Posts Tagged ‘Texas’

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Solitary Confinement: Re-assessing, Re-evaluating, Re-thinking

Anne — July 27, 2012 @ 4:27 PM — Comments (1)

Note: This is the first of a three-part series on solitary confinement.

Dr. Craig Haney, the nation’s leading expert on inmate mental health, and a professor of psychology at the University of California at Santa Cruz, recently testified before a U. S. Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Human Rights on the effects of solitary confinement upon prisoners. Inmates in long-term confinement, according to Haney, suffer mental breakdowns from the lack of human contact that can lead to a multitude of mental, physical and emotional conditions, including psychosis, mutilations and suicide. Solitary confinement for most inmates, Haney testified, “precipitates a descent into madness” and can cause “profound, psychological damage.”

The increase in solitary confinement in the United States (since the late 1970s), according to statistics provided by Haney, is the result of the “confluence of three unfortunate trends”: mass imprisonment, the shift in responsibility for housing the mentally ill to the nation’s prison systems, and the abandonment of the notion of rehabilitation. Haney, who is also chair of UCSC’s Legal Studies program, estimated that 80,000 of the nation’s 2.3 million inmates in prisons and jails are in long-term solitary confinement. A great number of inmates have spent the majority of their prison sentences in solitary confinement, a legal and administrative practice that separates designated inmates from the prison’s general population.

Professor Haney was invited to testify by Subcommittee chairman Senator Richard “Dick” Durbin, D-Ill, at the first-ever hearing on the constitutional, fiscal, and public safety consequences of solitary confinement. Since 1971, Haney has conducted groundbreaking research into the effects of solitary confinement upon prisoners. His work has been cited in numerous scholarly journals and publications. Since 1971, he has been a leading proponent of mental health issues affecting prison inmates.  As a graduate student, he was one of the principal investigators in an academic undertaking that became known as the “Stanford Prison Experiment (SPE).” He and fellow researchers placed a group of psychologically healthy college students in a prison-like environment, randomly assigning half to the position of prison guards; the other participants were designated as prisoners.

The researchers in the SPE carefully monitored participants’ behavior during the designated period, eventually ending the experiment, however, upon their observation that the otherwise “psychologically healthy volunteers in the simulated prison [setting] rapidly deteriorated into mistreatment and emotional breakdowns.” Thus began Haney’s prolific research into the effects of solitary confinement upon prisoners who have been incarcerated for extended periods of time. Since the SPE, Haney’s work has extended into the effects of capital punishment as well. In 2011, his research was cited numerous times in the majority opinion when the United States Supreme Court upheld a ruling ordering California to release 46,000 prisoners in an effort to relieve the state’s overcrowded prisons.

While a great portion of Haney’s testimony before the Subcommittee centered upon the effects of solitary confinement, he also addressed the state of  prisons’ mental health workers, individuals who are assigned the task of treating inmates who have mental health issues.  Oftentimes the workers are (themselves) stressed and too overburdened to render effective care with respect to noticeable improvements in inmates’ mental health issues. Such inadequate  healthcare not only harms prisoners, Haney testified, it also “endangers the public once those prisoners are released” from prison. Without adequate mental healthcare as well as available, external counseling, prisoners, once released from the confines of a structured environment, are oftentimes present and “untreated” in the public domain.

Many times, according to statistics  provided during the hearing, non-treated inmates (or inadequately treated inmates) commit crimes which cause their return to the familiar, institutional environment of incarceration. A vicious cycle of re-institutionalization becomes, in many cases, the norm. An overburdened healthcare system speaks not only to an inadequate system of governance–as it relates to prison reformation–it also articulates a much broader statement in terms of the responsibilities of government in being fiscally accountable to those who work in conditions as presented in California’s (and other states’) prison facilities.

Haney’s testimony before the Subcommittee concluded on multiple points of note. According to Haney, we put “far too many people in prison, we pay far too little attention to what happens to them while they’re there, we keep them there for far too long, then we disregard what happens to them when they try to make the difficult transition to come out into the free world.” In April 2012,the National Academy of Sciences appointed Haney to a panel to study the causes and consequences of high rates of incarceration in the United States.

Others testifying on issues related to solitary confinement included the Honorable Charles Samuels, Director of the Federal Bureau of Prisons; Christopher Epps, Commissioner of the Mississippi Department of Corrections; and former inmate Anthony Graves, who was released from Texas death row in 2010, after spending 18 years in prison for a crime he did not commit. Ten of the 18 years Graves spent on death row were in solitary confinement. He is the founder of “Anthony Believes,” an organization dedicated to the health and well-being of individuals consigned to death row and solitary confinement. His front-line advocacy has garnered national attention on issues related to solitary confinement and prison reformation.

