The Haunting of Rick Perry
By TA-NEHISI COATES
NYT
Should Gov. Rick Perry of Texas enter the 2012 presidential race, he would enjoy a strange and remarkable escort — the irrepressible ghost of Cameron Todd Willingham.
Charged with the horrific crime of intentionally torching his home and leaving his three daughters to the blaze, Willingham’s 1991 conviction and 2004 execution were secured by two great bugbears of America’s criminal justice system: pseudoscientific forensics and the compromised testimony of a jailhouse snitch.
The fire investigators who fingered Willingham relied on the kind of sorcery that fire scientists have tried for the past 20 years to chase from the field. The informant, for his part, claimed that Willingham had inexplicably blurted out a confession, then recanted his tale. Then, in the words of New Yorker reporter David Grann, he “recanted his recantation.” When Grann tracked him down in 2009, he told him that “it’s very possible I misunderstood” what Willingham said, pausing to add “the statute of limitations has run out on perjury, hasn’t it?”
Perry was unswayed by pleas from Willingham’s lawyers and rejected their request for a 30-day reprieve. This registers as a rather mild atrocity in Texas, a state that does not so much tinker with the machinery of death as it gleefully fumbles at the controls.
(More here.)
NYT
Should Gov. Rick Perry of Texas enter the 2012 presidential race, he would enjoy a strange and remarkable escort — the irrepressible ghost of Cameron Todd Willingham.
Charged with the horrific crime of intentionally torching his home and leaving his three daughters to the blaze, Willingham’s 1991 conviction and 2004 execution were secured by two great bugbears of America’s criminal justice system: pseudoscientific forensics and the compromised testimony of a jailhouse snitch.
The fire investigators who fingered Willingham relied on the kind of sorcery that fire scientists have tried for the past 20 years to chase from the field. The informant, for his part, claimed that Willingham had inexplicably blurted out a confession, then recanted his tale. Then, in the words of New Yorker reporter David Grann, he “recanted his recantation.” When Grann tracked him down in 2009, he told him that “it’s very possible I misunderstood” what Willingham said, pausing to add “the statute of limitations has run out on perjury, hasn’t it?”
Perry was unswayed by pleas from Willingham’s lawyers and rejected their request for a 30-day reprieve. This registers as a rather mild atrocity in Texas, a state that does not so much tinker with the machinery of death as it gleefully fumbles at the controls.
(More here.)
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