire started, survived. His wife was in the Army Hello buy Christmas gifts for girls.
Cameron Todd Willingham in the 1992 trial, prosecutors said he intentionally set fire to his house to kill their own children. Willingham said he was sleeping in the house when the fire started and maintains his innocence. He was convicted based on testimony from forensic experts who said they had determined that the fire was started deliberately and a prison informant who said that Willingham had confessed. On October 29, 1992, was sentenced to death. (Download full trial transcript here.)
Thirteen years later, in the days leading up to Cameron Todd Willingham execution, his lawyers sent to the governor and Board of Pardon and Parole, a report by Gerald Hurst, an expert in arson nationally recognized, said Willingham's conviction was based on erroneous forensic analysis. Documents obtained by the Innocence Project shows that state officials received the report, but apparently not to use it. Willingham was executed by lethal injection in Huntsville, February 17, 2004.
Months after Cameron Todd Willingham was executed, the Chicago Tribune published an investigative report that raised questions about the forensic analysis. The Innocence Project assembled five of the nation's largest independent experts to examine the evidence in the arson case, and this prestigious group released a 48-page report concluded that no scientific analysis used to convict Cameron Todd Willingham was valid.
In 2006, the Innocence Project has officially submitted the case to the Forensic Science Commission of Texas, asking the body authorized by the state to launch a full investigation. With Willingham case, the Innocence Project presented information about another fire in Texas, where the same evidence used to send another man to the death penalty. In this case, Ernest Willis was exonerated and released from prison because the forensic evidence was not valid.
In 2008, the Texas Forensic Science Commission agreed to investigate the matter. The review panel was interrupted several times over the past two years, however, and continues today. In 2009, arson expert hired by the Commission published a report concludes that the experts who testified at the trial Willingham should have known that was the wrong time. Days before the experts had been set up to testify, however, Governor Rick Perry replaced key members of the panel, has delayed the investigation for months.
A research report in September issue 7, 2009, the New Yorker deconstructs all facets of the business of the state against Willingham. Article 16 000 words by David Grann shows that all the evidence against Willingham was invalid, including forensic analysis, the testimony of the informant, the testimony of other witnesses and other circumstantial evidence.
On October 14, Texas Judge Charlie Baird, a hearing in the case Willingham to decide to hold a judicial inquiry. October 15 and discussed the Texas Forensic Science Commission, the issue in depth at its regular meeting. On April 15, 2011 TFSC has published its final report in Willingham / Willis case.
In July 2011, Attorney General Greg Abbott issued an opinion in response to questions from the Commission on the competence and authority. The notice prohibits the Commission to investigate "the specific tests that have been tested or presented as evidence before" September 1, 2005. Innocence Project Co-Director Barry Scheck, said that "the reasoning of the opinion is wrong and contrary to the clear legislative intent when it formed the Commission."