I’m curious why a conservative should, apparently, want to bend over backwards to defend the right of the state to take the life of an innocent man.
If the question were whether the state has the right to take his money in taxes, I would wager your argument would be different. But if it’s just his life, then go for it?
Does support for the death penalty trump support for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness?
Of course it’s debatable, but that’s what the other death penalty thread was for.
Well, sure. If you’re a despicable human being, that is. And if you’re poor and you get arrested for murder, well, that about nails it, doesn’t it?
:mad:
So, what, none of you actually read the articles linked in the OP? Here, let me help you by linking directly to the last page of the New Yorker article, which spends page after page lauding what a fine fellow Willingham was. If you’re too lazy to click it, the full text of the last page is:
Which is flat-out wrong. Let’s look at his actual last words, as recorded by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice:
You have to go elsewhere to confirm the “rot in hell, bitch” portion of the statement. You all seem to think that I’m bringing this up as evidence of guilt, which isn’t true. I believe it’s relevant to the discussion because the OP cited the article, and it’s irresponsible of the New Yorker to publish something that misleading, when it’s so easy to verify the truth. Indicates bias behind the reporting, don’tcha think?
Most of us have been discussing this guy’s actual innocence and death. Not the reporting standards of some magazine. If you think the latter is more important, you’re welcome. If you’re trying to deflect the topic away from something you find uncomfortable, it ain’t ever gonna work.
I’m curious, too. I wonder why someone would say this - it doesn’t make sense.
Good thing I never said it.
Regards,
Shodan
Perhaps. If that’s your problem, write a letter to The New Yorker. Plenty of people in this thread, myself included, have already said it doesn’t matter if he’s likable or not–and have been perfectly happy to assume that he’s not.
But the bigger issue is-- SO WHAT? Who cares what he said?
Let’s say he’s unlikeable. Let’s say he’s an awful person–did his last words go back in time and burn his house down? Should he be executed because he didn’t like his ex-wife?
Also, in my opinion, it’s probably reasonable to assume that at least some of the anger in his last words is caused by the fact that he’s about to be executed for a crime he didn’t commit, rather than his character.
I might also point out that if we’re nitpicking quotations, you seem to be taking the OP’s link to the New Yorker’s article out of context–as the OP doesn’t discuss if Willingham is a nice guy or not–it points out that he has been executed for a crime he didn’t commit. I’d also point out that you haven’t cited how you found out the portion removed from the texas DCJ website (but I’m happy to believe you on it).
Even so, so what if the author’s biased to make Willingham look more sympathetic? Does that bias change in any way the fact that even the arson investigator hired by the state of texas itself concluded that the fire was not started by arson? Doesn’t look like it.
New yorker writers aren’t perfect. Neither is the texas criminal court system. The only difference is that only one of those two executed an innocent man.
As I said in my previous post, I read them.
The New Yorker article does not “laud” Willingham. It describes him as an abusive spouse with a criminal record who was convicted of killing his kids in a fire based on highly dubious science. It says he suffered in jail, which I am sure is true. (Focusing on his poetry was unnecessary, but then again, that was only relevant regarding his state of mind, and it didn’t give me a better impression of him.) It’s the dubious evidence that is most important, his human decency is not the most important part of the story. The guy was a loser, which I imagine is true of a lot of people who end up in jail even on wrongful convictions because they make unsympathetic defendants.
If you want to get really technical about it, it’s true, but misleadingly phrased. It does not say his last words ended with “…so the Earth shall become my throne.” It says he was asked for his last words and responded with the quote that follows, which he did. It suggests he said nothing else, which is not true.
Which has nothing to do with the science that shows he apparently didn’t set the fire that killed his children. That science is backed up by the report linked in the OP.
So, what’s your point? If you throw out the arson evidence (which has been determined to have been scientifically unsupportable) and the jailhouse snitch testimony (which is self-serving, provided by a mentally unstable, medicated individual, and doesn’t correlate with forensic evidence*), then what evidence are you left with to come to the conclusion that Willingham was guilty beyond a shadow of a doubt?
Hey, I’m just explaining the last sentence of my first post, which was jumped on by a truckload of people. Cutting out his actual final sentence, I suppose, makes him seem more “Christian” to the reader and thus more sympathetic. I felt, and feel, that it should be pointed out that that just ain’t so.
