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| Cameron Todd Willingham-Its Nearly Official:Texas Did Eecute Innocent Man | |
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| Topic Started: Aug 31 2009, 05:51 PM (875 Views) | |
| Sydney Carton | Aug 31 2009, 05:51 PM Post #1 |
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Here is the article in this week's New Yorker.The Texas commission has accepted the new expert's report and will issue its own findiings next year. www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/09/07/090907fa_fact_grann - 147k |
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| Quasimodo | Aug 31 2009, 06:06 PM Post #2 |
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Use just the URL (without the "147k" at the end) to open the New Yorker piece : www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/09/07/090907fa_fact_grann |
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| chatham | Aug 31 2009, 07:07 PM Post #3 |
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http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/09/07/090907fa_fact_grann |
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| Bill Anderson | Sep 1 2009, 02:53 PM Post #4 |
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This is what happens when government officials are hellbent on executing someone and are not interested in the facts. Anyone who thinks that American prosecutors actually care about the truth does not know much about the state of American prosecution these days. I no longer am surprised when I see the work of a dishonest prosecutor; I am much more surprised when I see the work of an honest prosecutor. I know these words are harsh, but I mean every one of them. I am sick of what I have seen both on the state and federal levels, and executing an innocent man is something for which there is no excuse. None. If Texans and others who favor executions want to cite the Old Testament for their reasoning, then perhaps they need to read the portions in which a person who made a false accusation had to suffer the penalty to be given to the accused. In this case, the prosecutor would be put to death. I would favor the death penalty in that situation, but, instead, the prosecutor gets off scot free. Nothing, nothing happens to him and his rotten henchmen. 
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| Sydney Carton | Sep 2 2009, 12:59 PM Post #5 |
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Bill, There is an extremely affirmative side to this.It is the first time in US history that one of its governmental bodies is,contemporaneously,willing to admit that it has made a fatal error.With God's grace this could be a precedent setter. The only other state which has ever admitted an "error" in a capital case is Massachusetts. It did pardon the Salem Witches(but only the ones whom it had hanged) after a mere three hundred years and Sacco and Vanzetti after a mere sixty odd. Both bills had been before the legislature for untold ages.Massachusetts pardoned only after it was certain that the defendants had not left any descendants who would claim monetary compensation. The best affirmative thing which might immediately come from this decision would be a reconsideration of two other Texas capital cases.Darlie Routier,like Cameron Williingham,has(on extremely constable forensic evidence) been sentenced to death for the murder of her children.Most of the same judges upheld both verdicts. And,as everyone here now knows,there is also Rodney Reed whose death sentence the same court recently upheld though they admitted that there was a real suspicion that the crime was committed by the victim's livein,policeman Jimmy Fennelly.It ruled that Reed has to prove a coherent explanation of how Fennelly did it,though it didn't give Reed the slightest explication of what it would accept as a convincing standard of proof. And,before all this there were(a minimum of ) three highly dubious executions under the Bush-Gonzalez administration in which the newly discovered evidence has yet to receive a full judicial review. Some of these impoverished people left relatives who may desperately need the government's blood money. It is is the least thing that Texas owes them. Edited by Sydney Carton, Sep 2 2009, 05:38 PM.
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| winston sport | Sep 8 2009, 02:16 PM Post #6 |
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For a different perspective on the Willingham case, here is a story in yesterday's Corsicana Daily Sun: http://www.corsicanadailysun.com/thewillinghamfiles/local_story_250180658.html Also, I dont think that the Texas Forensic Science Commission has made a ruling on this case. Edited by winston sport, Sep 8 2009, 02:18 PM.
