# Executed child found to be innocent **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [December 18, 2014, 4:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/executed-child-found-to-be-innocent/707549 "2014-12-18T04:24:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 10
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2014, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/executed-child-found-to-be-innocent/707549/181 "2014-12-24T17:04:22Z")
You know, I used to go along with the idea that (except for lynchings in the Pre-war South, etc) no innocent man has been executed (in recent times) in the USA- that our series of checks and balances, appeals, etc has stopped that from happening. I agreed with Justice Antonin Scalia when he said that there isn’t “a single case — not one — in which it is clear that a person was executed for a crime he did not commit.” I mean, in general, the legal System is staffed by The Good Guys, and sure, there are bad apples, but there has always been Good Guys to fix what the few Bad Apples did. The system works. Or- worked. \*But then there’s Texas. _And a Governor wanting to be President. Who appointed the entire Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles. So Willingham was sacrificed to get Perry a better shot at the Oval Office. It wasn’t Justice-_ it was politics. \* As to that “confession”: > **[Fresh doubts over a Texas execution](https://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/national/2014/08/03/fresh-doubts-over-a-texas-execution/)** > > New evidence revives concerns that an innocent man was put to death in 2004. \*But now new evidence has revived questions about Willingham’s guilt: In taped interviews, Webb, who has previously both recanted and affirmed his testimony, gives his first detailed account of how he lied on the witness stand in return for efforts by the former prosecutor, John H. Jackson, to reduce Webb’s prison sentence for robbery and to arrange thousands of dollars in support from a wealthy Corsicana rancher… He [Jackson] had me believing 100 percent this dude was guilty — that’s why I testified,” Webb said. “The perks — they was willing to do anything to help me. No one has ever done that, so why wouldn’t I help them?” In fact, Webb said, Willingham “never told me nothing.”\* What’s worse- there never as a crime in the first place:\*By that time, several of the country’s top experts in fire forensics had debunked the indicators of arson and concluded the fire was an accident of unknown cause. \* ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2014, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/executed-child-found-to-be-innocent/707549/182 "2014-12-24T17:14:26Z")
Even if Willingham didn’t deliberately start the fire (which he probably did), he still murdered his children. He was guilty of murder and he deserved to die. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2014, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/executed-child-found-to-be-innocent/707549/183 "2014-12-24T17:25:20Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > Even if Willingham didn’t deliberately start the fire (which he probably did), he still murdered his children… If he didnt start the fire, it was a accident not arson, thus he didnt murder anyone. There was no crime. No one was murdered. There was no confession. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2014, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/executed-child-found-to-be-innocent/707549/184 "2014-12-24T17:27:48Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > If he didnt start the fire, it was a accident not arson, thus he didnt murder anyone. He deliberately allowed his children to die in a burning building and made no effort to save them, instead worrying about his car and his dart board, and was completely calm and collected except when he knew the police were watching. If he didn’t start the fire, then he took advantage of the accident to let events run the course he wanted them to run. He was a murderer either way. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2014, 11:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/executed-child-found-to-be-innocent/707549/185 "2014-12-25T11:18:36Z")
Smapti, did you read anything about the case? That’s an argument that nobody has made before, and that doesn’t fit the facts of the case at all. Willingham was first seen by other people during the fire with soot all over him and his hair and eyebrows singed. He was screaming about his two children still being in the house. (The third child was pulled out but died of smoke inhalation.) He tried to break into the children’s bedroom but was forced out by the fire. The firemen had to handcuff him to stop him from trying again to get into the house, since they knew that he would die in the attempt to get his two children. He was hysterical during all this time. Nobody has argued that Willingham let a fire that accidentally started kill his children. I don’t even think that you could get a conviction on first-degree murder if something like that actually happened. I’m not sure you could get any conviction at all. It’s not even clear to me that failing to enter a house to rescue someone if the fire was not yet deadly enough to kill someone at that point would be a crime. It is, in any case, not something that anybody else but you has claimed. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2014, 1:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/executed-child-found-to-be-innocent/707549/186 "2014-12-25T13:08:48Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > He deliberately allowed his children to die in a burning building and made no effort to save them, instead worrying about his car and his dart board, and was completely calm and collected except when he knew the police were watching. From what where did you pull _this_ crap? What is your source? ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2014, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/executed-child-found-to-be-innocent/707549/187 "2014-12-25T16:00:29Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > He deliberately allowed his children to die in a burning building and made no effort to save them, instead worrying about his car and his dart board, and was completely calm and collected except when he knew the police were watching. > > If he didn’t start the fire, then he took advantage of the accident to let events run the course he wanted them to run. He was a murderer either way. Why do you say these kinds of things that have no basis in fact whatsoever? What do you gain by making things up in threads like these? ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2014, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/executed-child-found-to-be-innocent/707549/188 "2014-12-25T16:13:32Z")
