Could Texas Have Executed an Innocent Man?

I just watched At the Death House Door last night, so it's a little odd that this news would pop up today. It's always so bittersweet when you think about cases like this because on one hand, you want this man to be proven innocent so that we're that much closer to ening the death penalty, but on the other hand that means an innocent, grieving father was murdered.

In a withering critique, a nationally known fire scientist has told a state commission on forensics that Texas fire investigators had no basis to rule a deadly house fire was an arson -- a finding that led to the murder conviction and execution of Cameron Todd Willingham.

The finding comes in the first state-sanctioned review of an execution in Texas, home to the country's busiest death chamber. If the commission reaches the same conclusion, it could lead to the first-ever declaration by an official state body that an inmate was wrongly executed.

Indeed, the report concludes there was no evidence to determine that the December 1991 fire was even set, and it leaves open the possibility the blaze that killed three children was an accident and there was no crime at all -- the same findings found in a Chicago Tribune investigation of the case published in December 2004.

Willingham, the father of those children, was executed in February 2004. He protested his innocence to the end.

Cameron Todd Willingham case: Expert says fire for which father was executed was not arson -- chicagotribune.com

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