Let’s talk about that next! Having read the OP’s articles, have you also read the actual Beyler report, rather than just stories about it? Took me a while to find a copy, and I’m still slogging through, but from what I’ve read so far, it’s not as damning as the articles would lead you to believe. The first third is basically a dry discussion of the history of arson investigation, and the final two-thirds discuss two arson cases, Willingham’s being the last. The discussion of Willingham’s case appears largely to be statements made by the original arson investigator, followed by Beyler’s assertions that “no basis was offered for this opinion.” I haven’t uncovered an archive of the original testimony (and I rather doubt I will), so there’s no way of knowing what’s being left out.
I must say, though, that I like the sketch by the original arson investigator, included at page 34 in Beyler’s report. I’m no expert, but Christ, that looks like a deliberately-set fire to me. Huge conflagration in the kids’ room, a path out into the hallway, which then turns directly toward the front door, rather than deeper into the house, where it burns down the front door and damages the concrete porch. Kinda strange, that.
I might even argue that the arguments we’re seeing in this thread are similar to those that actually led to the execution of an innocent man–I could easily believe that there were people in the Texas Criminal Justice System who ignored the report, or didn’t look much further into the issue because they thought “he’s a bad guy, so I’m not going to pay too much attention to this report,” or “that report just proves the forensics were bad, not that he was innocent.”
So are you arguing that because the story didn’t include the full quote, then it is unreliable? And by extension, the Texas Forensic Science Commission report is unreliable?
Quoted for irony. The whole point of the scientific analyses, why they’re so overwhelmingly important to those accused of arson, is that they show how you need to be an expert to analyze how fires develop–because things that look to an amateur (or someone going on “experience”) to be clear signs of arson (and who often testified to that effect) can, in fact, be scientifically demonstrated to be completely irrelevant. Hence, it shows that those “qualified” to testify about fire investigations often didn’t know what they were talking about–and that their testimony was often simply wrong–accusing people of arson when there was no evidence. That’s why such things need to be evaluated by experts, not by people who are “no expert,” but boy, does it look deliberate to them.
The best example is the “crazed glass”–which investigators often testified to be evidence of arson–until scientific tests by Beyler, Hurst, and others showed that they were in fact caused by firefighters pouring water on hot glass–in other words, were totally irrelevant to how the fire started.
Also, you mention damage to the concrete porch. I wonder if there is any innocent way to explain that…As you point out, one ought to read the articles carefully.
I mean, nobody would keep lighter fluid near a grill, right? They don’t need to actually use it, do they?
Also, the original investigator was, I’m sure, scrupulously honest about reporting that the lighter fluid was there (as one would expect) because it was associated with a grill?
Now THAT’s kinda strange.
I hadn’t. Everybody else can find a copy at this site. Click on “here,” not “Texas Forensic Science Commission.” It looks dry alright, and I know I should not reach conclusions on page two of a 63 page report, but I think you may be wrong about the “not so damning” part.
I think that’s quite damning.
See, this is exactly the problem. It does indeed sound that way, and that’s the conclusion the arson investigators came to - one that, according to the report, was unsound and poorly supported. I am sure the New Yorker reporter isn’t a fire investigator either, but he (through the expert, Hurst) presents an alternative theory that deserves consideration: the fire started in the children’s room, and moved to the doorway because Todd Willingham ran out the dooor, making the doorway the best source of oxygen.
I’ll have to try to finish this tomorrow, but it seems to me the author demolishes most of the types of evidence used in these arson investigations.
I am going into overkill with the quotes, but he is saying none of these types of evidence are proof of arson. And in this one he’s just flat-out sarcastic:
But see, there’s more suspicious stuff in that diagram than just the path taken by the fire. Assuming that the diagram is accurate (and Beyler’s report doesn’t appear to contest the accuracy of the diagram, only the conclusions drawn therefrom), it appears that the complained-of “puddle patterns” or “pour patterns” appear in the center of each burned area. That is, the fire did not appear to move to the edges of the room and climb walls, but rather focused its fury on the carpet, in the middle of the bedroom. It then proceeded to follow the carpet into the hallway, again burning most fiercely at some distance from the walls (which showed “low-char burn patterns”, indicating a floor-level fire), and made its way to the front door.
