Forensic Science Commission Meeting April 14-15 in Austin to Adopt Todd Willingham Report

StopExecutions blog

The Texas Forensic Science Commission will meet, Thursday and Friday, April 14 and 15 in Austin. The last item on the agenda is to "Consider Willingham/Willis (#09-01) report draft and adopt final report". The hearing starts at 1 PM on Thursday and at 9:30 AM on Friday. It is likely that they will not get to the major discussion on the Willingham case until Friday, since it is last on the agenda.

There is a public comment period on the agenda for this meeting right before the discussion on the Todd Willingham report. 

The chair of the Commission, John Bradley, has lost support in the Texas Senate because of the way he has performed his duties as chair, so this will likely be his last meeting.

The hearing is in the Central Services Building, 1711 San Jacinto Boulevard Room 402 in Austin. 

Before his execution, Todd Willingham said, “Please don’t ever stop fighting to vindicate me.”

From the Austin American-Statesman:

During a two-day meeting to begin Thursday afternoon, the Texas Forensic Science Commission will discuss a draft report on the arson science used to convict and execute Cameron Todd Willingham for a 1991 fatal fire at his Corsicana home.

The report, compiled after input was sought from all nine commissioners, is at the end of the committee agenda, so the discussion might not begin until Friday.

The report’s scope will be limited while the commission awaits answers about whether it has jurisdiction under state law to investigate the Willingham case. The attorney general’s office has until July 30 to provide an answer on that.

The report is expected to focus on advances in arson investigation techniques while avoiding questions about whether Willingham’s investigators were negligent in basing their arson finding on fire conditions now known to be found in accidental and natural fires as well as intentionally set blazes.

Unless another meeting is scheduled before the legislative session ends May 30, this will be the last meeting led by Chairman John Bradley, who is also the Williamson County district attorney. Because Bradley’s nomination does not have enough support in the state Senate, his time on the commission will end when the session closes.

Forensic Science Commission Chair John Bradley

Experts to Testify to Forensic Science Commission Friday in Todd Willingham Case

The Texas Forensic Science Commission will devote the entire January 7, 2011 meeting to the case of Todd Willingham. They are scheduled to hear testimony from arson experts, including Craig Beyler. The hearing starts at 9:30 AM, but members of Texas Moratorium Network, Campaign to End the Death Penalty, Texas Death Penalty Abolition Movement and others plan to be outside the building at 8:30 AM with signs.

The hearing is in the Central Services Building, 1711 San Jacinto Boulevard Room 402 in Austin. We will go inside before the hearing starts. RSVP on the Facebook event page. The Innocence Project will show the meeting live on its website.

There will likely be a period devoted to receiving comments from the public. We invite members of the public to show up, bring signs and even make comments during the public comments period to let the Commission know that Texans Todd Willingham was wrongfully executed and that Texas should stop all executions through a moratorium on executions.

Before his execution, Todd Willingham said, “Please don’t ever stop fighting to vindicate me.”  

More on the meeting from the Austin American-Statesman:

The Texas Forensic Science Commission will hear from four fire investigation experts Friday as it continues to examine the science used to convict and execute Cameron Todd Willingham.

The special meeting in Austin, postponed from November, was sought by the commission’s scientists to help them answer two key questions:

1. What was the state of fire science, and what were fire investigators expected to know, in 1991 and 1992? That’s when two investigators used now-discredited techniques to conclude that Willingham intentionally set fire to his Corsicana home, killing his three young children.
2. What responsibility did the state fire marshal’s office have to reopen its Willingham investigation, and similar arson cases, once the agency realized scientific advancements had vastly improved the practice of arson investigation?

According to the commission, these invited experts have committed to appear Friday:

• Assistant State Fire Marshal Ed Salazar, second in command at the office that helps investigate suspicious fires statewide. One of the office’s investigators was instrumental in the 1992 conviction of Willingham, and the office recently stood by that investigation despite criticism from every modern, outside fire investigator to re-examine its conclusions.
• John DeHaan, one of the nation’s leading fire experts who has spent more than 35 years investigating fires. DeHaan wrote five editions of “Kirk’s Fire Investigation,” the most widely used textbook in the field, and co-wrote a companion text, “Forensic Fire Scene Reconstruction.” He is a frequent expert witness at arson trials, often testifying for the prosecution.
• Craig Beyler, president of the International Association of Fire Safety Science, is also one of the nation’s top fire investigators. Beyler was hired by the commission to analyze the Willingham fire and wrote a 2009 report that disputed every conclusion used to rule the fire an arson.
• Thomas Wood, a senior investigator with the Houston Fire Department. In a 2010 letter to the science commission, Wood said Willingham investigators could not be considered negligent because their arson conclusions were based on investigative standards common to that era.

The meeting begins at 9:30 a.m. in Room 402 of the Central Services Building, 1711 San Jacinto Blvd.

