The skeptical juror and the trial of cameron todd willingham

We can't promise you anything, understand. But they chose not to, and I'll tell you what. If you can lay your hands on any one of those recordings, I'll be pleased and honored to write out a check for five thousand dollars, right here on the spot.

You don't even have to put any money up. None of you are going to find any of those tapes because they never made them. The last thing they want is for anyone to see what goes on in those little secret meetings. They just want you to believe their snitch when he gets on the stand and talks about how awful he thought it was and how terrible he felt and how he just had to do the right thing.

So when he gets up there on the stand and they ask him if Willingham said anything about moving the little girl, he says "No. I don't believe he said that. He gives them the wrong answer, except this time he's on the witness stand, right in front of us. While that's a little embarrassing for the prosecutors, they never flinch.

They just hand him a piece of paper and ask if he now remembers it differently. Supposedly the paper is a statement that he signed, but it may just as well read '15 years is a long time. So I'm sitting there in the jury box, and I sure as hell know Johnny Webb is lying his ass off. The interesting question to me now is: how did he learn that the girls were in different locations? Then I decide, right then and there, that if the prosecution is going to begin their case with this lying, son-of-a-bitch snitch, I'm going to be damn suspicious of everything they try to feed me.

The room seems to be in shock. I realize I had exhibited neither subtlety or restraint, so I try to cover it. And I lit into Johnny Webb a third time by end of the book:. I included an extensive notes section at the end of the book.

Regarding Johnny Webb I wrote:. Now finally for the "Told Ya! Color me shocked that such a thing might happen in our criminal justice system. Still guilty and still dead. March 3, at PM Anonymous said March 4, at AM Anonymous said March 4, at AM Unknown said May 10, at AM tsj said June 22, at PM Unknown said I read that he was worried that the car would catch fire and explode - excelerating the fire.

June 12, at PM Unknown said July 22, at AM Unknown said July 22, at AM. Newer Post Older Post Home. I said I would. This is the post. Rather than argue his innocence yet again, I'll simply link to the Reason article , which is professionally written. I've blogged. I've written books. I've visited governors. I've visited prosecutors. I've filed informal and formal complaints of misconduct.

I've prepared habeas corpus petitions, motions for DNA testing, and civil suits. In all those efforts, I've failed. Recently, I've turned to testing, attempting to recreate critical aspects of possible wrongful convictions. It started when I obtained exculpatory photographs intentionally withheld from the defense in a case of considerable interest to me. Those photographs prompted me to conduct my own ballistic testing.

The test results have helped advance the case to the point that I'm now hopeful that the inmate will eventually be freed. I'm trying to expedite accelerate miniscully increase the speed of the process by publishing the results and conclusions in a book, tentatively entitled Gunshot Residue Suppressed and A Case of Wrongful Conviction.

I offer the tentative abstract as the image below. Click to enlarge. In the case just abstracted, I've been fortunate to work with two weapons experts who have volunteered their time. I will self-publish the book, purchase copies, and distribute them to the governor, the prosecutors, the state attorney general, the state public defender, various reporters and others.

Even though I have yet to finish the book, the information that we have learned has already helped advance the case considerably. If this recreate-and-reveal process works, then I will consider applying it to other cases of interest to me.

If I pursue the Preston Hughes case in similar fashion, I might be stabbing analog necks with various blades. I might perhaps be compiling a database of survival times of people with severed carotids. If I pursue an alleged arson-murder case of interest to me, I might be recreating a home electrical circuit that catches fire. If I purse the Swearingen case, I might be testing the rate at which stomach contents decay, in December, in a Texas forest. Alternatively, I might be cutting one leg from many pairs of panty hose.

If there is any reader out there who might be skilled in such testing, or skilled in obtaining case documents, and interested in volunteering multitudinous hours in a probably futile effort to correct or expose an injustice, feel free to contact me at the Skeptical Juror email address.

I'll prepare for the deluge. Bees Gotta Buzz. Bees gotta buzz, something's gotta something, and prosecutors gotta prosecute. That was going to be my clever introduction to this august post in which I planned to vent against prosecutorial misconduct. All I needed was a quick Google search to figure out what followed "Bees gotta buzz," and I'd be off to the races. Instead I'm left with another mixed metaphor that stinks like fish in a barrel. Both Mommy and Daddy had caught her before, putting things too close to it.

Daddy had even given her whuppings, but he was asleep in the other room, and Mommy was not even home. Perhaps she wanted to move some of the fire from the heater to her Little Tykes oven sitting nearby. Perhaps she simply wanted to put something inside the heater and watch it disappear.

Maybe a piece of drawing paper. Maybe one of her socks, the one she wasn't wearing when she was pulled barely alive from the house. Maybe it was the sock that was never found. Whatever it was, when it burned it was scarier than the fire in the heater. It burned closer and closer to her finger and her thumb as she held it at arm's length. But it was so hot. It was the hottest, scariest thing she felt, ever, so she flung it away, and then the curtain was on fire.

The curtain between the heater and her little oven was on fire. She was going to get in trouble again. She was going to get another whupping.

Fear of anger and whuppings, though, were quickly overcome by horror. The fire was growing larger and larger and scarier and scarier. She retreated as the fire climbed the wall to the ceiling. The smoke got inside her and made her cough. She could feel the heat on her skin, on her face and neck and shoulders. She had to get away, but the gate was there, blocking the doorway, keeping her from the safety of her Daddy's arms. Her sisters too were scared. They were crawling away as fast as they could, crawling towards the far corner of the room.

One of them made it underneath the crib. Now the top of the room was on fire, and it was getting dark even though it was just morning outside. She couldn't breath and face burned, and her neck and her bare shoulders, and she wasn't even close to the fire.

She didn't want to keep it a secret any more. She wanted her Daddy to save her. She screamed and screamed but he didn't come. So she did what her sisters could not do. She climbed the child gate and ran to her Daddy's room, screaming for him.

It was everywhere. She could hear him though. He was yelling at her to run, to go outside. But the fire was there where he wanted her to run, and she wanted him to save her. She climbed into his bed, but he wasn't there. Instead of him saving her, she would save him.

She would save him with her screams and her pleas, by awakening him, by telling him of the fire, by taking his place in the bed, by breathing in the smoke that would have filled his lungs instead of hers. It wasn't heroism that caused Amber to take her Daddy's place. A two-year-old cannot be heroic. She can only be afraid of fire and smoke and dark. She can only be expected to seek the safety of Mommy or Daddy.

Amber did everything a two-year-old could and should do. A babysitter testifed that Todd would never have done such a thing, An inmate was called to rebut the State's snitch, but was not allowed to testify. Other than those two less-than-impressive witnesses, Willingham's defense called no one to testify in his defense.

Despite the lack of an affirmative defense, and despite inadequate confrontation of the State's witnesses, the trial testimony still had buried within it an explanation of the fire that undermined the State's case.

The jurors failed to see it. The book is now available on Kindle.