I agree with you and it’s precisely why the work of Beyler and the Texas Forensic Science Commission is so important. Expert testimony is usually devastating to a defense because juries believe that experts know what they’re talking about. It’s imperative they actually do and that when their conclusions are not based on actual science, it’s presented as such.
In fact, the psychiatrist that testified that Willingham was an extremely severe sociopath who would kill again was the infamous Dr. Death (James Grigson), who made that determination without even seeing Willingham. Grigson made the same damning testimony against Randall Dale McAdams, who was convicted and later exonerated of the killing of a Dallas police officer. Grigson was later expelled from the American Psychiatric Association and the Texas Society of Psychiatric Physicians for ethics violations relating to his “expert” testimony. Yet, Grigson, as a professional, was presented as an expert and the jury had no reason at the time to place any doubt on his testimony. However, given the evidence of Grigson’s lack of ethics and his unreliable expertise, we can reasonably question the expert testimony of the discredited psychiatrist that helped put Willingham away.
See, this being Texas and all, what I don’t get is that, though he was poor, Willingham was both white and not crazy/retarded, yet he still drew the short straw. Whyzzat?
Just came across another interesting article by one of the former prosecutors on the case, who is now a judge: Willingham guilt never in doubt. He cites evidence other than the arson as proof of Willingham’s guilt, concluding with:
So the guy thinks the jury still would have found Willingham guilty of killing his children even if there was no evidence at all that he intentionally set the fire that killed them? I don’t think that comes across as a positive for the prosecutor!
The article paints Willingham as an even bigger dirtbag than we already knew, but again, that doesn’t prove he killed his kids, and it doesn’t prove the fire investigators knew what they were doing. Jackson’s article actually would have been stronger without a few of his points:
It’s ludicrous that Jackson uses Willingham’s refusal to plead guilty as proof that he was guilty. [4] That’s rather scary logic, in fact. The McDonald Triad, I thought, has long been discredited even though it lives on in police procedurals on TV. [5] Willingham’s remark to his daughter could mean he was supposed to die, not her. [6]
The points about Willingham’s minor burns [2] and lack of smoke inhalation [3] is interesting, but Jackson does not say why these indicate Willingham is guilty rather than just showing he ran out of the house when he saw the fire. In the New Yorker story, Willingham confessed to his parents that he did not run into the fire in his children’s bedroom, despite his initial statement to police that he did so. They’re more convincing if you start from the conclusion that he killed the kids and then work backward. And the New Yorker article says there were two refrigerators in the kitchen. One blocked the door, but the other was where it should be. That’s less suspicious than a statement implying there was only one fridge and it was, for some reason, blocking an exit. [7]
Quoted for truth. Do you really want a prosecutor who says “these children were killed in a fire–but even without any evidence the defendant started the fire, we’d still charge him with murder?” Or, much more dangerous–he’s now a judge. This is the person an innocent defendant is going to rely on as a neutral decision-maker–someone who has the power to send people to prison, or (presumably–I don’t know what kind of judge he is) to death, if he finds them guilty. Don’t you see the risk in a judge holding that attitude?
Also, let’s remember what the prosecutor is facing. If Willingham is innocent, he goes down in history as the prosecutor who sent an innocent person to the death chamber. That would give him a pretty strong incentive to favor the conclusion that he was guilty–and if the judge is prosecution-biased rather than neutral, what hope does an innocent defendant have? Do you think the prosecutor is really objectively analyzing the case, or do you think he’s being so strong because the alternative if he’s wrong, is that he is ruined both as a prosecutor and as a moral person?
Max Torque, if you’re worried about a little bias in the New Yorker article (done to make the story more interesting), shouldn’t you also be concerned about the enormous possibility that the prosecutor is biased in his evaluation of the case because he doesn’t want to go down in history as the person who executed an innocent man?
But looking at the actual evidence he cites, you can see it amounts to very nearly nothing.
This is probably the most damning piece of evidence. But:
A. It does nothing to establish anything about whether a crime was committed. It indicates that there might be a motive, but nothing more. Again: it indicates (not “shows”) that there might be some motive or other.
B. It’s a leap anyway to assume he wanted to kill the kids since he tried to cause them to miscarry before they were born. How much time was there between the two instances? What relationship did he have with the kids after they were born? The incompetent defense lawyers only called one witness during the defense, so who can know?
