I imagine a jury would find a failed lie detector test credible as well, but there’s a reason we don’t allow lie detector tests to be used as evidence: they’re unreliable. Relying on the testimony of convicted criminals, testimony that they benefit from giving, is extremely problematic.
The jury found the fire marshal’s “evidence” credible as well, despite the fact that science actually contradicts that evidence. How is it so hard to comprehend that witness testimony is the most easily corruptible “evidence” and, further, jailhouse snitch testimony is incentivized for the personal gain of the snitch?
Jailhouse snitch testimony is notoriously unreliable.
Texas lawyer here. I’ve been following this case with some interest. Over the years, I have come to oppose the death penalty (I was once strongly in favor of it).
This case is emblematic of TWO problems with the criminal justice system.
Death Penalty:
Why do things like this happen? Because some prosecutors (I say some, because many are excellent public servants) care more about closing the file than investigating why a person did NOT do it.
Prosecutors should (and do) have a greater burden than merely advocating their case. They should also make sure that the right person is tried. I’m not sure a lot of them care. They just want a check in the win column.
John Grisham’s excellent non-fiction account of someone who ALMOST got executed despite being 100% innocent called The Innocent Man is a must read. Even my right wing sister in law altered her views slightly after reading it. (FWIW- Barry Scheck, who is best known for defending a GUILTY man, is now doing God’s work!)
Jailhouse Witnesses:
These snitches should be barred from testifying unless they are actual fact witnesses to the crime itself. First, they are in freaking jail for a reason. Their credibility is already stained. Second, they are being “paid” for their testimony. The better the story, the more time you get off. Were I serving on a jury, I would give the witness zero credibility. Shohan makes a fair point when he says jurors can disagree and weigh the evidence, but I personally don’t trust the life of an innocent person in the hands of 12 people who “have so few opinions as to not be able to get out of jury duty.”
Jurors in Texas tend to believe the prosecutor. That can be a problem when he puts a disreputable person on the stand and lends his own credibility to that of the witness.
We need to get rid of jailhouse witnesses, and if not ban the death penalty, heavily modify it so that it is “safe, legal, and rare.”
I hope this case causes some soul-searching, not just for what the science is behind accusations of arson, but also for how the Texas system (and other states might share these features) seems designed to ignore the sort of late revelations as came in the hours before Willingham’s execution.
I wonder what role this will play in the upcoming Gubenatorial primary between Perry and Hutchison (essentially the general election in Texas). I doubt we will learn anything.
Didn’t we already go over this, like, three years ago? Way back then, I read the Innocence Project’s report and made the following observations:
And let’s not forget that this paragon of virtue, described by the New Yorker article as a thoughtful poet, used his last breath to tell his ex-wife, the woman whose children he had murdered, “I hope you rot in hell, bitch.” They conveniently left that out of the article, in favor of the “I’m going home to see my kids” type stuff.
Who is saying that he was a “paragon of virtue”? Apparently he hated his ex-wife, and loved his kids. That’s not uncommon, and very human. But if it were a capital offense to hate your ex-wife, then the death rows in Texas would be far more over-crowded.
If saying mean things is a capital offense, this board will be on death row soonest.
Which is why it’s important to realize that this thread has the benefit of a new forensic report, commissioned by the Texas Forensic Science Commission. This report came out last Tuesday. It explicitly concludes that there is no evidence of arson.
Let’s not forget the question of whether Willingham is or is not a good person, is or is not likeable, is or is not someone who likes his ex-wife, is not the question “did he kill his children.” It’s a lot easier to argue that someone was a bad person, and so “deserved it.” That’s why we have laws and courts–they ought to ensure only the guilty get punished, not the unsympathetic.
That is, unless you’re really arguing that we should start executing people who are unlikeable or unpleasant.
No, he wasn’t wrong, any more than more than I was wrong in 1997 when I said that Roger Maris hit the most home runs in a single season ever.
The jury found the testimony credible because the science backed it up. Standing on its own, it’s not remotely probable that the jury would have convicted – indeed, it’s possible that as a matter of law, the record would be insufficient to convict solely on that testimony.
You know that other jury verdicts have been shown to be definitively wrong, in death penalty cases, by subsequent DNA testing. Why is it so impossible to believe that there’s been a case where there was no DNA evidence, and the execution went off as planned, but the jury was wrong?
And this is relevant how?
Because under Texas law “But he *needed *killin’!” is an airtight defense.
This ignores the fact that, as I mentioned above, there is no scientific evidence of accelerant anywhere in the house other than at the threshold of the front door, despite the fact that they tested for it. As also, noted above, physical evidence may explain the presence of the accelerant on the front door threshold, but it doesn’t explain the lack of chemical evidence of accelerant at the unscientific, visually indicated “pour patterns.”
So, you don’t think you’d be just a little bit angry if you believed the mother of your dead children didn’t do everything in her power to try to stop your wrongful execution? It seems to me, if you were innocent, you might resent her insisting that you were guilty by the end.
This is similar to the testimony that Willingham was a sociopath who lacks a conscience because he didn’t display signs of remorse for his actions over their deaths due to the fact that . Well, if he was innocent why would he show remorse for his actions?
The important factor in this case is that it destroys the claim that there are so many protections in the system that it is effectively impossible for an innocent man to be actually executed. The system really is that unreliable. The risk of our killing an innocent man is real.
The Illinois project a few years back convinced me of that, and turned me into an opponent of capital punishment even though I still think there is a proper place in morality for it.
Also, he had asked her to bury him next to their children and she refused (supposedly his parents cremated him and secretly spread his ashes on his children’s grave).
I think, frankly, that if I were about to die for a crime I didn’t commit, I’d likely be pretty mean and spiteful. Uh, more mean and spiteful.
I can’t believe a wifebeating dirtbag would say that kind of thing to a woman who left him. Well, now I’m satisfied the forensic objections are irrelevant. Knowing what a jerk he was right before he was executed, who even cares if he committed the crime he got killed for?
I’d like to say this is the stuff of nightmares, but I lived in Illinois, so I know this has happened many times. (I read the New Yorker article over the last two days.) Formal recognition would be only formal. The Innocence Project has exhonerated dozens of people from death row. That’s a volunteer organization, not a formal part of the appeals process, just people giving their time. Even if you’re already opposed to the death penalty, consider how fucked that is.
Yeah, I know that some people prefer charity to government action, but getting exonerated shouldn’t be left to charitable donations.
Talk about your understatements. It’s not really accurate to say it’s “broken”; it is wrong, always and everywhere. “Broken” tends to suggest that a condition of “not wrong, always and everywhere” could conceivably exist.
It can’t. Not a debatable proposition.