The Innocence Project will show the meeting live on its website.

The New York-based organization today criticized the commission’s decision not to invite two noted experts, Austin chemist Gerald Hurst and fire investigator John Lentini. Both men conducted outside examinations of the Willingham case and concluded that investigators based their arson finding on faulty science.

Hurst and Lentini testified during an October hearing before now-retired Austin District Judge Charlie Baird, who led an inquiry into whether Willingham was wrongfully executed. An appeals court halted the inquiry before Baird could issue a finding.

Photos from Today's Court of Inquiry on Todd Willingham

To see the photos on Flickr, click here.



Patricia Willingham Cox, Eugenia Willingham and Former Texas Governor Mark White

Complete Transcripts from Cameron Todd Willingham’s 1992 Trial

Complete transcripts from Cameron Todd Willingham’s 1992 trial, divided into five documents on Scribd.com.

Part 1 Contains beginning of proceedings, opening statements and first day of witness tesimony and cross examination. (270 pages)

Part 2 Contains second day of witness tesimony and cross examination. (146 pages)

Part 3 Contains opening and closing arguments, verdict and jury polling. (53 pages)

Part 4 Contains beginning of punishment phase. (209 pages)

Part 5 Contains defense arguments, the state’s arguments, verdict and formal sentencing. (30 pages)

Complete Transcripts from Cameron Todd Willingham’s 1992 Trial (Part 1 of 5)

Complete Transcripts from Cameron Todd Willingham’s 1992 Trial (Part 2 of 5)

Complete Transcripts from Cameron Todd Willingham’s 1992 Trial (Part 3 of 5)

Complete Transcripts from Cameron Todd Willingham’s 1992 Trial (Part 4 of 5)

Complete Transcripts from Cameron Todd Willingham’s 1992 Trial (Part 5 of 5)

Video of Todd Willingham's Family Testifying to Texas Forensic Science Commission

The Texas Forensic Science Commission met in Dallas on Sept 17, 2010. Todd Willingham’s stepmother, Eugenia, and two of his cousins, Patricia Willingham Cox and Judy Willingham Cavner, testified to the packed meeting. Watch the video on YouTube.




Video by Texas Moratorium Network

11th Annual March to Abolish the Death Penalty

October 30, 2010 at 2 PM

Texas State Capitol

Austin Texas

Videos of News Coverage of Texas Forensic Science Commission Meeting on Todd Willingham

Texas Moratorium Network attended the meeting of the Texas Forensic Science Commission on Sept 17, 2010 in Dallas. Below are some media coverage on Dallas TV stations. The yellow and blue signs on the walls were brought to the meeting by TMN.

Video From MyFox Dallas Fort Worth (Contains comments by Rick Perry):




Video from NBC Dallas:





Video from WFAA (ABC) Dallas:

11th Annual March to Abolish the Death Penalty

October 30, 2010 at 2 PM

Texas State Capitol

Austin Texas

Forensic Science Commission Meeting Sept 17 to Discuss Todd Willingham Case

Eugenia Willingham, TMN's Scott Cobb, and Patricia Cox

The Texas Forensic Science Commission is having a meeting in Dallas on Sept 17 that may be the final meeting in which they discuss and vote on a final report regarding the Todd Willingham case. The meeting is at the Embassy Suites Hotel Dallas Love Field, 3880 West Northwest Highway, Dallas, Texas, United States 75220 (Map and directions). The meeting starts at 9:30 AM, but is expected to last till late afternoon. The public comment period will be at the end of the meeting. Anyone can make public comments to the Commission.

Members of Texas Moratorium Network plan to attend the meeting. If you can be in Dallas on Sept 17, please plan to join us at the meeting. We have created a Facebook event page here.


You can see video of the last TFSC meeting on the TMN blog.


From the Corsicana Sun:

 A special meeting of the Texas Forensics Science Commission will take place at 9:30 a.m. Sept. 17 at the Embassy Suites Hotel in Dallas near Love Field specifically to address the case of Cameron Todd Willingham, according to director Leigh Tomlin.

Last week, the city issued its final response to the case of the Corsicana man convicted of killing his three daughters in a house fire in December 1991. Willingham was tried in 1992 and died by lethal injection in 2004.

In 2005, the state created a forensics commission to oversee the professionalism of law-enforcement crime laboratories. At the request of the Innocence Project, the commission agreed to look at the Willingham case.

John Bradley, who heads up the commission, said the hope is to finish up the topic at the September meeting.

“We’re going to meet to discuss and deal with the report for the Willingham case,” Bradley said. “Obviously, the goal is to see if we can complete it and vote on it.”

Different opinions have come out about the case, primarily based on Willingham’s protestations of innocence while he was on death row. Over the years, he floated dozens of explanations for the fire, including that a stranger came into the house and set it on fire, that the two-year-old set the fire, that it was caused by a gas space heater, that squirrels in the attic chewed through the wiring and that a ceiling fan caused the fire, among others. All his explanations seemed to cast doubt on the investigators at the time and their professionalism.