Well, burns is burns. The prosecutor is speculating about their source. There’s nothing here.
There are witness statements–not given during trial, because of the incompetent defense–describing how he had to be physically restrained from going in to try to rescue the kids.
Also, maybe he held his breath?
How is this supposed to be evidence of anything? If I was accused of killing my kids, my response to any and all investigative questions might well be “fuck you” as well. Someone in this situation does not behave rationally. Moreover someone with a criminal history like this likely is very mistrustful of police and prosecutors, and may well suspect a trick.
Also, polygraphs? Really? They don’t work.
This is not evidence of any kind concerning the question whether a crime was committed on the night in question.
I’d be interested to know how many witnesses said this and how independent their testimony was. There was already a huge tendency for people to presume him guilty, and it is well known that this can have a huge effect on witnesses perceptions and memories. But even assuming he really did say that, the statement is open to interpretation. He didn’t say “You’re not the one I was supposed to kill.” If I had a favorite among my kids–indeed fantasized frequently about the death of my least favored–and my favorite died, I might think something like “You weren’t the one who was supposed to die” without it ever having entered my mind to actually kill anyone.
But wasn’t it supposed to be that he was trying to kill a couple of infants? I assume there’s no question of their escaping through any door, front or back.
Plus the fact that there’s no evidence (as it is now understood) that there was any plan to cause the flames to focus around the front of the house.
This takes the cake. A refusal to plead guilty is taken as evidence of guilt. It rolls the eyes, it does.
The prosecutor claimed that the above points establish guilt independently of the fire evidence, but that’s ridiculous. As I’ve explained, the evidence hardly manages to even suggest guilt, much less establish it. This prosecutor is in denial.
Lord God, Jim Bob, this guy is a judge? Oh, wait, Texas. Forgot that part. TG, IANAL, but it wouldn’t take but one season of *Perry Mason * to see his self-serving bloviation is utter bullshit. To witless:
So far as I know, telepathy is not admissable, even in Texas. If he has clear evidence that the point of the abuse was miscarriage, let him bring it forth, otherwise, we may reasonably assume the point of the spousal abuse was just that, spousal abuse. Disgusting, certainly, but murderous?
“Suggest”? Since when is “suggest” evidence?
If the flames had kept in from entering the house, he wouldn’t have inhaled any smoke. Duh.
Whoa, big horse. If polygraph evidence isn’t admissable, why would we think it would serve to eliminate suspicion? And what is the point of the additional spin control about “vulgar and insulting”, save to paint the suspect in an unflattering light with surmise?
He knows as much about “sociopaths” as I know about quantum physics. I may know more about quantum physics than he knows about sociopaths, given the incompetence of his expert witness.
“Whispered”? Fucking “whispered”? How in the name of Bleeding Og can anyone reliably testify to something “whispered”? Does the concept of “hearsay” have no traction in Texas?
As any evidence been offered to connect the moving of the refrigerator to suspicious timing? Was it moved that day? And “any escape route”? Were all the doors blocked? Of course not, Willingham got out. This buggers all common sense.
Perhaps the poor damned fool thought his innocence would prevail? Perhaps he insanely believed that the truth would set him free. And again, note the extra added spin sauce: “potentially violent” means what, exactly? That nothing happened, but it might have?
The deceased was not a very good man. But he’s not going to get any better now.
In my own post I didn’t comment about the hearsay aspect of this because I thought that self-incriminating statements were admissible even when they are hearsay. But the wikipedia article on hearsay in US law seems to indicate that they are admissible only when the person making the self-incriminating statements isn’t available. So now I’m confused.
OK, let’s take a look. Remember that the state’s obligation is to prove that Willingham set the fire and the deaths were a result. If the fire was an accident, but Willingham had wanted his family dead and danced in celebration on the front lawn following their accidental deaths, he is not guilty of murder.
Absolutely not relevant to the issue of arson. If Willingham did attempt to cause miscarriages, he’s a fucking bastard. but this piece of evidence invites the redare to conclude that because he’s a bad guy, he must be an arsonist.
“Suggest?” It may also be that he didn’t try too hard to save his kids. That doesn’t bear on whether he started the fire.
