Texas may have executed innocent man Cameron Todd Willingham

Texas may have executed innocent man
By Daniel Tencer

Published: August 26, 2009



A 1991 house fire in Corsicana, Texas, that sent three infant girls to their deaths and their father to the execution chamber was incorrectly ruled an arson, and may have in fact been accidental, says a report from a top fire scientist.

The report from renowned fire expert Craig Beyler, requested by the Texas Forensic Science Commission, casts doubt on death penalty supporters’ insistence that there are sufficient safeguards to prevent the innocent from being put to death. It will also likely raise new calls for the abolition of the death penalty.

The state of Texas executed Cameron Todd Willingham by lethal injection on February 17, 2004, for the deaths of his daughters Amber, 2, and twins Karmon and Kameron, aged one. Willingham protested his innocence to the end.

If the Texas Forensic Science Commission accepts Beyler’s findings, “it could lead to the first-ever declaration by an official state body that an inmate was wrongly executed,” reports the Chicago Tribune.
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