AUSTIN (April 14, 2011)—The Texas Forensic Science Commission said Thursday it is taking no immediate position on whether fire investigators were correct in their findings 20 years ago that led to the execution of a Central Texas man who some experts now say was innocent.
The New York-based Innocence Project, which focuses on wrongful conviction cases, maintains Cameron Todd Willingham of Corsicana was convicted with faulty evidence and was innocent when he was executed in 2004 in Huntsville for setting a fire in 1991 that killed his three young daughters.
The Texas Forensic Science Commission said Thursday it wouldn’t issue a finding until the state attorney general rules whether it has jurisdiction to do so.
The commission requested an attorney general’s opinion on Jan. 28.
Read The Request For An Attorney General’s Ruling
Fire expert Dr. Craig Beyler of the fire protection firm Hughes Associates, Inc., is one of the investigators who think faulty evidence sent Willingham to death row.
“In the Willingham case there were eyewitnesses early in the fire that contradicted the findings of the fire investigation,” he told the panel in January.
“They simply were not aware or chose to ignore the eyewitness testimony.
“That wasn’t OK then, that’s not OK now,” he said.
via Panel Takes No Position On Probe That Sent Area Man To Death Chamber.
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