Again, it may be that he didn’t try too hard to save his kids. That doesn’t bear on whether he started the fire.
Shocking that a man who was being falsely accused by “science” would be skeptical of another pseudo-scientific technique. And of what relevance is it that his rejection was vulgar and insulting? Once again, the message is clear: he’s not a good guy; he’s an asshole. But that has nothing to do with his guilt on the accusation of murder by arson.
AGAIN. Do I even need to say it?
This is marginally relevant. It certainly doesn’t establish his guilt.
And did the evidence establish how long it was there, and who put it there?
Come on. That summary is a joke. Those pieces of evidence, even if completely accepted as true by the jury, do not create a record upon which guilt can rest, as a matter of law. In other words, if someone was accused of murder, and the only facts adduced were those listed above, the judge would direct a verdict of not guilty. No reasonable jury could convict on such a record, as a matter of law.
IANAL, but here are some thoughts on the hearsay question, following what Bricker pointed out (I’m working in a purely hypothetical mode-- this case would have been under texas law, which I don’t know anything about):
(1) “not available” includes being privileged from testifying–for example, a criminal defendant taking the fifth/refusing to testify. So technically, he could be in the room and still, legally, unavailable.
(2) the real exception (really, an exclusion–under the federal rules, it’s not hearsay) is for a party-opponent. In simple terms, if the other side in court has said something, you can use it against them even if they’re unwilling to testify/repeat the statement in court.
(3) The exception for statements against interest (i.e. self-incriminating) is most commonly used when A is making a statement about B, and the statement is being introduced against A–the theory is that since A’s statement is self-incriminatory, he’s not likely to have made it if it were false.
Not just that they would charge him - which is bad enough - but the fact that he still said a jury would have convicted him of deliberately setting a fire to kill his children even if there was no evidence he set the fire. That says a lot about this situation: like I said earlier, a lot of these people who end up on death row due to errors (or police dishonesty or torture) really are criminals and losers who have been in jail before. They’re not sympathetic to jurors or to most other people, and so even in a thread like this you get the uncomfortable effect of defending a wifebeating jerk by saying “well, yeah, he hit her while he was pregnant, BUT…”
And the systemic problem is that this is a factor in how the death penalty is pusued. It’s easier to go after guys like Todd Willingham who are already losers and lousy people, and on top of that, don’t have money to hire a halfway decent lawyer.
I can’t see how this is relevant, given the evidence that this supposition is incorrect. The fire marshal’s own diagram of the house indicates that there was only one bedroom for all three children with three beds (one bed and two cribs) and a child gate blocking the door to the children’s bedroom. If the intent was to kill the twins, but not the older child, setting fire to the children’s bedroom in which all three children resided, does nothing to demonstrate that intent.
As well as “the one”, which seems to specify a single intended victim. Which “one”? And who in God’s name was supposed to cross-examine this crap sandwich? How long would it take a kid from a high-school law club to attack someone’s capacity to clearly interpret a “whisper”?
I thought I remembered that detail from the New Yorker piece. If all the kids were in the same room, this statement a flagrantly dishonest on Jackson’s part.
We can’t now substitute our judgement for that of the jury, except where the jury’s decision was clearly incredible. So for the purposes of this analysis, we should take everything in the record except the arson evidence in the best possible light for the state. even doing that, we can’t sustain a guilty verdict.
Well, now, I am not a lawyer. Thought about it, but my mom begged me not to disgrace the family name… Still, it appears that had I but opened the right box of Rice Krispies, I could have been a judge!
But seems to me that if the credibility of interpreting a “whisper” were not directly attacked, the question of competent counsel should be raised.
Well, I think at best it’s misleading. The diagram shows that the children’s room was occupied by all three children. Willingham’s testimony was that all three children were in the room prior to the fire; it’s unclear whether that particular testimony was questioned or presented as false. The body of the oldest child, however, was found in the master bedroom. How she got there is unclear and did not ever appear to be questioned or explained by any testimony. Further, photographic evidence showed there was no door to the children’s room, but there is testimony of a child’s gate having been in the doorway which was consumed in the fire.
The point is, there’s a lot of supposition going on here that either contradicts evidence or is left unbolstered by actual evidence.