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| Sydney Carton | Sep 9 2009, 05:24 PM Post #7 |
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Hello,Winston, If you check here you can follow up numerous responses (including one from the New Yorker)to this completely misleading and inaccurate article.Much of it merelly copies a self serving statement issued by the former prosecutor,who is now,I am sorry to say, an appellate judge. This is old stuff being regurgitated for the second or third time. The innocence panal already knew about these alleged "facts",and had found them wanting, when it requested the new report.Their new expert will present his evidence in person on Oct.2d.The state will have yet another chance to respond, and a report will then be issued in the spring.However,if it can't do better factually than it is doing so far Willingham "wins" hands done and from six feet underground. The only new thing in the article is a savage attack on the deceased's character by the court appointed defense attorney who,judging his own words, hated his client with a passion and ,despite his recent claims that he could not obtain an expert for the defense, merely seems to be saying that he WOULD not call an expert .What the posthumous defense is sayinig now was pretty much standard science then annd if the original defense attorney had spent siix hours going over the forensics then available to the near illiterate Willingham he could readily have ascertained the fact. If ,as now seems likely,Willingham is completely vindicated,Texas should coontemplate severe disciplinary action against both attorneys. gritsforbreakfast.blogspot.com/ - |
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| Bill Anderson | Sep 9 2009, 06:12 PM Post #8 |
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I doubt Texas will do anything either to the attorney or the prosecutors. Very few people in the justice system give a damn about guilt and innocence, and I will say that I have absolutely NO confidence in anyone in the Texas system caring. This is the state that almost murdered Randall Adams when proof of his innocence was available from Day One. Look, most prosecutors simply don't give a damn if a person is guilty or innocent. Mike Nifong was NOT an aberration; don't forget that prosecutors across the country were lining up to support him when he first went on a rampage, and only after it became absolutely clear that he was lying did the prosecutors of this country start running for cover. And don't forget that federal prosecutors make state prosecutors look like honest people. There is no hope at all for our system of "justice." None.
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| comelately | Sep 9 2009, 11:18 PM Post #9 |
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SC, you can not compare Sacco and Vanzetti with other - innocent - people. Sacco was guilty as charged, and Vanzetti was guilty as an abettor after the fact (or whatever the proper phrase is). An argument could be made that Vanzetti should have been sent to prison for 20 years or so instead of being sent to the electric chair... Both were vicious anarchists, sort of larva stage communists. It is very fitting that they were eventually pardoned by Dukakis! And there is a cosmetics factory in China named after them! 
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| Sydney Carton | Sep 10 2009, 05:52 PM Post #10 |
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Bill, Yes,the prognosis is overall grim but (may be its just my luck ) only three of the many defendants whom I have backed during their life times have ever been executed.Caryl Chessman(He lost 4-3 but if he had survived the fatal weekend he would have won 4-3),Roger Coleman( he apparently was guilty on the basis of the most recent DNA evidence) and,most recently, Wayne Tompkins whose case I only got onto,thanks to Jeralyn Merritt six hours before the execution.He lost 4-1;but see my analysis and cross-references and tell me on what evidence they killed this man. On the other hand the average time for vindication is most of twenty years and, as we all know,Nifong is the only notable corrupt prosecutor to serve even a day behind bars for fixing a case.And the same goes for really big time liars like Joyce Gilchrist and Steven Haynes.They may actually have killed people with their evidence.They were-are- certainly in there trying. Even when the state eventually pays damages,it seldom curbs its mad dogs.Lets see how it shape up in the Willingham case with a defense attorney who sent his client to his death and now wants to disinter and savage the remains. Come Lately, I am just reporting what the State of Massachusetts did.If you wish to maintain that the only time that an U.S. state pposthumously pardoned execued defendants they pardoned guilty defendants you are certainly free to do so. Actually I cared enough about the Sacco-Vanzetti case when I was a kid to read a loot of the trial record.