StandDown Texas Project (Free subscription) | 11/20/2009
"Why you should care about Cory Maye and Cameron Todd Willingham," is the title of Matt Zeitlin's column in North by Northwestern. It’s hard to imagine a more depressing story than that of Cory Maye. In September, 2001, when he...
Grits for Breakfast (Free subscription) | 11/15/2009
Yesterday I got back a response to my public information act request to TDCJ (following another one, under separate cover, from the Office of Inspector General), stating that, "Pursuant to a diligent search of agency records, we have determined that no responsive information is maintained by the TDCJ in regard to your request. Here's what I had asked for: Any TDCJ policies regarding recording...
South Texas Chisme (Free subscription) | 11/12/2009
Republicans don't believe in accountability for themselves. The pending overhaul of a state forensic science panel could delay by two years or more its review of the arson investigation that led to the 2004 execution of Cameron Todd Willingham, the panel's former head said Wednesday.
Houston Chronicle (Free subscription) | 11/11/2009
State lawmakers questioned whether he intentionally is delaying a probe into the arson science that led to the conviction and execution of Cameron Todd Willingham.
Texas Politics (Free subscription) | 11/10/2009
Sen. John Whitmire, D-Houston, asked Williamson County District Attorney John Bradley whether the Texas Forensics Commission under his leadership will hear the arson report prepared by Craig Beyler in the Cameron Todd Willingham case. Bradley said he believes it...
StandDown Texas Project (Free subscription) | 11/10/2009
"Texas resists family's effort to clear executed man's name," is by Matt Smith. Here are two brief excerpts from this report that charts the history of the case. Cameron Todd Willingham's family here in Oklahoma never believed he set the...
Texas Politics (Free subscription) | 11/10/2009
Dressed in his usual black cowboy outfit, Kinky Friedman showed up for today's Senate Criminal Justice Committee hearing on the Cameron Todd Willingham execution. Asked why he was here, Friedman replied, "Justice."...
Texas Politics (Free subscription) | 11/10/2009
The Senate Criminal Justice Committee hearing on the Texas Forensics Commission investigation into the arson techniques used in the Cameron Todd Willingham case will be carried by livestream from the Senate today at 10 a.m.: http://www.senate.state.tx.us/bin/live.php Willingham was executed in...
Burnt Orange Report (Free subscription) | 11/10/2009
The renewal of news about the Cameron Todd Willingham case should not only shed light on the reasons Rick Perry is a bad governor, but it should also illuminate our way-too-Republican Court of Criminal Appeals, which denied writs of Habeus Corpus to Willingham continuously, even a month before execution. The court is fully occupied by Republicans, and three judges are on the ballot in 2010. Two of...
Texas Moratorium Network (Free subscription) | 11/10/2009
In Austin Tuesday morning, the Texas Senate Committee on Criminal Justice will question John Bradley, the newly appointed chairman of the Texas Forensic Science Commission, about the panel’s ongoing work. Before Gov. Rick Perry replaced four commission members, the panel was in the process of reviewing forensic evidence used against Cameron Todd Willingham, who was executed in 2004. Click here...
Off the Kuff (Free subscription) | 11/08/2009
John Bradley, the hang-em-high Williamson County District Attorney who was appointed to chair the Texas Forensic Science Commission by Governor Perry in August, tries to reassure us that there will be no Perry-saving monkey business on the Commission. He has the opposite effect. The commission wants to reassure you that the Cameron Todd Willingham case, involving [...]
Balloon Juice (Free subscription) | 11/08/2009
I just got an email from a guy named Dudley Sharp supporting Rick Perry’s decision to suspend the panel that was looking into the prosecution of Cameron Todd Willingham. The piece is pretty incoherent—there are no factual statements of any kind and it opens with an extended rant against the media that has almost [...]
Off the Kuff (Free subscription) | 11/03/2009
Couple of good op-eds in the papers in the past few days concerning the Cameron Todd Willingham case. First, here’s State Sen. Rodney Ellis and Barry Scheck of the Innocence Project focusing on the forensics: In 2006, the Innocence Project brought the Willingham case to Texas’ Forensic Science Commission, which the state Legislature had created a [...]
Texas Watchdog (Free subscription) | 11/02/2009
One of our favorite blogs, the law-related site Grits for Breakfast, is putting a whipping on Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott for not making public records public in cases like school districts’ police forces’ use-of-force policies and the Cameron Todd Willingham execution case: There’s just no excuse for keeping these records from the public. The [...]
Texas Politics (Free subscription) | 11/01/2009
Eugenia Willingham, stepmother to Cameron Todd Willingham, has responded to Willingham's ex-wife's recent statement which claimed that she believes Willingham was guilty. "First, Todd's ex-wife reportedly says now that he confessed to her. I don't believe this is true. More...
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