I admit, I am not a fire investigator. My father-in-law is (retired after more than 30 years as a fire chief), and when I next see him I’ll ask him about it, but it seems odd to me that a fire would direct itself at the center of the carpet, rather than toward walls.
whorfin: I did indeed read that bit. So, why complain about it now, since it’s plain that testimony about the location of the grill was given at the trial? It’s clear that the jury did get to hear about it and either disregarded the possibility that either the grill or the lighter fluid caused accidental collateral damage, or they felt that other evidence presented overwhelmingly demonstrated that Willingham had set the fire deliberately. As courts of appeals constantly remind us, the trial court is in the best position to evaluate the evidence presented to it.
Another thing about this report, and tell me if you disagree: the Beyler report appears to have been prepared based solely on the trial testimony and the included diagram. I can’t find any indication that Beyler actually reviewed any physical evidence from the crime scene, whether that be lab reports, photographs, or actual items from the fire. Instead, it appears that Beyler’s report is just a critique of the testimony and whether it is evident from that testimony that the arson investigators followed modern accepted scientific practices. Beyler doesn’t draw any new conclusions of his own about the evidence. Agree or disagree?
You think it’s suspicious. One of the most experienced experts in the field disagrees, and has the science to back it up. That’s the point of the report–that the “suspcious” stuff in the report wasn’t.
In other words, you only have a point here if you are right and Beyler is wrong about the way to interpret the physical evidence. Beyler is someone with well over 30 publications on fire science, and offers 66 citations to studies supporting his interpretation of the patterns observed. You, on the other hand, think it’s “suspicious stuff.”
Here, you understand what the report is doing–it is showing that the things the initial investigators thought were signs of arson are not.
If the physical evidence was not as the initial diagram appeared, that is another strike against the initial investigation–but that’s not the point. The point is that the facts used by the investigators to conclude the fire was arson were not, in fact, things that suggested arson.
Let me offer an analogy. Tomorrow morning, you leave home wearing a yankees cap, and the first person you see has a heart attack. You’re arrested, and are charged with capital murder. At trial, the prosecution puts on an ‘expert’ who presents a report, showing that you were wearing a hat, and that the victim had a heart attack. He then testifies that “hats cause passers-by to have heart attacks.”
The prosecution expert isn’t a doctor, and isn’t a milliner–he’s someone who has, however, seen a lot of crime scenes.
You, of course, want to put on a genuine medical doctor as an expert. Do you want him to try to argue you weren’t wearing a hat, or that the victim didn’t have a heart attack?
Of course not. First of all, you were wearing a hat, and the victim did have a heart attack. You want him to testify that hats don’t cause heart attacks.
Even if you weren’t wearing a hat, would you rather base your case on the argument that you didn’t have a hat on? You’d argue it, but you wouldn’t drop the argument you make in the first example–your best argument, what you really want to do, is to again disprove the core of the prosecution’s case–the ridiculous contention that hats cause heart attacks.
Back to the Beyler report, and your arguments about it.
Again, you only have a point here if the “puddle patterns” or “pour patterns” are signs of arson. Otherwise, all you’re saying here is “there are funny-looking patterns on the floor”–but there is no support for the conclusion that “funny looking patterns on the floor=arson.”
And to belabor a point, what you are doing with this paragraph is disagreeing with the conclusions in the Beyler report. Beyler concludes the evidence found is not evidence of arson. So in order to have a point here, we need to agree that he is wrong and you are right.
I spent a few minutes pulling examples of his conclusions from the report. He discusses the science behind them earlier on. This is not meant to be comprehensive–it’s just to show it’s easy to see from the report that he does not interpret the patterns observed as signs of arson.
Beyler discusses pour patterns at 47, 49,
the “low burn” at 48
and the pattern of the fire’s growth at 49
Here is another, very strong, reason not to conclude that you are right and Beyler is wrong. Seriously, again, do you not understand that Beyler does this for a living? He is methodical, scientific, and clearly sets out his reasoning and cites the justification for that reasoning?
To ask a genuine question: Why do you feel your opinion is not only good enough to compete with his about fire science, but to justify ignoring his opinion?
Again, this is the point of the report. Scientific analysis, carefully cited by Beyler, has concluded that while this may seem odd to a layman, it is not odd. It is not evidence of arson. And the fact that it seems odd to you is not a good enough reason to execute someone.
