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#392 Wrongful Conviction: Junk Science - Arson Evidence · Wrongful Conviction

0:01
Speaker 1: Hey, folks, Kate Judson here. I'm a lawyer and the
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Speaker 1: executive director of the Center for Integrity and Forensic Sciences.
0:10
Speaker 1: We're back with another episode of Junk Science, a series
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Speaker 1: we first released in twenty twenty, but these stories are
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Speaker 1: just as relevant as ever. This week is all about
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Speaker 1: arson evidence, the faulty forensic science that was used to
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Speaker 1: convict Cameron Willingham, whose story you're about to hear. Since
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Speaker 1: Cameron Willingham was convicted, we're realizing more and more that
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Speaker 1: this type of evidence cannot be relied on. But the
0:39
Speaker 1: lessons of this case don't go far enough. We still
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Speaker 1: have cases today where the only evidence presented is an
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Speaker 1: expert opinion. The problem is that the jury doesn't always
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Speaker 1: understand that what they're hearing is opinion, not indisputable fact,
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Speaker 1: and deciding someone's fate based on one person's opinion is
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Speaker 1: a recipe for disaster.
1:07
Speaker 2: It's December twenty third. Last night, you decorated a Christmas
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Speaker 2: tree with your family. You put your two year old
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Speaker 2: on your shoulder so she could hang her favorite ornament
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Speaker 2: way up high on the tree. Your twin babies gazed
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Speaker 2: up at you from the living room floor, taking the
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Speaker 2: scene in with giggles and excited kicks of their little legs.
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Speaker 2: Later on, your wife put the kids to bed, and
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Speaker 2: then you both stayed up late, finishing the tree and
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Speaker 2: cleaning up. In the morning, your wife leaves the house
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Speaker 2: early for some last minute chopping for the girls. The
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Speaker 2: babies hear the door slam and start to cry, as
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Speaker 2: they typically do. You take them out of their cribs,
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Speaker 2: give them eat a bottle, and put them on the
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Speaker 2: soft play mat on the floor so they can keep
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Speaker 2: each other company. You head back to your room and
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Speaker 2: as you lay down, you hear them cooing from across
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Speaker 2: the hall. You drift off to sleep, sleep long. You
2:01
Speaker 2: wake up to your two year old daughter screaming, Daddy, Daddy.
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Speaker 2: You're groggy, startled, but the terror in her voice snaps
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Speaker 2: you awake like a blaring alarm. And then it hits you.
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Speaker 2: The room is a dense cloud of gray and black.
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Speaker 2: You can barely see. You smell charcoal, ash, smoke. Oh no,
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Speaker 2: your girls. Gefted girls out of the house. It's loud.
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Speaker 2: It sounds like an angry windstorm. The entire house is crackling, popping.
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Speaker 2: You make your way to the baby's room and feel
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Speaker 2: around on the floor, groping in the darkness. You think
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Speaker 2: you grab one of the twins, but it's just a
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Speaker 2: baby doll. Your hair is on fire. You stand up
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Speaker 2: and pat it out and frantically get on the ground again.
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Speaker 2: Then a loud crash. Something is falling from somewhere in
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Speaker 2: the house. It must be the caving in a part
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Speaker 2: of the roof or a wall, but you can't see anything.
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Speaker 2: It's so hot you can't breathe. You need to catch
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Speaker 2: your breath before you pass out. You finally make your
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Speaker 2: way outside to get help. You'll come back for them.
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Speaker 2: You see your neighbor on her front lawn and scream
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Speaker 2: for her to call the fire department. She sees a
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Speaker 2: hysterical man covered in soot, and she yells back, they're
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Speaker 2: on the way. You try to get back inside, breaking
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Speaker 2: the window of the baby's room with a stick you
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Speaker 2: find in the yard. Flames explode from the opening. Oh God,
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Speaker 2: you can't get in. You're crying out for your children. Someone, anyone,
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Speaker 2: please help. The fire department finally arrives and they have
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Speaker 2: to hold you back. They find your two year old
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Speaker 2: in the bedroom on the floor. You didn't realize she
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Speaker 2: had been there, right there. Your babies are on the
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Speaker 2: floor of their room where you had left them with
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Speaker 2: their bottles. You had been so close to finding them.
