Texas Governor Defends Shakeup of Commission



By JAMES C. McKINLEY Jr.
HOUSTON — Just before he was executed in 2004 for setting a fire that 
killed his three children, Cameron T. Willingham declared, “I am an 
innocent man convicted of a crime I did not commit.” Now his words 
seem to be echoing in the race for governor of Texas.

In what some opponents say looks like a political move and Gov. Rick 
Perry says was “business as usual,” the governor replaced the head of 
the Texas Forensic Science Commission and two other members on 
Wednesday, just 48 hours before the commission was to hear testimony 
from an arson expert who believes that Mr. Willingham was convicted 
on faulty testimony, a conclusion that has been supported by other 
experts in the field.

Mr. Perry’s decision to shake up the commission and put one of his 
political allies in charge has, at the least, delayed the inquiry 
into the Willingham case. While Mr. Perry says he has no political 
motive for the move, his opponents have called for the commission to 
finish its inquiry.

“If a mistake was made in this case, we need to know it,” Tom 
Schieffer, a Fort Worth businessman and a Democratic candidate for 
governor, said in a statement. “No one in public life should ever be 
afraid of the truth.”

Mr. Perry’s opponent in the Republican primary, Senator Kay Bailey 
Hutchison, also questioned what harm the hearing could do. “I am for 
the death penalty,” Ms. Hutchison told The Dallas Morning News, “but 
always with the absolute assurance that you have the ability to be 
sure, with the technology that we have, that a person is guilty.”

Mr. Perry denied Thursday that the changes he had made at the 
commission were intended to quash the investigation. At a news 
conference for his re-election campaign, he said, “Those individuals’ 
terms were up, so we’re replacing them.”

He said the commission was “going to take a look at any new 
information that anybody has,” adding that “to make a statement now 
that it was not arson is a little premature.”

The governor was in office when Mr. Willingham was executed on Feb. 
17, 2004. He denied the condemned man a reprieve even after a 
detailed report by an arson expert said the evidence that Mr. 
Willingham had set the fire was flimsy and inconclusive.

Last month, Mr. Perry expressed confidence that Mr. Willingham was 
guilty and played down reports casting doubt on the original 
investigation, calling the authors “supposed experts,” while making a 
quotes gesture with his fingers.

Mr. Perry, facing the primary challenge from Ms. Hutchison, has been 
working to shore up his support among conservatives, who usually 
decide the Republican primary here.

Mr. Willingham, an unemployed auto mechanic with a history of petty 
crime, was convicted of setting his house in Corsicana on fire in 
1991. His three small daughters died in the blaze, and he maintained 
right up to his death that he had tried to save them. The police 
doubted his story partly because his bare feet had not been burned.

Local arson investigators testified at his trial that, judging by the 
charring and fracture patterns of broken glass left by the blaze, 
someone had poured a flammable liquid under the children’s beds, 
along the hallway and out the front door. The jury took less than an 
hour to convict Mr. Willingham.

In 2004, however, Gerald L. Hurst, an Austin scientist and fire 
investigator working in Mr. Willingham’s behalf, reviewed the 
evidence and determined the investigators had relied on several 
outdated and discredited methods to reach their conclusions. Most of 
the evidence could be explained by an accidental fire, Dr. Hurst said.

That conclusion was confirmed six weeks ago by an independent arson 
expert hired by the Forensic Science Commission, which was created in 
2005 to investigate mistakes in crime laboratories after scandals 
rocked the one in Houston. The expert, Craig L. Beyler, of Baltimore, 
said in his August report that “the investigators had a poor 
understanding of fire science” and that the evidence they cited did 
not support a finding of arson.

Mr. Beyler was to testify before the commission in Dallas on Friday. 
But the newly appointed chairman, John M. Bradley, the district 
attorney in Williamson County, canceled the hearing, saying he did 
not know enough about the inquiry. “I felt I had been asked to take a 
final exam without having an opportunity to study for it,” he said.

Mr. Bradley said he did not know if he would continue the inquiry 
into the Willingham conviction that his predecessor had started. He 
said he wanted to consult with the lawmakers who created the 
commission about its mission.

The former chairman, Sam Bassett, an Austin lawyer whom Mr. Perry had 
twice appointed to the commission — and could have reappointed — said 
the governor had not told him why he was replaced. Mr. Bassett said 
he had hoped to produce a definitive report on the case by next spring.

“I hope they continue and complete the Willingham investigation,” he 
said. “It’s important for the future of criminal justice in Texas to 
make sure good science is being used in the courtroom.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/02/us/02texas.html?partner=rss&emc=rss