He's Innocent? Kill Him Anyway!

I never thought there could be a worse Governor of Texas than our former President, George W Bush, but Rick Perry is right there. Governor "Goodhair", as the late, great Molly Ivins referred to him, in between kowtowing to nuts with secession talk, gets to whack a bunch of criminals. Texas, never shy about ridding itself of convicted killers with lousy defense lawyers, is in a bit of a moral pickle. Oh. I'm sure few in Texas give a damn, but Governor Rick Perry may have allowed one Cameron Todd Willingham, convicted of burning his own house down and killing his three toddler daughters, to be executed when evidence of his possible innocence was sitting on his desk. Wow, too bad for that guy, huh?

Cameron Willingham was a criminal. He had a history of minor offenses and was accused of beating his wife. He was no choirboy, that's for sure. But those crimes don't garner the needle, at least in the United States. On December 23, 1991, Willingham's house burned down and his 2 year old and twin one year old daughters perished. Willingham, burned himself, was arrested and tried for capital murder. Turning down a life sentence, he went to trial, was convicted and sent to death row.

February 14th, 2004 came and Perry was asked to postpone the execution, scheduled for February 17th, because new forensic evidence had been discovered. Perry said no. On the date of the execution, at 4:52 PM, a five page fax was received by Perry's office arguing that an arson expert had found shoddy investigation techniques had been used to convict. Nobody knows if Perry read the thing because at 6:20 PM, Willingham was executed after once again proclaiming his innocence.

Dr.Gerald Hurst was the forensic arson expert whose previous investigations had freed people from prison. In fact in October, 2004, 8 months after Willingham was killed, Dr. Hurst helped free another man from Texas' death row due to shoddy arson evidence. So this isn't some hired gun bopping from state to state for the money.

Perry isn't going to let this skunk stink if he can help it. When the Texas Forensic Science Commission, created to fix forensic problems, released a report criticizing the evidence in the Willingham case, Perry fired three of the members and replaced them with flunkies. The report was squashed. When Bush was in office, death penalty records were public. Perry says no.

I don't know if this guy was guilty or not. I do know that when you execute somebody, there is no redress of grievances. It is for this reason I have always opposed the death penalty. If one guy or gal goes down for a crime they didn't commit, it isn't worth it. And by the way, I have no problem with life without parole. That can be changed. Death cannot. Perry is a cynical, nasty, soulless bastard, just like his predecessor.

Want the whole story? Go to the Houston Chronicle.