(It reads very well,quite a lot of eloquent witnesses and attorneys).At the time I had no doubt whatsoever that both defendants were innocent because (1)Over fifty eyewitnesses to the robbery either failed to identify or positively swore neither Sacco nor Vanzetti were the shooters. Among the small minority(6) who did identify Sacco,three were badly impeached and two of these (Lola Andrews and Carlos Goodrich) later confessed that they were lying.True, they later repudiated their repudiations but they were already contradicted on factual grounds by most of twenty witnesses at the original trial.Even trial judge Thayer who bragged to his friends at the country club that he was goinig to "hang the anarchist" admitted that if the case depended on eye witness testimony it would have had to go to the defendants. In Vanzetti's case it was even worse.Three witnesses identified,at least one of them with a bad criminal record, and none of them gave a description that matched Vanzetti's until after he was arrested. (2)The alibis were supported by nearly twenty witnesses,Sacco's witnesses included a professor of literature,an(inactive) Catholic priest ,and the clerk at the Italian embassy. In 1965 I had the privilege of meeting Vanzetti's three star alibi witnesses,the Brini family, at a memorial dinner at the Boston Unitarian church.They were three of the nicest and most transparentlly honest people that you will ever want to meet.14 year old Bertraldo Brini went on to become a much valued conductor at the Boston Symphony Orchestra and was a devout Roman Catholic.The whole rest of his life was shaped by the fact that his friend died because an all Anglo jury( in less than two hours )rejected the evidence of nearly a hundred and fifty witness apparently because most of them were Italians,not because they were,like Sacco,hard core Leninists. (3) The State's own ballistics expert testified(after the trial) that the DA asked him to fake his evidence. (4) A multitude of witnesses surfaced after the trial who seemingly proved that the murders were committed by a professional gang.One member signed a confession but there was plenty of other evidence to the same effect whether one accepts his word or not. On the other side a major right wing revisionist book ("Tragedy at Dedham"by Francis Russell )appeared in the mid 60's.It was beautifully written as well as well as incredibly well argued and offered reams of new evidence accumulated over many years of interviews with the surviving witnesses. His three main points: (1) The gun found on Sacco 9 weeks after the murders was(despite the repudiation by the State's original expert) in fact the murder weapon.New tests made shortly before the executions were confiirmed by experts in the 1950's and a third time by independent experts whom Russell brought in during the sixties. He completely rejected the defense case that the 1929 and later testings were invalid because the prosecutors had substituted a new barrell in the gun! (2) Sacco's seemingly iron clad alibi,apparently rejected by the jury on the grounds of mere racial pprejudice,was the concoction of a terrorist organization.The carpenter who swore he say Sacco boarding the train for Boston was a hard core Communist and the right as rain anglo busiiness man who volunteered at the last minute that he had been on the train with Sacco coming back from Boston were both hard core party members(though the jury had no way of knowing this).This was too much of a coincidence and too make it even worse Russell found proof that the other major non-Italian Sacco alibi witness,a Boston real estate man of ostensably strongly capitalistic persuasion,had actually been featured on the same platform with Comrad Lenin. Several people involved with the Sacco defense at the time had already been unfavorably impressed by the atmosphere in the immediate Sacco entourage. Russell's experience with the Brini familly and the other Vanzetti witnesses were quite different.Like myself and(I venture to believe)everyone else who crossed their path,he was absolutely satisfied by their testimony(You went to see the Brinis and they made you family within half an hour.). Moreover,It was forty years later and they had absolutely nothing to gain or lose by their testimony.No one any longer expected a pardon. Russell's moderate and well tempered conclusion:the same as what one of Sacco's defese attorneys is supposed to have said in later years,"Sacco was guilty but Vanzetti was innocent." Unfortunately for Russell's own reputation he was savaged for many years by the left and ,as a result,turned from the voice of reason into an increasinigly angry,and strident' old man. Shortly before his death ,nearly thirty years later,he brought out a second book about his further researches.It was so badly organized and ill argued that no major publishing house would have touched it.By now he believed that everybody,certainly Vanzetti,was guilty of everything.His life had been made a hell annd in the end he was willing to uncritically accept absolutely any new allegation ,however dubious that supported his position and blackened his critics. The best book for the Sacco defense is the final edition of Herbert Ehrmann's "Sacco-Vanzetti:The Untried Case".He ee took on the case as an idelistic kid in his twentiies,assembled most of the original evidence implicating the Morrelli gang, and spent the rest of his long life,like Russell,assembling a last testament to proove that he had been right all along. Does he meet Russell's better arguments? I think not. Does he produce good counter arguments.Most decidedly.Russell never even touched the two best eye witnesses who were within three or four feet of the shooter and never varied in their insistence that Sacco was not the man. In short,Vanzetti deserved his pardon(He deserved an acquittal!) Sacco deservedf an acquittal because the prosecution was too sloppy or too fraudulant to check up on the real holes in his defense. Whether Sacco ,among all allegedly falsely executed Americans,deserved a pardon on the strength of his evidence is another story. |
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| comelately | Sep 10 2009, 07:14 PM Post #11 |