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Weekly Update: Compensation and Misconduct in the Lone Star State

Chelsea — May 21, 2012 @ 8:59 AM — Comments (0)

Austin County Attorney Brags About Professional Misconduct

A county attorney in Austin, Texas name of Jana Duty has lied about her involvement with the case of exoneree Michal Morton, who was convicted of murdering his wife Christine over 25 years ago. Duty is currently running for election as Austin’s district attorney, and these allegations of her professional misconduct have come out as a result of her campaign.

Read more about the complaints lodged against Ms. Duty by John Bradley, a man who is running for the same district attorney spot, here.

Texas Supreme Court Orders State to pay $2 Million to Exoneree

Texas exoneree Billy Frederick Allen spent 26 years behind bars for two Dallas murders he did not commit. Yesterday it was announced that he will finally receive compensation for the time he spent wrongfully incarcerated.

Allen was convicted in 1983 and was released in 2009; his release, unlike many other exonerations, came about as a result of problems with witness testimony and Allen’s legal representation that surfaced decades after the original trial. Allen’s success in suing the State for compensation may be the start towards setting a precedent for compensation in other wrongful convictions cases.

Read more about Allen’s case and his compensation trial here.

DNA Evidence Links Another Man to Murder of a Young Girl

Illinois man Andre Davis was only 19 when he was arrested for the murder of 3-year-old Brianna Stickle. While he has not yet been completely exonerated, DNA tests have linked another man to the case, and Davis will either be retried or have the charges against him dropped within the next several weeks. At present Davis’s conviction has been overturned.

Read more about Davis’s case and his future here.

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Texas: The State of Juxtaposition

Anne — October 24, 2011 @ 2:31 PM — Comments (1)

What’s up with the State of Texas?

During a September 2011, Republican presidential debate featuring Texas governor Rick Perry (and other candidates vying for the party’s 2012 nomination), the audience cheered loudly (and perhaps even high-fived their seatmates during a few off-camera shots) in response to Perry’s position on capital punishment. Even though the governor’s stance is pretty much a “known,” it was quite astounding to hear such vociferous affirmations coming from the assembled crowd.  A casual observer just tuning in to the televised debate might have viewed the yelps, yahoos, and foot-stomping madness as the governor’s response to an inquiry regarding, say, his preference for apple pie as opposed to pineapple upside down cake.

But the crowd’s jubilance wasn’t in response to the governor’s culinary preferences.

The crowd’s unabashed, thumbs-up deportment was the verbal, behavioral, and unvarnished reaction to a much larger truth: their belief in the righteousness of the governor of the state of Texas.  Take it straight from the crowd: Apple pie and pineapple upside down cake can’t compare to the gratifying exhilaration of lethal injections. While the former might have the capability of satisfying one’s temporary need for a pleasurable sweet-fix, the latter has the unequivocal effect of putting its subject to sleep. Forever. End of Story.

Fast forward to the case of Michael Morton.

On October 3, 2011, Michael Morton walked out of a Williamson County (Texas) courtroom a free man after having spent the past 25 years behind bars for killing his wife. DNA evidence pointed to another man as the responsible party, but not before Morton had been severely victimized by the state’s judicial system. Abhorrent, unconscionable behavior by the State, including the dismissal of a judge’s order for a review of the case, greatly contributed to Morton’s quarter century incarceration. “Stunning” is the word a Senior Staff Attorney used to describe prosecutors’ conduct in the  case.

Recent developments in Morton’s case, however, indicate that the State is reviewing legal documents related to his conviction and has launched an investigation into actions engaged by trial lawyers in the case. And while it might be a bit too premature to pop the champagne cork and ready the long-stems in celebration of a positive outcome, it is a  post-commencement to a case which ended horribly. 

Whatever the outcome in the investigation, 25 years of Michael Morton’s life are gone. Like the wind. Never to return. Or be returned.

Now, too, comes the case of Anthony Melendez, the only living defendant in the 1982 case of three teenagers slain in Lake Waco, Texas. At the time of Melendez’s conviction, there was no DNA testing available. But now, in an effort to exonerate Melendez through DNA evidence, Attorney Walter M. Reaves has filed a motion asking for the testing, which involves DNA evidence present on shoelaces used to tie up one of the victims.