The City of Corsicana had two investigators on the case, one from the fire department and one from the police department, and the Texas Fire Marshall’s office also had an independent investigator come down and look at the crime scene and issue an opinion. Their investigations eliminated other causes and Willingham was charged with setting the fire to intentionally kill the children. He was found guilty by a jury and sentenced to death.

After the state commission undertook its examination, the commission hired an independent consultant named Stephen Beyler to examine the records and issue an opinion. Beyler wrote that the fire investigators didn’t use good fire science and he speculated that it could have been other causes, based partly on Willingham’s explanations.

Last month, the forensics commission said the city did not err in the investigation according to scientific methods at the time.

In the city’s final response to the commission City Attorney Terry Jacobson said the issue is being used as a forum to advance political agendas. The Willingham case has been held up by anti-death penalty advocates as an example of misuse of the death penalty in Texas.

The Texas Forensic Science Seminar

From Grits for Breakfast:

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals' Criminal Justice Integrity Unit is jointly sponsoring a conference/CLE event October 7-8 titled the "Texas Forensic Science Seminar" in the auditorium at the capitol in Austin. See their promotional flyer here (pdf). It looks like a substantive discussion, particularly the second day, so I signed up to attend the free event.

An interesting note, fwiw: Former Forensic Science Commission Chairman Sam Bassett is listed among the faculty, while current FSC Chair John Bradley apparently wasn't invited to present.

Topics covered include arson, digital media, trace evidence, firearms and toolmarks, DNA evidence and statistics, latent print evidence, toxicology, eyewitness identification and false confessions. There will also be discussions of the National Academy of Sciences report on forensic science, application of the scientific method to forensic fields, and the admissibility of forensic science testimony in Texas courts.

Video of Entire Hour-Plus Long Discussion of Todd Willingham Case at Texas Forensic Science Commission Meeting July 23, 2010

Below are videos shot by Texas Moratorium Network of the entire discussion on the agenda item dealing with the Todd Willingham case at the Texas Forensic Science Commission on Friday, July 23, 2010 in Houston. The discussion lasted more than an hour. It is divided into seven parts because YouTube limits videos to ten minutes. There are also two shorter videos of Barry Scheck and Patricia Willingham Cox delivering their public comments at the end of the meeting.

Texas Forensic Science Commission Discussion of Todd Willingham Case July 23, 2010 Part 1/7




Texas Forensic Science Commission Discussion of Todd Willingham Case July 23, 2010 Part 2/7




Texas Forensic Science Commission Discussion of Todd Willingham Case July 23, 2010 Part 3/7




Texas Forensic Science Commission Discussion of Todd Willingham Case July 23, 2010, Part 4/7




Texas Forensic Science Commission Discussion of Todd Willingham Case July 23, 2010, Part 5/7




Texas Forensic Science Commission Discussion of Todd Willingham Case July 23, 2010, Part 6/7





Texas Forensic Science Commission Discussion of Todd Willingham Case July 23, 2010, Part 7/7




The videos below are of comments delivered during the public comment period, which took place a couple of hours after the main discussion of the Willingham case by the Commission.


Barry Scheck Speaking to Texas Forensic Science Commission July 23, 2010





Todd Willingham's Cousin and Stepmother at Texas Forensic Science Commission Meeting July 23, 2010

TFSC panel must resist Bradley's efforts at sabotage

Todd Willingham's cousin (Particia Willingham Cox), and the Innocence Project's Barry Scheck have published the following op ed on Tuesday's Houston Chronicle accusing John Bradley, the Williamson County DA and Perry's appointed puppet to the Texas Forensic Science Commission of trying to halt the investigation of the science in old arson cases.

In May 2006, we asked the TFSC to undertake this inquiry about arson evidence. We submitted a 48-page report from an independent panel of the nation’s leading arson investigators, which concluded that the scientific analysis used to convict Willingham was not valid. The commissioners then engaged their own national expert to review the matter, who agreed that the forensic analysis used to convict Willingham was wrong — and further, that experts who testified at Willingham’s trial should have known it was wrong at the time. Days before that expert was to present his findings, Perry removed three commissioners, including the chair, Sam Bassett, and appointed Williamson County District Attorney John Bradley as the new chair. Bradley immediately shut down the Willingham hearing.

In an op-ed on these pages last November, Bradley denied charges that his actions were politically motivated and decried those “[who] have made exaggerated claims and drawn premature conclusions about the case.” He then assured Texans that the commission’s investigation “will be completed” using a “disciplined, scientific approach.” Instead, what we have seen so far is not a review of scientific issues but a bureaucratic effort to undermine, if not end, the Willingham inquiry by rewriting the commission’s rules and its jurisdiction.