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Speaker 2: They try to do CPR, but it's too late. You're
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Speaker 2: escorted away from the house, and once the fires are
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Speaker 2: under control, investigators in protective gear head inside. There's no
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Speaker 2: sense of urgency anymore. They walk through the remains and
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Speaker 2: disappear into the black and living room where you had
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Speaker 2: spent your last night together as a family. You are
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Speaker 2: dumbfounded when they arrest you for arson murder. This was
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Speaker 2: your family. You would never lay a finger on your children.
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Speaker 2: At your trial, the prosecutors call expert witnesses who tell
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Speaker 2: the jury that the proven signs of fire tells the
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Speaker 2: story of how you who committed this crime. You poured
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Speaker 2: lighter fluid, which they referred to as an accelerant, under
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Speaker 2: your baby's beds in the hallway by the front door.
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Speaker 2: The burn marks seared into the floor indicate where that
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Speaker 2: lighter fluid was puddled on the carpet. They say, there's
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Speaker 2: no way you tried to save your girls. If you had,
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Speaker 2: your feet would have been burned. Dripstains proved that you
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Speaker 2: poured accelerant up and down the hallway, the melted metal
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Speaker 2: door frame, the shattered glass. It all proves the fire
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Speaker 2: was so unnaturally hot that it produced temperatures that could
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Speaker 2: only have been created by chemicals that you intentionally poured
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Speaker 2: all over your home and your motive. Prosecutors argued this,
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Speaker 2: you love heavy metal music, and that indicates that you
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Speaker 2: have a dark side. You have posters on the walls
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Speaker 2: of your home, one of which depicts a grim reaper
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Speaker 2: that proves you're obsessed with death. You have a tattoo
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Speaker 2: of a skull and snake on your arm that indicates
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Speaker 2: that you're a violent person. You have psychiatric problems, perhaps
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Speaker 2: a demonic disposition. You couldn't afford to hire a lawyer,
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Speaker 2: so the court appointed you an attorney. He too, suspects
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Speaker 2: that you killed your children. He tells you to plead guilty.
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Speaker 2: If you do, they'll give you life in prison instead
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Speaker 2: of the death sentence. You can't do this. This was
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Speaker 2: an accident. There was no crime here. You're not going
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Speaker 2: to confess to killing your three beautiful children. You didn't
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Speaker 2: do anything wrong here. You were convicted and sentenced to
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Speaker 2: death on death row. The events of that day haunt you.
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Speaker 2: You look at the photos of your children, your wife
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Speaker 2: to remember the man you were, the life you once had.
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Speaker 2: Time seems to stand still on death row, and the
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Speaker 2: whole experience is nothing short of paralyzing. But the date
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Speaker 2: of your execution eventually closes in. You write a letter
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Speaker 2: to your parents, telling them to never stop fighting to
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Speaker 2: clear your name, even if it's after they put you
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Speaker 2: to death. The last words of your fellow inmates, the
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Speaker 2: ones who were executed before you, one by one, were
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Speaker 2: often apologies. Sometimes they were confessions. But before you're strapped
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Speaker 2: into the gurney and given a lethal injection, you say,
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Speaker 2: I am an innocent person convicted of a crime I
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Speaker 2: did not commit. I've been persecuted for twelve years for
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Speaker 2: something I did not do. From God's dust I came,
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Speaker 2: and to dust I will return, so the earth shall
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Speaker 2: become my throne. Your parents scatter your ashes over the
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Speaker 2: graves of your children. The story you just heard is
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Speaker 2: based on the wrongful conviction of Cameron Todd Willingham, who
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Speaker 2: was wrongfully convicted and executed in two thousand and four.
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Speaker 2: I'm Josh Dubin, civil rights and criminal defense attorney, an
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Speaker 2: innocent ambassador to the Innocence Project in New York Today
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Speaker 2: on wrongful conviction junk science, we examine arson evidence. In
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Speaker 2: nineteen seventy three, the Nixon administration published a report entitled
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Speaker 2: America Burning. It was all about damage the fires caused
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Speaker 2: in America, both in terms of physical distrutuction and the
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Speaker 2: billions of dollars spent to repair and rebuild. But unfortunately,
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Speaker 2: much of what was considered fire signs in America Burning
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Speaker 2: was merely a set of core assumptions that were never
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Speaker 2: subjected to the rigors of the scientific method. That is,
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Speaker 2: develop a hypothesis, test it, confirm it, reconfirm it, and
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Speaker 2: repeat until you know you have something sound and verifiable.