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SC: Interestingly enough, I also became curious about the Sacco and Vanzetti case - and also around '65. However, my story was different. They were a Cause Celebre among the Left, and at the time it was proof enough for me (remember, I was young). In fact, I was right about Sacco. And there is something very fishy about Vanzetti (if you forgive the pun). He never tried to distance himself from the other thug; never tried to present himself as an innocent person: he spouted propaganda, threatened the judge (with death, no less!), and generally did not behave like a reasonable man. So while he was (most likely) innocent of that particular murder, he was certainly guilty of suicidal behavior; and he WAS a terrorist, a member of an organization dedicated to the overthrow of the US government - and very likely a murderer. There is also no doubt that the trial was conducted in an atrocious manner, at least by modern standards. Everybody was prejudiced (the Judge, the jury, the lawyers...), and most people saw no reason to hide this fact. On the other hand, Sacco and Vanzetti were doing everything they could to increase the degree of this prejudice, and to show themselves in the worst possible light - probably on the orders of their TERRORIST comrades. So it was more a "suicide by jury" than anything else. |
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| Sydney Carton | Sep 11 2009, 05:36 PM Post #12 |
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CL, You're getting carried away here.Vanzetti was in no position to distance himself from Sacco even if he had wanted to.They had been arrested together;there was a joint defense fund. I am not actually sure if his attorneys moved for severance or not.On the one hand there was virtually no evidence against Vanzetti except racial and political prejudice and that he was found in Sacco's company when arrested.On the other hand Sacco had a much better affirmative defense than Vanzetti(whose alibi was supported by humble people,most of them barely speaking English).The Sacco alibi looked extremely good and the witnesses sailed through their cross-examinations. Moreover,there was the question of expense.There were over fifty witnesses coming to say that neither of the defendants was the shooter.Many were getting a lot of pressure to lay off.Vanzetti couldn't risk the odds of successfully rounding up the entire crowd together a second time. Still,if the jury believed that it was Sacco's gun(which they shouldn't have done on the evidence produced by the prosecution at the original trial) they might well takke Vanzetti down with him.And the jurors believed that without hearing anybody's evidence. In other words,Sacco took Vanzetti down with him the first time arouind but sixty years later Vanzetti took Sacco along with him when the pardons got handed out. By the way are you sure about Vanzetti threatening to kill the judge? That needs checking out.One of the police officers claimed that Bart tried to pull a gun on him when arrested but his many friends insisted it was just the regular police hype. He was personally reported to be a very gentle man(not uncommon for personally gentle people to hold to ferocious philosophies,right wing or left.) Bertraldo Brini would have told you that he became a skilled artist because of his boyhood pal fed him dreams. Yes, Vanzetti did lapse into madness at one point in his confinement and he also wrote some of the most eloquent and lyric prison letters ever before Caryl Chessman. At worst(so Madame Tanya said of Hank Fallon)"He was some kind of a man and what more can you say about anybody?" |
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| Sydney Carton | Oct 2 2009, 02:14 PM Post #13 |
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If Governor Rick Perry has his way Texas will not admit it executed an innocent man.If it does so,the findings could well implicate Governor Perry and several of hiis associates.So the Goveror just replaced three key members of his Innocence Project with a bunch of newbies,who don't know which way is up(or will prefer not to look). Here is the way Texan Glenn Smith and his associate Paul Begala see it: DogCanyon.org Perry’s CrimeWhen Gov. Rick Perry obstructed an investigation into the execution of a man experts say was innocent, he committed a crime against all Texans. State executions are carried out in our names, collectively and individually. Subverting the truth in such a matter is a betrayal of the public trust that is difficult to describe or comprehend. But Perry may have also committed a crime against the U.S., and I’m not talking about his secession threats. He may have violated federal law, U.S.C. 18.1001. This is no trivial matter. An innocent man was executed. Federal laws and guidelines are in place to keep that from happening. Perry may well have violated those laws and guidelines, for which there are criminal penalties. Last night, CNN commentator, Texas hero and political strategist Paul Begala wrote us at DogCanyon with the following observation about our post earlier yesterday: Glenn, thanks for this important post. The eyes of the world are upon Texas, which has almost certainly executed an innocent man. Bully for you for tying this outrage to Perry’s anti-government rants with the teabaggers. Let’s see if I get this straight: Perry and the teabaggers don’t trust the government to write an insurance policy, but they do trust the government to lock a man in a cage for years, to strap that man down on a gurney, and fill his veins with poison – in the case of poor Mr. Willingham, for a crime he did not commit. I know a lot of principled conservatives who oppose the death penalty, based on their distrust of government. Perry, of course, is neither truly principled nor truly conservative. He is a small man, a moral coward, and a political opportunist of the worst sort. Thank you for calling this to my attention. There oughta be a law against hypocrisy such as Perry’s. It turns out there might be. Follow us on the jump for details on the statutes and guidelines Perry may have