Last week, after closed meetings that may violate the Texas Open Meetings Act, Bradley sent out an unsigned legal memo instructing commissioners that they have a “relatively narrow investigative jurisdiction.”

Employing “Catch-22” logic, he claimed that commissioners lack the “discretion or power” to investigate evidence that was not from a laboratory accredited by the Department of Public Safety (DPS) — which, as it happens, did not accredit labs before 2003, years after the Willingham fire. By this reasoning, the TFSC cannot review any pre-2003 matter, such as the Houston Police Department crime lab evidence, the scandal that gave rise to its formation.

In 2008, the TFSC carefully considered the jurisdiction question, and, with assent from the Attorney General’s office, determined that the Willingham and other old cases like it are well within its authority.

And rightly so: The Willingham inquiry into the use of unreliable arson analysis is an urgent matter for more than 600 people incarcerated in Texas whose arson convictions may have been based on invalid science. If its investigation is derailed, the commissioners would be turning their backs on these potentially innocent Texans.

Rather than becoming mired in bureaucratic shell games, the commissioners should take their cue from the FBI, which, after learning that a scientific test it used for three decades to do composite bullet lead analysis was unreliable, not only stopped using this flawed science but systematically reviewed its old cases and notified prosecutors across the country when it could no longer stand behind the testimony of its own agent examiners. The same should be done in this instance.

The people of Texas deserve a justice system they can believe in. But if commissioners keep allowing Bradley to rewrite the rules and sabotage the commission’s mission, their ability to redress the forensic problems that have plagued the criminal justice system in Texas will never materialize.

According to Grits for Breakfast, "Such transparent stalling tactics have been his modus operandi since the day Bradley was appointed to the chairman's slot."

Rick Perry's Puppet John Bradley Tells CNN "New York Lawyers" are Politicizing Forensic Science Commission's Work

Our members and others are in Houston this morning to attend the meeting of the Texas Forensic Science Commission. We intend to let Rick Perry's appointed chair/puppet John Bradley know that it is Texans, not just "New York lawyers", who are concerned that our state government suffered an epic FAIL and may have executed an innocent person. We demand the investigation into the Willingham case be made the highest priority of the Commission and of the State government of Texas.

If Rick Perry had done his job properly as governor, the people of Texas would not have to be worried now that an innocent person has been executed in our names. The only person who has politicized the work of the Texas Forensic Science Commission is Texas Governor Rick Perry.

From CNN:

(CNN) -- A Texas state board is set Friday to revisit questions surrounding a controversial 2004 execution, with supporters of the man's family warning the panel is trying to bury its own critical review of the case.

Cameron Todd Willingham was executed in 2004 for a fire that killed his three daughters. Prosecutors argued that Willingham deliberately set the 1991 blaze -- but three reviews of the evidence by outside experts have found the fire should not have been ruled arson.

The last of those reports was ordered by the Texas Forensic Sciences Commission, which has been looking into Willingham's execution since 2008. But a September 2009 shake-up by Texas Gov. Rick Perry has kept that panel from reviewing the report, and the commission's new chairman has ordered a review of its operating rules. Critics say that may kill the probe.

"They are attempting permanently to keep the investigation from continuing and moving on, and I do believe it's because they don't like the direction the evidence is leading," Willingham's cousin, Pat Cox, said Thursday.

The Forensic Science Commission's chairman is now John Bradley, an Austin-area district attorney with a reputation as a staunch supporter of the death penalty. Bradley has pledged to state lawmakers that the Willingham investigation "absolutely" will continue -- but said the panel needs better rules to guide its work, and could not say when the Willingham issue would move forward.

Thursday, he told CNN that concerns of Willingham's supporters were based on "a lot of misinformation."

"I think that's being used very much as a side issue to politicize, through some New York lawyers, the work of the commission," Bradley said. "The commission has been very clear that the commission is going to address the merits of the Willingham case."

The panel meets again Friday in Houston, and one of the items on its agenda is a legal opinion arguing that the panel has "relatively narrow investigative jurisdiction." The unsigned memorandum argues that the commission's mandate covers only cases on which a state-accredited forensic laboratory worked.

But because Texas started accrediting crime labs in 2003, Cox and others who have backed the family say that would mean cases such as Willingham's and that of another inmate, Ernest Willis, would be dropped. State Sen. Rodney Ellis, who pushed for the commission's creation, calls the opinion flawed.

The Forensic Sciences Commission "was operating within the language and intent of the law when it determined that it had jurisdiction to investigate the case the first time in August 2008," Ellis said in a written statement to CNN. "Frankly, I am surprised that the commission is even questioning whether or not it has jurisdiction, since it unanimously decided -- with the attorney general's representative in the room -- to review the cases over two years ago."

Ellis, a Houston Democrat, serves as the chairman of the board of The Innocence Project -- the "New York lawyers" that have supported efforts by Willingham's stepmother and cousins to clear his name. The group advocates for prisoners it says are wrongly convicted, and Ellis said the commission's work "is too important to be bogged down in political bickering."

