Texas governor won't release execution report



© 2009 The Associated Press

Oct. 11, 2009, 5:15PM

AUSTIN, Texas — Gov. Rick Perry's office is refusing to release 
information about how it reviewed an attorney's attempt to stop an 
execution based on an arson expert's report, arguing that staff 
comments and analyses of the report aren't public records.

The Houston Chronicle reported Sunday that it tried unsuccessfully to 
obtain documents that might show whether Perry reviewed or if his 
staff discussed the report. It was faxed to the governor just 88 
minutes before Cameron Todd Willingham was executed in February 2004.

The newspaper cited records it did obtain that showed Perry's office 
got the five-page faxed report at 4:52 p.m. on Feb. 17, 2004. The 
newspaper reported that it was unclear from the records whether Perry 
had read the arson report that day.

A statement from Perry spokesman Chris Cutrone, sent to the Chronicle 
late Friday, said that "given the brevity of (the) report and the 
general counsel's familiarity with all the other facts in the case, 
there was ample time for the general counsel to read and analyze the 
report and to brief the governor on its content."

Willingham, 36, was convicted of setting the fire that killed his 
three young children, 2-year-old Amber and 1-year-old twins Karmon 
and Kameron, on Dec. 23, 1991, in the family's Corsicana home.

Investigators with the Texas State Fire Marshal's Office ruled it an 
arson started by an accelerant. The report sent to Perry by Austin-
based arson expert Gerald Hurst, who holds a doctorate in chemistry 
from Cambridge University, said investigators "made errors" and 
relied on discredited techniques.

Willingham's attorney, Walter M. Reaves Jr., first alerted Perry 
about the new arson analysis three days before the execution and 
requested more time to develop it.

"There is nothing more I would like than to be able to present you 
with evidence of actual innocence," Reaves wrote Perry, according to 
a document released to the Chronicle. "I think we are close ... The 
death penalty whether you agree with it or not, should be reserved 
for the most serious crimes. More importantly, it should be reserved 
for those crimes about which there is no doubt about the guilt of the 
person."

Reaves later got word that Perry would not stop the execution and 
Willingham went to his death, at 6:20 p.m., proclaiming his innocence.

Summaries of gubernatorial reviews of execution cases previously were 
released as public records in Texas, most recently under former Gov. 
George W. Bush.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/tx/6662952.html