violated. § 1001. Statements or entries generally (a) Except as otherwise provided in this section, whoever, in any matter within the jurisdiction of the executive, legislative, or judicial branch of the Government of the United States, knowingly and willfully— (1) falsifies, conceals, or covers up by any trick, scheme, or device a material fact; (2) makes any materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent statement or representation; or (3) makes or uses any false writing or document knowing the same to contain any materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent statement or entry; shall be fined under this title, imprisoned not more than 5 years or, if the offense involves international or domestic terrorism (as defined in section 2331), imprisoned not more than 8 years, or both. If the matter relates to an offense under chapter 109A, 109B, 110, or 117, or section 1591, then the term of imprisonment imposed under this section shall be not more than 8 years. Doesn’t the language seem like it was written with Rick Perry in mind: “falsifies, conceals, or covers up by any trick, scheme, or device a material fact”? But there’s even more to it than that. Texas receives millions of dollars in crime-fighting money from the Coverdell Forensic Science Improvement Grants Program of the U.S. Justice Department. To receive that money, Texas had to create the Texas Forensic Science Commission. The applying and receiving agencies, including the governor, certify that an independent, external agency exists that will investigate “negligence or misconduct substantially affecting the integrity of forensic results.” Now, read this special note attached to the Justice Department’s application guidelines, because they specifically invoke U.S.C. 18.1001 cited above: Note: In making this certification, the certifying official is certifying that these requirements are satisfied not only with respect to the applicant itself but also with respect to each entity that will receive a portion of the grant amount. Certifying officials are advised that: (1) a false statement in the certification or in the grant application that it supports may be subject to criminal prosecution, including under 18 U.S.C. § 1001, and (2) Office of Justice Programs grants, including certifications provided in connection with such grants, are subject to review by the Office of Justice Programs and/or by the Department of Justice’s Office of the Inspector General. In other words, the United States Justice Department tells its Coverdell Grant recipients that they’d better have an independent forensics agency of the highest integrity, and they’d better not falsify, conceal, or cover up by any trick, scheme, or device a material fact. If firing three members of the commission and bringing to a screaming halt an investigation and hearing about the execution of an innocent man is not a trick to cover up material facts, nothing is. By the way, it won’t be a defense for Perry to claim the agency once was independent, or once had integrity. Justice expects those to be ongoing conditions, so to speak. Furthermore, the Office of Justice Program’s Standard Forms and Instructions specify that grant applicants must follow the granting agency’s rules and guidelines: 4. It will comply with all lawful requirements imposed by the awarding agency, specifically including any applicable regulations, such as 28 C.F.R. pts. 18, 22, 23, 30, 35, 38, 42, 61, and 63, and the award term in 2 C.F.R. § 175.15(b). The Coverdell requirements clearly state (in a pdf link found in the eligibility section, “2009 solicitation document”): A certification regarding external investigations into allegations of serious negligence or misconduct. Each applicant must submit a certification that “a government entity exists and an appropriate process is in place to conduct independent external investigations into allegations of serious negligence or misconduct substantially affecting the integrity of the forensic results committed by employees or contractors of any forensic laboratory system, medical examiner’s office, coroner’s office, law enforcement storage facility, or medical facility in the State that will receive a portion of the grant amount.” The Justice Departement and its Office of Inspector General regularly investigate Justice’s grant recipients. If they are not already investigating Perry’s attacks on state Forensic Science Commission, they soon will be. As noted yesterday, law enforcement agencies throughout Texas receive major grants from the Coverdell program, and all the grants are contingent on the federal government’s insistence that an independent investigating agency of the highest integrity be empowered to certify forensic labs and look into negligence and misconduct. Perry may have put that crime-fighting money in jeopardy. That in itself should be a crime. I am no lawyer, so I will have to leave it to Justice Department investigators to decide whether to pursue a criminal case against Perry. The law clearly prohibits acts of the sort Perry just committed. By destroying the independence and integrity of a critical law enforcement agency to conceal material facts, Perry did exactly what the law told him not to do. The laws are intended to clean up sloppy forensics work that leads to gross injustices. They are intended to guard against injustices committed by crime labs the Forensics Commission oversees. It is a peculiar circumstance when a governor subverts the functions of the watchdog agency itself. Once again, there’s nothing trivial about laws and guidelines intended to guard against the execution of the innocent and other injustices. In the end, we can only hope that justice, as they say, will prevail. Edited by Sydney Carton, Oct 8 2009, 04:21 PM.