This is, unfortunately, a **Smapti** thing. “He was convicted, so he’s guilty. Of SOMETHING! Even if it’s something that I have to rig together out of baling wire and chewing gum…” He’s so afraid of the possibility of the judicial system being fallible that he has to fantasize things to fanwank the problems. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2014, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/executed-child-found-to-be-innocent/707549/189 "2014-12-25T16:14:34Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > Why do you say these kinds of things that have no basis in fact whatsoever? What do you gain by making things up in threads like these? [Ahem;](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cameron_Todd_Willingham) > [@](#): > > As the fire took hold, Willingham was driven out through the front door of his house, where he crouched down near the entrance. On seeing neighbor Diane Barbee, Willingham began to shout at her to call 911, shouting “My babies are in there!”[[6](http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/death-by-fire/documents/police-statements-in-trial.html)] At trial, Willingham’s conduct at the scene was described as oscillating between collected and hysterical - at times screaming for assistance, and at other times calmly pushing his car back from the flames that were engulfing his house. > > According to their sworn statements, both Brandice Barbee and Diane Barbee urged Willingham to return into the house to rescue his children, as according to Brandice Barbee, “all I could see was smoke”. According to Brandice, he refused, and went to move his car away from the fire before returning to sit on a nearby lawn “not once attempting to go inside to rescue his children”. Once the fire had reached flashover and the fire department arrived, Willingham became far more agitated, to the point of being restrained by emergency services. > > In the following days, Willingham would return to the house with some family and friends, this gathering being described by neighbors as having an odd levity, which was seen to turn sombre on the arrival of authorities.[[16](http://www.innocenceproject.org/docs/Willingham_Transcript/Willinghamv12.pdf)] On returning to the scene of the fire with fireman Ron Franks, in an effort to recover personal property (which was described as a very usual request at trial), Willingham was visibly dismayed to be unable to find a dart set. At a local bar, where a fundraiser was held for the Willingham family, he placed an order for a replacement set, stating that “money was not a problem now”. And from the WaPo article above; > [@](#): > > Willingham, who liked heavy metal music and wore his hair in a thick black mullet, was seen laughing and drinking beer after the funeral for the girls and overheard complaining that his dart board was missing after the fire. At least one witness told authorities she told Willingham to try to rescue the girls, but instead he moved his car away from the blaze. I know it fits your narrative to pretend that there was absolutely no evidence that Willingham did anything wrong and he was only convicted because stupid Texans don’t understand science and think listening to Iron Maiden makes you worship the devil, but the real world doesn’t always conform to what we want to believe. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2014, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/executed-child-found-to-be-innocent/707549/190 "2014-12-25T16:33:56Z")
“Ahem”, _hell_. For what possible reason did you refrain from providing that link when you originally made post #184? Why did you wait until you received angry reactions to pull your stupid little “gotcha”? ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2014, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/executed-child-found-to-be-innocent/707549/191 "2014-12-25T16:45:22Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > [Ahem;](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cameron_Todd_Willingham) The assertion you made does not come close to jiving with the entirety of the article. But thank you for, at least, providing some citation. In the future, unless you’re actually trying to play gotcha games, it would be helpful to actually provide the supporting evidence at the same time as you make an assertion. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2014, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/executed-child-found-to-be-innocent/707549/192 "2014-12-25T16:59:13Z")
I don’t get why his behaviour, even if erratic, means he should be killed. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2014, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/executed-child-found-to-be-innocent/707549/193 "2014-12-25T17:13:27Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > The assertion you made does not come close to jiving with the entirety of the article. But thank you for, at least, providing some citation. In the future, unless you’re actually trying to play gotcha games, it would be helpful to actually provide the supporting evidence at the same time as you make an assertion. Exactly. If you want to make an inflammatory statement like, say, “Webb’s testimony about the confession was a lie”, you should [back it up with a link that provides documentation that shows just that.](https://www.themarshallproject.org/2014/08/03/did-texas-execute-an-innocent-man-willingham/) ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2014, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/executed-child-found-to-be-innocent/707549/194 "2014-12-25T17:40:15Z")