While Melendez has always maintained his innocence, he confessed to his involvement in the crime on the advice of his defense team who convinced him that if a jury found him guilty he would, in all likelihood, be sentenced to death. When you’re young, scared, and presented with few options in such a case–and are listening to authority figures who presumably have your best interests at heart– a life sentence might not sound like such a bad idea, given the alternative.

But Melendez’s case is in the Lone Star State, where guilt and innocence are oftentimes secondary to truth and justice.

The McLennan County (Waco) District Attorney’s Office is fighting tooth and nail in an oppositional effort regarding any such exertions related to post-conviction DNA. The jury has spoken, the DA’s Office has asserted, and any such testing, if permitted, will “override” the jury’s decision.

“Override the jury’s decision”?

Let me be clear on this: The District Attorney’s Office would rather maintain a guilty verdict–in light of compelling evidence which can prove a man’s innocence–in an effort to “maintain” a jury’s decision, no matter if the jury’s decision was reached in error? What this suggests to me is that the DA’s Office is more concerned with winning (and obviously at all costs) than it is with obtaining the truth and moving that truth forward. Justice, it seems to me the DA’s Office is saying, has no (or very little) place in this effort of review. And while the State Attorney’s Office might be in the “routine” business of prosecuting cases against individuals it deems guilty of having committed various crimes in Texas, I suggest that it is also a state where truth and justice might not be the most significant item on a random docket.

From a potential presidential nominee who favors state-sanctioned revenge killings, to acts of prosecutorial misconduct, to maintaining questionable jury decisions, Texas offers the nation’s citizens a grand perspective of its judicial viewpoints and operations that leave much to be desired. 

While the Lone Star State is certainly not a state alone in its stance on capital punishment, victims’ claims of innocence, and judicial reviews of former cases, I see it as a State of Juxtaposition, where apple pie and pineapple upside down cake are as welcomed as lethal injections, judicial misconduct, and questionable decisions from those whose jobs are to seek the truth.

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A State’s Process

Anne — September 19, 2011 @ 10:05 AM — Comments (0)

The recently televised Republican presidential debate at the Ronald Reagan Library highlighted an assortment of political views and perspectives from candidates hoping for a shot as the Republican Party’s 2012 nominee. James Richard “Rick” Perry, three-time governor of Texas, received an overwhelming applause from audience members during the debate due to his unabashed stance on executions. The governor, who has signed 234 death warrants during his tenure, appeared to bask in the glory of the distinction when asked by CBS moderator Brian Williams if he had ever struggled at night with the idea of (perhaps) having signed a warrant for a person who may have indeed been innocent of the crime. “No sir,” Perry responded with a kind of confident and prideful ease. “I’ve never struggled with that at all.”

The jubilance of audience members regarding Perry’s position on executions was both disconcerting and unsettling in view of the fact that many of the executions carried out since Perry became governor were legally challenged in various courts of law prior to the executions. In 2009, the governor was accused of keeping a state probe from fully investigating allegations that a man on death row in Texas was in fact innocent of the crime for which he had been accused.

Governor Perry defended his position on capital punishment, not taking into consideration, apparently, any factors other than the State of Texas employing what he terms a “very clear process” in carrying out this form of “justice.” Statistical figures maintain that executions in the Lone Star State cost the taxpayers over two million dollars in files, appeals, and related legal costs for every person executed. Even though the governor maintains that executions are an issue best left to the legal dictates of individual states, he also claimed that “. . . Americans understand justice,” implying that Texans are indeed “supportive” of executions, have “made that decision [to execute],” and since they (the citizens) are the ones who have to live in the state of Texas, criminals will have to “face the ultimate justice” for the crimes they commit. Perry appeared to comfortably shift his own moral judgments onto the citizens of Texas. From January 2011 to the present time, the State of Texas has carried out nine executions.

It is not only disturbing that a man who seeks the highest office in the land appears to revel in the fact that taking a person’s life is little more than a state’s “clear process” instituted in part by citizens’ responses to crimes, it is also equally as troubling that an audience’s frenzy regarding a person’s ultimate fate doesn’t seem to faze the person who holds the pen that allows such a process to move forward.