"Texans need the FSC to perform its work in a timely manner, so the public can once again have confidence in forensic evidence and confidence that the truly guilty are behind bars and the innocent are free," he said.

But Bradley said the commission has never decided to apply the logic of the legal opinion to the case on Friday's agenda.

Bradley was named the panel's chairman two days before the Forensic Sciences Commission was to hear from Craig Beyler, a Maryland-based fire science expert. Beyler concluded the arson finding at the heart of the Willingham case "could not be sustained," either by current standards or those in place at the time.

The Innocence Project requested the investigation after a report it commissioned reached the same conclusion. Death-penalty opponents say an impartial review of Willingham's case could lead to the unprecedented admission that the state executed an innocent man.

Perry, who signed off on Willingham's execution, is up for re-election in November, and his critics have accused him of trying to short-circuit that review. Perry has said he remains confident of the condemned man's guilt, and police in the town of Corsicana, where the fire occurred, say other evidence beyond the arson testimony Beyler criticized supports the prosecution.

Cox, a retired nurse in Ardmore, Oklahoma, told CNN that spiking the commission's investigation would be a "blatant miscarriage of justice."

"The reasonable people of this country and the state of Texas can see through what this is," she said.

Todd Willingham's Lawyer Walter Reaves on What to Expect at Friday's Meeting of the Forensic Science Commission: They will "avoid actually doing anything"

Todd Willingham's last lawyer, Walter Reaves, has written a blog post on what he expects at Friday's meeting of the Texas Forensic Science Commission in Houston:

I was going to talk about the ridiculousness about the recent memo from the Texas Forensic Science Commission.  Basically, the memo says they don't have jurisdiction to do anything. They concluded that they do not have "discretion or power to investigate any and every complainant alleging professional negligence or misconduct involving a forensic science." The complaint must involve a "discipline" recognized by the DPS and accredited by DPS. In practical terms, that means they can't investigate the Cameron Todd Willingham case. Yes, I know he promised that would not happen, but anyone who actually believed him deserves what they are getting.

I decided not to talk about that decision, because by now everyone knows what to expect from  the commission. Their goal - at least under the leadership of John Bradley - has been to scuttle the investigation into Willingham, and anything else that might hinder law enforcement.  He has successfully done what many lawyers attempt - avoid doing anything. This new memo goes a long way to ensuring that they will not get involved in anything meaningful.

What struck me about the memo is the power DPS has to both decide what is a forensic discipline, and who gets accredited. DPS is not without its own problems, but despite those problems they apparently have the all knowing ability to determine who should or should not be accredited. It reminds of a story a someone told me about an individual who couldn't  get certified as a fire investigator. He ended up establishing his own organization, and certified himself; that organization now certifies others.

DPS is an arm of law enforcement, and no matter how hard they try they cannot divorce themselves from their identity.  One of the main recommendations of the National Academy of Sciences was that crime labs be separated from law enforcement. If the crime lab should be separate, then surely the authority to accredit such labs should also be separate.

Another thing that struck me, was  the definition of what is a forensic discipline. If it's not a forensic discipline, then no accreditation is necessary. The legislature exempted certain things, and DPS is given authority to exempt others. There are at least two that stand out in the legislature's exemptions - latent fingerprint examination and breath tests. If those two areas don't involve forensic analysis, then what are they? Fingerprint examiners like to talk about how their "scientific" their process is. As for breath tests, the very tests are based on scientific principles. The reason for exempting them probably lies in the fear that they might not be able to overcome the strict scrutiny given to other forensic disciplines.

The commission meets next week, and no doubt will discuss this memo. My guess is that it will be repeat of the last meeting - they will spend all their time talking about what they can and cannot do, and avoid actually doing anything.

Below is the memo that Walter Reaves refers to in his blog post.


TFSC memo

Texas Forensic Science Commission Meeting Friday in Houston; Scheck and Todd Willingham's Cousin Say Panel Must Resist Chair's Efforts at Sabotage

The Texas Forensic Science Commission has posted its agenda for its meeting in Houston on July 23, 2010 at the Doubletree Houston Intercontinental Airport, 15747 JFK Boulevard, Houston, Texas 77032 (Map and directions). The meeting starts at 9:30 AM, but is expected to last all day and the public comment period will be at the end of the meeting.
Forensic panel must resist chair's efforts at sabotage
By BARRY SCHECK and PATRICIA WILLINGHAM COX,
INNOCENCE PROJECT:

This Friday, the Texas Forensic Science Commission (TFSC) is meeting in Houston to discuss, among other things, the status of its inquiry into whether arson investigations across the state have been based for many years on outdated and discredited scientific analysis and that the Texas criminal justice system has failed to recognize this fact. The inquiry arose from two cases — those of Cameron Todd Willingham and Ernest Willis — in which arson had been found and both men were sentenced to death.