**Smapti** seems to be much, much more bothered by the prospect of someone doing something wrong and not getting killed then someone not doing something wrong and getting killed. I’m much more bothered by the second situation. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2014, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/executed-child-found-to-be-innocent/707549/195 "2014-12-25T17:42:38Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > I don’t get why his behaviour, even if erratic, means he should be killed. His behavior marks him as a killer. He fled the house long before the fire became dangerous and had no symptoms of smoke inhalation. He acted calm until he realized he was being observed. He was more interested in protecting his car than going back inside, even when being urged to. As soon as other people showed up who could have intervened, he deliberately broke a window, providing more oxygen to feed the fire. He became “hysterical” and started trying to get back in only when firefighters arrived. In the days that followed, he continued to only act bereaved when police were watching. He muttered over the body of his oldest, who had been sleeping in his bedroom, away from where the fire started, that she wasn’t “the one who was supposed to die”. He admitted to having poured flammable cologne on the floor outside the twins’ bedroom and came up with a cockamamie story about having done it after the fire. He killed his daughters, and his behavior is far more damning proof of that than anything else. ---
**Author:** ![Gilgaflesh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/f05b48/32.png) [@Gilgaflesh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gilgaflesh)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2014, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/executed-child-found-to-be-innocent/707549/196 "2014-12-25T18:26:15Z")
IC this thread moved on from the death penalty to the question of guilt of a single person, but I just wanted to add an original opinion. Namely that I don’t get why the death penalty is abhorred. I don’t get why it is even remotely worse than being locked up in a filthy concrete torture-chamber for the remainder of your life while a society of maniacs will force you to become as they are (if you aren’t already). And that’s not mentioning sadistic guards or raping. Perhaps it’s because I’ve been ill in my past and know there are worse things than death. I don’t seek it, but I don’t fear it either. And I just don’t get the fuss. Once you are already willing to inflict the horrors of the American prison system on someone for the remainder of their life, why is this a step too far? I _especially_ don’t get why suicidal prisoners are hindered in their actions. If they appear to be sincere, why the hell would you force them to remain alive? What is the moral objection if they actually WANT it voluntarily? Infringing on someone’s right to death seems to me as immoral as infringing on their right to live. ---
**Author:** ![IvoryTowerDenizen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ivorytowerdenizen/32/17937_2.png) [@IvoryTowerDenizen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IvoryTowerDenizen)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2014, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/executed-child-found-to-be-innocent/707549/197 "2014-12-25T18:28:58Z")
The death penalty is irrevocable. If an error is found the convict can be released and an attempt to compensate him for lost time can be attempted. If the death penalty is implemented and an error is found there is nothing you can do to even attempt to compensate the victim. However, even in a perfect system I’d be opposed to the death penalty. Incarceration shoukd keep even a hope of redemption for the person. Even if they live their lives in jail they have the chance to change their lives around. If you kill them you’ve removed any hope of reclaiming their humanity. The choice is not death or squalor. The prison system such be fair and humane. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2014, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/executed-child-found-to-be-innocent/707549/198 "2014-12-25T18:34:57Z")
> [@IvoryTowerDenizen](#): > > The death penalty is irrevocable. If an error is found the convict can be released and an attempt to compensate him for lost time can be attempted. If the death penalty is implemented and an error is found there is nothing you can do to even attempt to compensate the victim. If an innocent person were to be executed, it would be a tragic mistake. But the fact that mistakes happen doesn’t mean throwing the baby out with the bathwater; instead, it provides a teachable lesson through which we can improve the system and prevent such mistakes from happening in the future. The purpose of justice is to punish the guilty; if we allow ourselves to be paralyzed by fear and refuse to give the guilty the justice they deserve, then the system has failed. > [@](#): > > However, even in a perfect system I’d be opposed to the death penalty. Incarceration shoukd keep even a hope of redemption for the person. Even if they live their lives in jail they have the chance to change their lives around. If you kill them you’ve removed any hope of reclaiming their humanity. “Reclaiming their humanity” is not a privilege that murderers and other scum of their ilk are entitled to. It’s certainly not one they granted their victims, and I don’t see why the guilty deserve to be treated better than the innocent. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2014, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/executed-child-found-to-be-innocent/707549/199 "2014-12-25T18:41:11Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > If an innocent person were to be executed, it would be a tragic mistake. But the fact that mistakes happen doesn’t mean throwing the baby out with the bathwater; instead, it provides a teachable lesson through which we can improve the system and prevent such mistakes from happening in the future. But if the system(and you) do not acknowledge that mistakes have been made and that innocent people have been unjustly executed, how will the system be improved and how will the mistakes _that you refuse to acknowledge_ be prevented from happening in the future? ---
**Author:** ![IvoryTowerDenizen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ivorytowerdenizen/32/17937_2.png) [@IvoryTowerDenizen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IvoryTowerDenizen)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2014, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/executed-child-found-to-be-innocent/707549/200 "2014-12-25T18:43:54Z")
Justice != vengeance. The legal system should mimic the best of our ideals, not lower ourselves to the worst. The victims aren’t owed anyone’s life. They are entitled to justice. The death penalty serves nothing not achieved by life in prison to that end. The risk of executing one innocent person is reason enough to not have it. We shouldn’t have to learn lessons on the backs of innocent people’s lives. I value all individual human worth too much for that. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/executed-child-found-to-be-innocent/707549.md?page=9) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/executed-child-found-to-be-innocent/707549.md?page=11)