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| Sydney Carton | Oct 19 2009, 03:11 PM Post #14 |
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The attorney who "defended" Willingham went on national tv to explain to the nation why his client was an absolute sob who deservwed every hour of agony that he suffered.But he made things even worse for himself,not the dead Willingham, by claiming to have conducted a forensic investigation bf his own which proved that his client was indubitably guilty. The "defense" attorney after fifteen years on the case proved that he is still incapable of reading,much less understanding the forensic evidence.He thinks all you do is look over the "crime" with a rolled eyeball to determine whether arson was committed. Other lawyers are now coming forth to condemn hiim for the hate filled ignoramous that he is.How could any appellate court rule that this man provided Willingham with a minimally adequate defense? http://www.wikio.com/video/1834399 Thanks to Steve Gilmore(yes,Steve's very much around) and Sea Hawk 2. |
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| Sydney Carton | Oct 26 2009, 05:24 PM Post #15 |
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Sea Hawk 2 sends in these further links: http://gritsforbreakfast.blogspot.com/2009/10/corsicana-sun-hyping-bogus-willingham.html More from Scott Cobb on David Martin: http://www.burntorangereport.com/diary/9489/lawyers-speaking-out-in-response-to-todd-willinghams-utterly-disgraceful-trial-attorney This information is very important as it finally puts to rest the spurious story about the "confession" which the prosecution has been floating behind the scenes for several years but which it has been impossible to verify on the web.In fact the "confession" whopper is one of the reasons that I was so late coming forward about this case.I was positively assured by a Texan from the area (who is,at worst, neutral to other Texas innocence cases such Rodney Reed and Darlie Routier) that I should stay out of the Willingham case because there had been a confession and the prosecution would spring it at an opportune time and make all the bleediing hearts look very foolish.So it's been sprung and is immediately proven,like so many of Nifong's long witheld "bombshells", to be a complete hoax. Link: http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editorials/la-ed-texas23-2009oct23,0,827956.story Cameron Todd Willingham: executed but innocent? He died in Texas' death chamber in 2004, even though the governor was aware of exculpatory evidence and is now apparently working to keep the truth from coming out. October 23, 2009 Even in Texas, where the death penalty is embraced with fervor, the revelation that the governor permitted an execution to proceed in 2004 despite abundant evidence that the prosecution was based on seriously flawed scientific methods -- well, that might not be helpful to his reelection chances. Not during a tough campaign. Otherwise Outrage continues to build over Governor Parry's cowardly conduct.Here is an editorial from the Los Angeles Times: So Gov. Rick Perry's sudden decision to reconfigure the Texas Forensic Science Commission looks highly suspicious. Two days before the commission was scheduled to hear testimony from an arson expert whose scathing report gave every reason to believe Texas had wrongly convicted Cameron Todd Willingham of setting the fire that killed his three children, Perry replaced the chairman and two other members. Apparently he remembered that their terms had expired in August. The pesky hearing was canceled. It has not been rescheduled. The report by arson expert Craig Beyler -- whose findings corroborated those of at least one otherexpert -- is damning. Beyler concluded that the arson investigators in the Willingham case proceeded on mistaken assumptions, employed outdated methods and mixed courtroom testimony with mystical balderdash. No one should be executed because an investigator tells a jury that "the fire tells the story; I am just the interpreter." If Perry didn't know about the problems with the prosecution, he should have. A report challenging the arson investigators' methodology landed on his desk before Willingham's execution. Now it's unclear how the commission will proceed. Its course, however, was set by the Texas Legislature, which established the board to "investigate any allegation of professional negligence or misconduct that affects the integrity of results and make all completed investigation reports, and subsequent civil or criminal proceedings, available to the public." We'll be waiting for a completed investigation and a public report. Perry, who in recent days has called Willingham a "monster" who deserved to die and Beyler's report "propaganda," has had the nerve to paint himself as the victim of a politically motivated attempt to derail his reelection campaign. But he's wrong. His motives are being challenged because an innocent man may have been executed. Until Perry supports the commission's efforts and allows science to determine the truth, the likelihood remains that the real victim was Willingham. Edited by Sydney Carton, Oct 26 2009, 05:27 PM.
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9:15 AM Dec 4