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Executions Past, Pending, and Halted

Susan — September 16, 2011 @ 4:06 PM — Comments (1)

Rick Perry, the Willingham case and the death penalty. Cameron Todd Willingham was convicted of murder and executed in Texas in February 2004. It was a grisly crime; Willingham’s three daughters died in what was supposedly a fire started by arson in 1991. Rick Perry, the man who would be President, was the governor then as he is now.  Although Perry has signed 234 death warrants (more than any other governor), this case stands out. It seems that many believe Willingham should not have been convicted, let alone executed, due to less than perfect arson scientific analysis – what some call “junk science”.

The Texas Forensic Science Commission was set to investigate the matter when Perry intervened two days before the body would hear expert testimony criticizing the handling of Willingham’s case. Not only did Perry replace Chairman Sam Bassett and the other three members, the Texas Attorney General has since limited the commission’s authority through a July ruling.

“At first, when I was replaced, I gave the governor the benefit of the doubt. But now that time has passed, I’ve seen this kind of endless drumbeat of strategies and actions to stop this investigation, and it’s been terribly disappointing,” said Bassett.

Perry and his campaign aides deny Bassett’s accusations claiming that Willingham was a “monster” who murdered his three children. Read more about this in Matt Smith’s and Ed Lavandera’s article at CNN Politics. Read more about Rick Perry and his embrace of the death penalty at The Crime Report (Bill Boyarsky).

The reconstituted Commission is set to meet next month to further examine the Willingham case and to begin a review of other cases that contain arson evidence. See Brandi Grissom’s article in The Texas Tribune. The Innocence Project asked commissioners to evaluate the actions of the Texas Fire Marshal’s Office. Stay tuned and remember – only in Texas!

The State of Georgia vs. Troy Davis. Troy Davis is due to be executed in Georgia on September 21. The case has garnered nationwide attention because of allegations that the case against Davis is, at best, seriously flawed. Not only have seven of nine eyewitnesses recanted, but no physical evidence exists to tie the convicted man to the case, although there is evidence of another perpetrator.  Davis has served 20 years on death row for the 1989 murder of a Savannah police officer and continues to declare his innocence.

Three thousand religious leaders from the 50 states have asked the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles to halt the execution to investigate this case further. Learn how you can help at Forbes (E. D. Kain, Contributor). The Board will meet on Monday to decide Davis’ fate and The Innocence Project encourages those interested to respond. We will keep you updated. Learn more by reading Emily Hauser’s piece in The Atlantic.

High Court halts another Texas execution.

MSNBC is reporting that the United States Supreme Court on September 15 halted the execution of Duane Buck by the State of Texas. There apparently is no question as to Buck’s guilt – he committed the double murder of his former girlfriend and her companion 16 years ago. He was arrested at the scene of the crime in an agitated state and there were several reliable eyewitnesses including his two children. The problem with this case is the validity of the sentence.

Buck’s attorneys allege that his case was “tainted by consideration of race” when a psychologist publicly testified that black criminals (Buck is black) were more likely to recommit violent acts in the future. The jury must consider the likelihood that the accused will be a continuing threat to society during its sentencing deliberations. We will keep you abreast of new developments.

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Cornelius Dupree, Jr. Exonerated in Texas (w/ video)

Seth — January 05, 2011 @ 9:48 AM — Comments (2)

Yesterday, Cornelius Dupree, Jr. was exonerated after DNA testing proved him innocent of a 1979 rape and robbery.  He spent 30 years wrongfully incarcerated, which is the longest for any exoneree in Texas.  His exoneration is the 21st DNA exoneration in Dallas County alone, which leads the nation in exonerations for a single municipality. Here is a video of him on CNN with our colleague and his lawyer, Nina Morrison, from The Innocence Project (which CNN won’t let me embed, so you have to deal with a link).

Only two men, who were wrongly convicted and later exonerated by DNA testing, spent more time in prison than Mr. Dupree: Lawrence McKinney was convicted of a 1978 burglary and first-degree rape in Tennessee and served 31-and-a-half years behind bars before being exonerated and released.  Of course, IPF client James Bain was released from prison in December 2009 after serving 35 years on a wrongful kidnapping and rape conviction at the age of 19.

Congratulations to Mr. Dupree for overcoming the odds and persevering.  Thank you to Nina Morrison and the rest of our friends at The Innocence Project for all of their great work.