In Willis’ case, the system identified its error when Ori White, the prosecutor responsible for retrial after appeal, relying on the expertise of Dr. Gerald Hurst, realized how wrong the original arson analysis was. He promptly moved to dismiss the case, and Willis was ultimately pardoned on the grounds of actual innocence.

Cameron Todd Willingham was not so lucky. Despite asserting his innocence, he was executed in 2004 based on the same arson evidence that prosecutor White — and the arson community nationwide — had realized was scientifically baseless. Before Willingham was executed, Gov. Rick Perry ignored a plea from Hurst, the expert Ori White relied upon, that arson analysis in Willingham’s case was plainly unreliable.

Our interest in these issues is not abstract. One of us, Patricia Cox, is a cousin of Cameron Todd Willingham. The other, Barry Scheck, is co-founder of the Innocence Project, which exonerates the wrongfully convicted through DNA evidence.

In May 2006, we asked the TFSC to undertake this inquiry about arson evidence. We submitted a 48-page report from an independent panel of the nation’s leading arson investigators, which concluded that the scientific analysis used to convict Willingham was not valid. The commissioners then engaged their own national expert to review the matter, who agreed that the forensic analysis used to convict Willingham was wrong — and further, that experts who testified at Willingham’s trial should have known it was wrong at the time. Days before that expert was to present his findings, Perry removed three commissioners, including the chair, Sam Bassett, and appointed Williamson County District Attorney John Bradley as the new chair. Bradley immediately shut down the Willingham hearing.

In an op-ed on these pages last November, Bradley denied charges that his actions were politically motivated and decried those “[who] have made exaggerated claims and drawn premature conclusions about the case.” He then assured Texans that the commission’s investigation “will be completed” using a “disciplined, scientific approach.” Instead, what we have seen so far is not a review of scientific issues but a bureaucratic effort to undermine, if not end, the Willingham inquiry by rewriting the commission’s rules and its jurisdiction.

Last week, after closed meetings that may violate the Texas Open Meetings Act, Bradley sent out an unsigned legal memo instructing commissioners that they have a “relatively narrow investigative jurisdiction.”

Employing “Catch-22” logic, he claimed that commissioners lack the “discretion or power” to investigate evidence that was not from a laboratory accredited by the Department of Public Safety (DPS) — which, as it happens, did not accredit labs before 2003, years after the Willingham fire. By this reasoning, the TFSC cannot review any pre-2003 matter, such as the Houston Police Department crime lab evidence, the scandal that gave rise to its formation.
In 2008, the TFSC carefully considered the jurisdiction question, and, with assent from the Attorney General’s office, determined that the Willingham and other old cases like it are well within its authority.

And rightly so: The Willingham inquiry into the use of unreliable arson analysis is an urgent matter for more than 600 people incarcerated in Texas whose arson convictions may have been based on invalid science. If its investigation is derailed, the commissioners would be turning their backs on these potentially innocent Texans.

Rather than becoming mired in bureaucratic shell games, the commissioners should take their cue from the FBI, which, after learning that a scientific test it used for three decades to do composite bullet lead analysis was unreliable, not only stopped using this flawed science but systematically reviewed its old cases and notified prosecutors across the country when it could no longer stand behind the testimony of its own agent examiners. The same should be done in this instance.

The people of Texas deserve a justice system they can believe in. But if commissioners keep allowing Bradley to rewrite the rules and sabotage the commission’s mission, their ability to redress the forensic problems that have plagued the criminal justice system in Texas will never materialize.

Scheck is co-founder of the Innocence Project; Cox is a cousin of Cameron Todd Willingham.

New Website for Texas Forensic Science Commission, but still no progress on Todd Willingham Investigation

The Texas Forensic Science Commission has redesigned its website. It is still not very modern looking, so its hard to tell why they bothered. Maybe it is because they are just trying to stall the investigation into the case of Todd Willingham. Remaking their website gave them something to do for awhile besides doing the work they are supposed to be doing - investigating the faulty forensic science used to convict Willingham.

The new website says all the terms of the Commission members are set to expire on Sept 1, 2011. However, the bill (HB 1068 in 2005) that created the Commission set the terms for the two members appointed by the Attorney General to expire in even-numbered years. Those members are probably Sarah Kerrigan and Arthur Jay Eisenberg. The TFSC website says their terms expire on Sept 1, 2011, but according to HB 1068 they would seem to expire on Sept 1, 2010. The information could be a just an error, but it could be that the TFSC doesn't really know when the terms expire. 

