From The Innocence Project:

Cameron Todd Willingham: An Innocent Man Executed in Texas — Cameron Todd Willingham was executed in Texas in 2004. Willingham was convicted of murder in 1992 after his three young daughters died in a fire at his Corsicana, Texas, home.

The prosecution claimed he intentionally set fire to his home in order to kill his own children. Willingham, who was asleep in the home when the fire started, always said he was innocent. He was convicted based on the testimony of forensic experts who said the fire was intentionally set and a jailhouse informant who said Willingham had confessed to him.

In the days leading up to Willingham’s execution, his attorneys sent the governor and the Board of Pardon and Parole a report from Gerald Hurst, a nationally recognized arson expert, saying that Willingham’s conviction was based on erroneous forensic analysis. Documents obtained by the Innocence Project show that state officials received that report but apparently did not act on it.

Months after Willingham was executed, the Chicago Tribune published an investigative report that raised questions about the forensic analysis. The Innocence Project assembled five of the nation’s leading independent arson experts to review the evidence in the case, and they issued a 48-page report finding that none of the scientific analysis used to convict Willingham was valid. [ READ MORE ]

An investigation into claims that faulty evidence led Texas to execute an innocent man in 2004 was at a “crucial point” when the state’s governor replaced three of its members. Gov. Rick Perry’s shake-up of the Texas Forensic Science Commission came two days before it was to hear from the author of a scathing report in the case of Cameron Todd Willingham. That Friday session has been postponed indefinitely in the wake of Perry’s new appointments, and critics of the governor accused him of trying to quash the Willingham probe.

Perry, who faces a Republican primary challenge in his bid for a third term next year, refused to issue a last-minute stay of execution for Willingham in 2004 and has said he remains confident that Willingham was guilty. So have authorities in Corsicana, south of Dallas, who prosecuted Willingham in his daughter’s deaths.

It is very evident that Rick Perry let an innocent man be put to death for political purposes — to please his Republican base of RACISTS, TEA-BAGGERS, and KILLER ARMED WHITE CHRISTIANS. [ READ MORE ] [ MORE ] [ TRIAL BY FIRE ]

Innocent Man Executed in Republican Gov. Rick Perry’s ‘The Hanging State‘ – TEXAS

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