Here are some other good links discussing the Dupree case:

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November Death Penalty Roundup

Seth — December 01, 2010 @ 9:00 AM — Comments (0)

It has been busy in the last few weeks on the death penalty front.  Because of the holiday we got behind in letting you know about some important stories involving capital cases.  So we will do it all in one place for your viewing ease:

  • Dan Malloy won the governor’s race in Connecticut this month.  It was incredibly close race, as just about 7,600 votes separated him from his opponent.  Dan will be the first Democratic Party member to hold the governor’s house in Connecticut in over two decades.  Via the Wall Street Journal, Malloy vowed to sign a bill abolishing the death penalty in that state if the legislature passes one.  The Connecticut legislature voted to abolish the death penalty already, but Republican Governor Jodi Rell vetoed the bill.  With Malloy taking office in January, such a veto does not seem likely.  Whether this is a smart decision politically is for someone else to decide, but one has to hope that good policy and good politics are coextensive here.
  • At the beginning of the month, Anthony Graves was exonerated in Texas.  The Houston Chronicle has the story.  He was convicted in 1992 of assisting in a capital murder and sentenced to death.  His supposed accomplice was executed, but before that, the accomplice confessed that he lied when implicating Graves in the murder.  Graves got a new trial from the federal court of appeals in 2006.  Sometimes prosecutors will then simply stick to their original theory and retry the person even though evidence of their innocence exists.  Here the prosecutors chose a more noble path.  They re-investigated the case for four years and finally determined that Graves had nothing to do with this crime–that he was innocent.  This should be an shining example of how to deal with an innocence case when the conviction is overturned (though in a quicker manner next time).  Anthony Graves is the 12th person exonerated from death row in Texas.  He spent 18 years ion death row for a crime he had nothing to do with.
  • After the Graves exoneration, journalist Leonard Pitts Jr. penned an op-ed in the Miami Herald calling for abolition of the death penalty.
  • Former Florida Supreme Court Justice Gerald Kogan and Former Texas Governor Mark White penned an op-ed in the National Law Journal about the capital murder case of William Glenn Boyd in Alabama.  They criticize the federal court’s handling of the case, basically absolving the defense counsel at trial’s failure to present any mitigating evidence.  It’s a good read.  Justice Kogan and Governor White are co-Chairs of the Constitutional Project’s Death Penalty Committee.
  • Rob Warden, Executive Director of the Center on Wrongful Convictions in Chicago, penned an op-ed in the Chicago Sun-Times calling for the abolition of the death penalty in Illinois for economic reasons.
  • Lastly, and most importantly, former U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens has been a forceful anti-death penalty advocate since he left the bench.  He reviewed a book about the death penalty for the New York times and the ABA Journal reports that he was on CBS’s 60 Minutes, where he will discuss his reasons for concluding that the death penalty is unconstitutional.  You can view his appearance on 60 Minutes here.

Enjoy!

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MSNBC Covers Claude Jones Debacle in Texas

Seth — November 16, 2010 @ 4:00 PM — Comments (1)

Rachel Maddow covered the DNA test results in the case of Claude Jones, a Texas man who the results show should have never been convicted let alone executed.  We let you know about this story here.  We wanted to update you with this video which deals with this case:

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Posthumous DNA Testing in Texas Undermines Propriety of Execution

Seth — November 15, 2010 @ 1:39 PM — Comments (2)

Late last week, Mitotyping, a DNA lab in State College, PA, released results that demonstrate that Texas should not have executed Claude Jones in 2000.  The Texas Observer reports:

Claude Jones always claimed that he wasn’t the man who walked into an East Texas liquor store in 1989 and shot the owner. He professed his innocence right up until the moment he was strapped to a gurney in the Texas execution chamber and put to death on Dec. 7, 2000. His murder conviction was based on a single piece of forensic evidence recovered from the crime scene—a strand of hair—that prosecutors claimed belonged to Jones.

But DNA tests completed this week at the request of the Observer and the New York-based Innocence Project show the hair didn’t belong to Jones after all. The day before his death in December 2000, Jones asked for a stay of execution so the strand of hair could be submitted for DNA testing. He was denied by then-Gov. George W. Bush.

A decade later, the results of DNA testing not only undermine the evidence that convicted Jones, but raise the possibility that Texas executed an innocent man. The DNA tests—conducted by Mitotyping Technologies, a private lab in State College, Pa., and first reported by the Observer on Thursday—show the hair belonged to the victim of the shooting, Allen Hilzendager, the 44-year-old owner of the liquor store.