Also, we know that Rick Perry replaced some of his appointees last year two days before the commission was set to talk about the Beyler report, but does anyone know when the Lt Governor notified his appointees (Jean Hampton, Stanley Hamilton and Garry Adams) that they were being reappointed? Their terms also supposedly expired on Sept 1, 2009. They have probably been officially reappointed, but were they reappointed before or after Rick Perry made his move to replace his own appointees? Did the Lt Governor let them stay on as holdover appointments without officially reappointing them, and then after the Perry hullabaloo in late Sept 2009, did the Lt Governor then decide to just reappoint his appointees? If so, it speaks to the political nature of Perry's decision.

(b) Each member of the commission serves a two-year term.

The term of the members appointed under Subsections (a)(1) and (2)

expires on September 1 of each odd-numbered year. The term of the

members appointed under Subsection (a)(3) expires on September 1 of

each even-numbered year.

The Commission has still not changed its policy on holding secret meetings that are closed to the public and members of the press.

Please sign the email petition urging Chair Bradley and other members of the Texas Forensic Science Commission to make all of its committee meetings open to the public and the media.

The "Investigative Committee on the Willingham/Willis Case" of the Texas Forensic Science Commission is holding secret, private, closed door meetings without any public notice to discuss the Cameron Todd Willingham investigation.

Other committees of the TFSC are also being held in secret. Since the four-person Willingham/Willis committee does not form a quorum of the entire nine member Commission, it is not subject to the Open Meetings Act — which means it can legally deliberate in secret. However, the members of the Commission can vote to make all meetings public and to follow the rules of the Open Meetings Act.

Unless, the policy is changed, the public will not be privy to discussions by the four-member panel of the Commission that is responsible for scrutinizing the reliability of the arson investigation used to convict Todd Willingham.

Instead, the panel will report its conclusions to the nine-member commission, which will make the matter final.

Asked if he favored allowing the public to attend such sessions, TFSC Chair John Bradley responded, “No,”.

If you believe that all subcommittee meetings of the Texas Forensic Science Commission should be public and not private, secret closed door meetings, then please join us in writing commission Chair John Bradley and other Commission members urging them to make the meetings public and to post notices on the Commission website of when and where the subcommittee meetings will take place.

Shortly before Todd Willingham was executed in 2004 for an arson that killed his three young daughters, Texas Governor Rick Perry had received a request that he delay the execution based on an arson expert's report that evidence presented at the trial did not show that the fire had been deliberately set.

Dr. Craig Beyler, one of the nation's top arson experts, who after a search was hired by the Forensic Science Commission to investigate the case, submitted a report to the Commission in 2009 that the fire may well have not been caused by arson at all.

Secret, closed-door meetings thwart transparency and erode public confidence in the commission's work, which has already been compromised by Governor Rick Perry's abrupt dismissal of the previous chair and three other members of the TFSC two days before the Commmission was scheduled to discuss the report by Dr Craig Beyler.

Please add your name to the list of people urging Chair Bradley and other members of the Texas Forensic Science Commission to make all of its committee members open to the public and the media.

Video of TV News Report: Forensic Science Commission Holding Secret Closed Meetings in Todd Willingham Case

Dallas Morning News Editorial says Forensic Panels Should Meet in Public

The Dallas Morning News had an editorial last week saying that the Texas Forensic Science Commission should hold public meetings of all of its committees, including the committee dealing with the Todd Willingham investigation.

We agree and after last Friday's meeting, Texas Moratorium Network started an online petition to allow the public to contact FSC Chair John Bradley and other members of the Commission to urge them to hold public meetings.

Click here to sign the petition, which sends an email to the Commission every time someone signs.





Today's DMN Editorial:

The Texas Forensic Science Commission has taken a step forward and then tap-danced behind a cloud of secrecy under the leadership of new Chairman John Bradley.

Disturbing philosophy

"I don't think that is in the best interest of trying to move forward on this, because the ability to discuss and resolve these issues requires us to have those discussions in private. ... All of our issues will be released publicly during full commission meetings."

–John Bradley, chairman of the Texas Commission on Forensic Science, when asked about keeping committee meetings open

What's The Big Story? Find out atdallasnews.com/opinion

Blog: Opinion

Blog: Texas Death Penalty

Meeting Friday for just the second time since Bradley was named in September, the commission resumed work on the four-year-old complaint filed in the Cameron Todd Willingham execution case.

That made good Bradley's promise to state lawmakers to advance the matter. He also should get credit for asking those commissioners who have been working two-plus years on the case to fully air their opinions.

None disagreed that much more information is needed beyond the searing critique from eminent arson scientist Craig Beyler.

Just how – and how much – information should be gathered is a matter of keen public interest, but Bradley wants the initial course to be charted in private.

That's an awful approach.

Everyone knows the Beyler report is a potential political grenade. In a report to the commission last summer, Beyler said state and local investigators ignored sound scientific techniques in concluding that arson caused the 1991 fire that killed Willingham's three daughters in their Corsicana home. Convicted of murder, Willingham was executed in 2004 – Rick Perry, governor.

Commissioners say they need to study a range of documents, including the full transcript of the trial, in which state and local arson investigators testified. Commissioners said they have questions for Beyler and probably for other experts.

