Williamson County District Attorney John Bradley, chairman of the Texas Forensic Science Commission, has scheduled a commission meeting for 9:30 a.m. Friday Jan. 29. But the commissioners won’t be meeting in Austin, Dallas, Houston or San Antonio – places where the commission previously has met, according to its Web site. As noted on its Web site, the commission’s Friday meeting will be held in the Rio Grande Valley at the Courtyard by Marriott in Harlingen. Bradley did not immediately return a telephone call seeking comment on the choice of meeting site. Gov. Rick Perry made headlines last year when he removed two commission members in late September – two days before the commission was scheduled to hear the findings of an arson expert who evaluated the methods and procedures used by fire investigators in the arson case against Cameron Todd Willingham. Appointed by Perry to chair the commission, Bradley’s first move was to cancel the commission’s Oct. 2, 2009, meeting with Craig Beyler, a fire protection engineer and arson expert. Beyler had concluded in a report that the commission released in August 2009 that the evidence did not sustain the finding of arson that led to Willingham’s capital murder conviction in 1992 and execution in 2004 for the deaths of his three young daughters. Perry had declined to grant Willingham a 30-day stay before his execution was carried out. Beyler is not on the Friday agenda. But the agenda does include a discussion and possible action on the creation of a general counsel position for the commission.
UPDATE: John Bradley, the Texas Forensic Science Commission’s chairman, says in an e-mail that the commission is meeting in Harlingen on Friday to afford diversity in meeting locations and to honor one of the newest commissioners, Dr. Norma Farley, chief forensic pathologist in Cameron and Hidalgo counties, who lives in the Rio Grande Valley. According to Bradley’s e-mail, another reason the meeting is scheduled in Harlingen is to allow state Sen. Juan Hinojosa, D-McAllen, to open the hearing.
-- Mary Alice Robbins
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