The Texas Forensic Science Commission is not ready to make a final determination regarding the investigation of the 1991 fire that killed three young children and resulted in the execution of their father, Cameron Todd Willingham. Today, the commission voted unanimously to delay a decision but agreed to seek additional information about the standard of practice for Texas fire investigators in the early 1990s. The Legislature created the nine-member commission in 2005 to investigate allegations of negligence or misconduct that would substantially affect the integrity of the results of a forensic analysis conducted by an accredited laboratory, facility or entity. Controversy has surrounded the Forensic Science Commission since the fall of 2009, when Gov. Rick Perry replaced four commission members. Perry replaced two of those members two days before the commission was to review an arson expert’s report on the Willingham case. The state executed Willingham in 2004 after Perry declined to grant him a 30-day reprieve. Perry appointed Williamson County District Attorney John Bradley to chair the commission, and Bradley canceled the Oct. 2, 2009, meeting at which the commission had been scheduled to review the report prepared by Craig Beyler, a fire engineer and arson expert. Beyler found that the cause of the 1991 fire should have been listed as undetermined. Bradley said at today’s meeting that he has difficulty with trying to go back in time to try to come up with an “academic, theoretical standard.” Commission member Sarah Kerrigan, head of the Forensic Science Program at Sam Houston State University, said that “flawed science” was used in the Willingham investigation, but that does not constitute negligence or professional misconduct. The commission agreed to revisit the Willingham case before its quarterly meeting in October but did not set an exact date. The commission’s postponement of a decision in the Willingham case did not prevent fireworks at today’s meeting, however. Barry Scheck, co-director of The Innocence Project of New York City, which hadrequested the investigation in the Willingham case, got into a shouting match with Bradley when Bradley attempted to end Scheck’s comments to the commission. Scheck’s comments had extended past the three minutes each speaker was allowed during the public comments part of the meeting.
UPDATE: John Bradley, the Forensic Science Commission’s chairman, says a four-member investigative panel made up of commission members has concluded that there was no neglect or misconduct on the part of the arson investigators in the Cameron Todd Willingham case. “We found they had simply applied the science that existed at the time,” Bradley says. He says the commission agreed to a tentative process through which the investigative panel will begin writing a report that reflects its finding. But the commission will give parties in the case – including The Innocence Project, the Corsicana Fire Department, the State Fire Marshal’s Office and other experts -- an opportunity to comment, Bradley says.
-- Mary Alice Robbins
Comments