Well, I point this out because you are pointing to damage on the porch as evidence the fire was arson. There was testimony to this effect from the ‘expert’ in the Willingham trial.
However, as we later found out, a genuine expert can tell us that
So I complain that you’re citing it as evidence of arson, and again, your point is only valid if we decide to ignore an expert with more than thirty publications to agree with you.
Not true. It also used the initial reports from all investigators, Beyler’s experience, many publications by experts in the field. However, I don’t see what your point is.
Well, lab reports and photographs aren’t physical evidence. And I can’t find any proof he hasn’t. Presumably, the photos and lab reports were either in the formal reports or in the evidence presented to the jury (and hence reviewed).
Disagree. Beyler is doing nothing but drawing new conclusions of his own about the evidence, and the meaning thereof. He is not disagreeing that the physical evidence (say, burn marks), is as the reports say it is. If he didn’t, his job would be harder–he’d have to show the physical evidence was as he says it is, and then show that that is not evidence of arson.
Instead, Beyler accepts that the physical evidence (i.e. the actual burn marks) is as the reports contend. He then demonstrates that that physical evidence is not evidence of arson.
So it’s not in any way a point against his analysis that he’s not disagreeing with the physical evidence. He doesn’t need to–and his job would be harder if he had to prove the physical evidence was different. He proves that the physical evidence AS THE PROSECUTION SAYS IT IS isn’t evidence of arson. And that brings us back to my analogy.
Melting ceiling light maybe?
Anyway, not having gone through all of the official report myself I found the following:
Irrelevant. Drawing new conclusions as to how the fire did occur was not within the scope of what the Texas Forensic Science Commission tasked him to do. The mission of the TFSC is outlined here. Note:
In other words, the integrity of the Fire Marshal’s testimony was called into question based on junk science. The goal of the TFSC, which investigates allegations such as these, tasked Beyler to analyze the conclusions of the Fire Marshal and report as to whether those conclusions can be supported under scientific scrutiny.
As to “pour patterns” you keep mentioning, the Beyler report confirms that modern fire science indicates that those types of patterns can be created and obscured by radiant heat in absence of accelerants. Further, that if accelerant use is suspected that labratory analysis is to be employed to conclusively determine it’s presence and identity.
As mentioned above (yet you keep ignoring because it contradicts what you apparently want to believe), laboratory analysis of the entire house showed no chemical signature indicative of accelerant usage, except on the threshold of the front door right in front of the porch on which a grill and container of lighter fluid was found. In other words, scientific tests which should be used to confirm the hypothesis of the fire marshal that accelerant was used actually contradicted his hypothesis. Ergo, there is no evidence beyond the supposition of the unscientific opinion of the fire marshal. The Beyler report demonstrates in multiple instances that there is no scientific basis on which to base those conclusions that sent Mr. Willingham to the death chamber.
The fact that you remain unconvinced that the fire marshal’s testimony has been proven to be incorrect, is indicative of the weight which was likely given to his testimony by the lay jury. The jury was clearly misinformed and made their decision, likely in large part, based on the supposed expert testimony of the fire marshal.
ETA: I’m in the process of reading the report (it’s long), so my understanding of it is only as to the statements made in the press by those involved and investigating the case. It is, however, by any cursory look at it, damning indeed.
This is exactly why it’s so important, and why I’m debating this so strenuously. I’m not going after anyone–I’m trying to show that is a huge point here that can’t be emphasized enough.
Let’s just assume, hypothetically, that Bayler is correct–that things that look “suspicious” to a layperson are, in fact, not suspicious at all, and do not suggest arson. Then, tomorrow, there’s another fire, and a jury is faced with a report like Bayler’s, and a diagram and fire marshal testimony like that in willingham’s case.
If the jury in that case takes the view Max torque does, that “Bayler says the physical evidence is not evidence of arson, but it sure looks suspicious to me,” it will vote to execute an innocent person.
That’s why I’m trying to address the points raised–and why I really appreciate that Max torque is genuinely debating this, and is seriously considering the arguments others are making–for example, by deciding to talk to his father-in-law about the case–because this understanding of science (and that’s really what is at the heart of the debate) is something that, if people get it wrong, could easily lead to wrongful convictions.