Nearly all of the nine commissioners are scientists, and they should pursue the evidence they need. Their job is not to reconsider the verdict against Willingham, but to determine whether junk science was part of his trial.

The matter is now before a four-person committee that Bradley formed to guide the Willingham case. Bradely, the district attorney of Williamson County, named one defense attorney to the committee, which achieves balance. But limiting membership to four means the committee isn't a commission quorum and, therefore, doesn't trigger an open-meetings requirement.

Secret meetings run contrary to a basic principle of public service. State law and the Texas Constitution give some investigatory bodies authority to conduct business confidentially. The State Commission on Judicial Conduct is one. The forensics commission, however, is not.

Nowhere did lawmakers give the commission that latitude when they created it in 2005. Procedures the commission adopted in January are silent on the matter. Some commissioners said after Friday's meeting that they were surprised that committee sessions would be done in secret.

When Perry installed Bradley and three other new members last fall, critics hatched the theory that the governor wanted the Willingham matter frozen until after the 2010 election. Bradley has said he didn't accept Perry's appointment to be somebody's puppet, and we'll accept that at face value. At the same time, though, he must see that public confidence is at stake. The way to preserve that is to conduct state business where the state can see it.

"I don't think that is in the best interest of trying to move forward on this, because the ability to discuss and resolve these issues requires us to have those discussions in private. ... All of our issues will be released publicly during full commission meetings."

–John Bradley, chairman of the Texas Commission on Forensic Science, when asked about keeping committee meetings open

Write Forensic Science Commission to Demand All Subcommittee Meetings are Public and Not Held in Secret Behind Closed Doors

If you believe that all subcommittee meetings of the Texas Forensic Science Commission should be public and not private, secret closed door meetings, then please join us in writing commission Chair John Bradley (photo left) and other members urging them to make the meetings public and to post notices on their website of when and where the subcommittee meetings will take place.
The address is:

Texas Forensic Science Commission
Sam Houston State University
College of Criminal Justice
Box 2296
816 17th Street
Huntsville, Texas 77341-2296

Fax: 1-888-305-2432
E-mail: info@fsc.state.tx.us

Report of today's meeting from the Dallas Morning News:

Bradley meets the press. Asked about the pace of the Willingham case ahead, he says it will proceed as appropriate. Asked if he would set a timetable, he says no. He says that would be arbitrary.

Asked about the newly configured, four-person Willingham committee, he says it will meet in private. Why not public? "I don't think it's in the best interest of how we choose to do things." Asked who decided the Willingham committees will meet privately, he says the committee did. (I should point out that the assistant AG attending today's session advised the commission that the committee were only made official today and that they couldn't have made official decisions at their organizing meetings last week.)

Bradley cuts off questions before I could ask him particulars of what the committee will tackle at its next meeting.

Talking with Commissioner Evans, the Fort Worth defense attorney, who says it was news to him that the committee will be meeting in private. Should it be? Evans says he would have no objection to public meetings, though he appreciates that there is a level of frankness that can help get things done behind closed doors. Overall, he says he's willing to listen to pros and cons.

Evans says he figures that committee members will be in contact to decide what materials to review and people to talk to for their next session -- whenever that is.

On his way out, Adams says it was news to him that committees will conduct business in private. He presumed they would be public. But don't worry, he says, other members of the commission will make sure business is above-board.

From last week's Grits for Breakfast, "Forensic commission's Willingham committee meeting in secret":

Committee meetings of the Forensic Science Commission are being held in secret, including a committee evaluating the Todd Willingham arson investigation which met yesterday. Death penalty activist Scott Cobb emailed FSC coordinator Leigh Tomlin to ask:

I heard your voice mail that the Complaint Screening Committee and the Investigative Committee on the Willingham/Willis Case held meetings yesterday in Dallas. When and where were they held? I didn't see any meeting notice posted on the website. I only knew about it because I had read in the Houston Chronicle that it was going to be held next Thursday. Did the Commission provide a public notice before the meetings were held? How can the public be aware of when these meetings are going to be held in the future? Are there minutes available of the meetings yesterday?

Tomlin replied with a single sentence: "The meetings were not public meetings."

They could be public, of course, at the discretion of the commission and the chair. But the new rules Chairman John Bradley rammed throughat the commission's last meeting allow him to opt to have closed sessions.

Having watched that meeting online, I seriously doubt the majority of commissioners understood that this would be the result or intended to close their deliberations. This is simply the chairman exercising his discretion in the convenient absence of any rule to the contrary. This is what happens when rules aren't publicly posted or even shared with commissioners before the day they're required to vote on them. One hopes the commission majority will override their chairman to revisit and amend those rules, making committee hearings public and publishing their agendas just like regular commission meetings.

The Forensic Science Commission never conducted its business in secret before. What do they have to hide?