Now, this doesn’t prove that he is innocent and, as the article states, Jones was no saint.  But the key point here is that Texas prosecutors could not have convicted Jones, much less sent him to his death, had this result been known at the time of trial.  See, the prosecution needed this one hair to “match” Jones because without it, they would only be left with the testimony of an accomplice who stated that Jones confessed to the shooting.  Texas law did not allow a conviction based solely on the testimony of an accomplice.  None of the eyewitnesses to the shooting could provide a positive ID.  So where the law is inconveniently protective of Claude Jones’ right not to be prosecuted and convicted based on what most agree is inherently unreliable accomplice testimony, the prosecutor filled the void with equally unreliable forensic evidence that acted as affirmative evidence of guilt and papered over the unreliability of the accomplice testimony.

While the DNA technology was not available at the time of trial, it was available at the time of execution.  But then-Governor George Bush’s staff failed ot give him the information about the availability of DNA testing on the eve of execution in 2000:

But in 2000, when Jones was fighting for his life, it could be done. On December 6, 2000, the day before the execution, Jones’ attorneys filed a last-ditch motion for a stay—in district court and with the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals—so they could submit the strand of hair for mitochondrial DNA testing. Both courts turned him down.

Jones’ last hope was Gov. Bush, who in December 2000 was embroiled in the Florida recount controversy that followed the presidential election. Bush had already overseen the execution of 151 people during his governorship, but he’d also expressed support for DNA testing. Earlier that year, Bush had granted a 30-day stay to Ricky McGinn so that DNA testing could be conducted on key evidence in the case. (The tests would prove McGinn’s guilt and he was executed.) Bush, explaining his decision in the McGinn case to CNN in June 2000, said, “To the extent that DNA can prove for certain innocence or guilt, I think we need to use DNA.”

But Bush was never told about Jones’ request for DNA testing. Through a public-information request, the Innocence Project obtained the Dec. 7, 2000, memo that lawyers in the governor’s office sent to Bush, briefing him on the circumstances of Jones’ pending execution. The four-page memo doesn’t mention Jones’ request for DNA testing. Rather, it describes the disputed hair evidence as “testimony from a chemist employed by DPS that the hair samples taken from the crime scene matched those taken from Jones.”

The memo from the general counsel’s office concludes, “At this time, I do not recommend that a reprieve be granted.” Jones was executed a few hours later.

This case confirms what we already know.  The judicial and clemency remedies available to a death-sentenced inmate, despite all our rhetoric to the contrary, are just inadequate to safeguard against this type of wrongful execution, or worse the execution of an innocent person.  The alleged “best criminal justice system in the world” is no match for the political blood-lust that exists in America’s death penalty system.

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Archibald Cox meet Governor Perry

Seth — October 13, 2009 @ 2:08 PM — Comments (3)

Lenore noted last week Texas Governor Rick Perry’s dismissal of Sam Bassett, former chair of the Texas Forensic Science Commission who was moving towards concluding that Cameron Todd Willingham was wrongfully executed.  He replaced Bassett with one of the most fervent prosecutorial hacks in Texas, who immediately canceled the important activities of the Commission related to the Willingham case. Perry has been insisting that this was just business as usual as Bassett’s term was expiring.

Well, over the weekend, Sam Bassett started talking and it is looking more and more like Perry tried to politically influence the conclusions of this panel from the start.  We have heard about Bush White House officials simply changing climate reports written by non-partisan scientists to avoid regulations that would be detrimental to the bank accounts CEO’s of polluting industries, but this was personal for Perry:

[Bassett] is now saying that Perry’s aides tried to pressure him over the direction of the inquiry his panel was conducting into the steps that led to the 2004 execution of Cameron Todd Willingham for arson. Perry, as governor, signed off on the execution, despite clear evidence that the investigation was flawed.

Bassett told the Chicago Tribune over the weekend that he twice was summoned to meetings with Perry’s top attorneys, who said explicitly that they were unhappy with the how the panel’s probe was being conducted. At one meeting, Perry’s lawyers questioned how much it was costing, and asked why the panel had hired a nationally known arson expert — rather than a Texas fire scientist — to look into the case.

This obviously started out Perry and his thugs trying to fix the outcome of a government-issued report to prevent the obvious and inevitable science-based conclusion that no crime even occurred and the State, Perry to be exact, executed an innocent man.  Because it wasn’t stupid enough to try and rig the game, now Perry is digging himself even further in the muck by covering up his own involvement in this fiasco by having his own Saturday Night Massacre and preventing the public from seeing information about his apparent failure to consider scientific evidence of no arson immediately before the execution.

Let’s just hope this doesn’t get swept under the rug for good and that Perry and the government of Texas are held to account.

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