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Speaker 2: As a result of this study, fire investigators were given
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Speaker 2: a handbook, A Guide to Reading fire damage like a
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Speaker 2: psychic reads tea leaves. An investigator, having learned from this handbook,
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Speaker 2: starts his investigation at the exterior of a burnt down house.
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Speaker 2: He sees a V shaped burn on what's left of
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Speaker 2: the walls of the living room. He notes this is
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Speaker 2: the room where the fire started. He walks through the home,
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Speaker 2: keeping an eye out for the telltale signs of arson.
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Speaker 2: First crazed glass when windows shattered into irregular pieces with
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Speaker 2: light smoke deposits that indicate a rapid buildup of heat
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Speaker 2: that can only be caused by an accelerant. Second alligatoring,
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Speaker 2: large shiny blisters on burnt wood. Fast hot fires produced
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Speaker 2: by accelerants create this pattern. Third, puddle formations and burns
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Speaker 2: that look like drip trails. These are caused by the
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Speaker 2: spreading of accelerant like gasoline or paint thinner throughout a
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Speaker 2: house before it is intentionally set on fire. The investigator
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Speaker 2: checks all of these signs off the list. He knows
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Speaker 2: this must be arson. It turns out the investigator only
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Speaker 2: had a fifty percent chance of being right at best,
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Speaker 2: because fire science was built on a foundation of conjecture
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Speaker 2: and best guesses that were never adequately tested and confirmed
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Speaker 2: according to valid scientific principles. What experts and prosecutors had
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Speaker 2: been telling juries for decades about how you can definitively
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Speaker 2: determine that a fire was intentionally set was completely wrong.
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Speaker 2: In fact, signs that indicated to investigators that they were
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Speaker 2: dealing with arson, crazed glass, alligator patterns, burn marks indicating
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Speaker 2: drips or puddles of accelerant were actually the same things
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Speaker 2: left in the wake of an accidental fire. So the
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Speaker 2: evidence that was used to convict Cameron Todd Willingham and
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Speaker 2: so many others was deeply, deeply flawed.
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Speaker 3: It turns out that there was no evidence whatsoever that
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Speaker 3: this had been a fire that was set by Todd
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Speaker 3: Willingham running up and down his home, you know, just
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Speaker 3: before Christmas, spreading in all the different rooms and down
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Speaker 3: the hallway, and killing his three children. It was clear
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Speaker 3: that this was junk science. And unfortunately, by this point
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Speaker 3: in my career, I was familiar enough with the phenomenon
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Speaker 3: of junk science not to be surprised.
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Speaker 2: Joining us today to tell us about arson evidence and
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Speaker 2: how it relates to cases like Cameron Todd Willingham's is
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Speaker 2: Barry Sheck, co founder of the Innocence Project and famed
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Speaker 2: civil rights and criminal defense attorney. So Barry, first, thanks
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Speaker 2: for being here and for our listeners. Barry is one
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Speaker 2: of my personal heroes, and I'm just ecstatic that we're
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Speaker 2: able to get you to enlighten us about arson evidence. Now,
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Speaker 2: you worked to get Cameron Todd Willingham's case overturned after
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Speaker 2: he was executed, and this might seem like somewhat of
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Speaker 2: a pointless fight to some people, since mister Willingham was
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Speaker 2: already put to death in two thousand and four. But
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Speaker 2: you are fighting for mister Willingham's final wish for his
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Speaker 2: name to be cleared and him to be declared an
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Speaker 2: innocent man by a court. I think that it's well
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Speaker 2: accepted that he's an innocent man at this point. But
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Speaker 2: you're also fighting so that the kind of evidence that
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Speaker 2: was used against mister Willingham doesn't get used to convict
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Speaker 2: another innocent person. And so, to start off, Barry, if
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Speaker 2: some of the clues used an arson investigation or indeed
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Speaker 2: junk science, how did Cameron Todd Willingham get convicted in
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Speaker 2: the first place?
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Speaker 3: What the fire scientists, the arson investigators in Willingham, what
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Speaker 3: they did in that case. They would go to the
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Speaker 3: scene of a fire and they would look at all
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Speaker 3: these visual cues. And if they saw what was called alligatoring,
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Speaker 3: which was like the scales of an alligator on wood.
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Speaker 3: If they saw what was known as craze glass, that's
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Speaker 3: it's like a spider type cracking of the glass. If
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Speaker 3: they saw spawling of concrete that's like little chips coming
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Speaker 3: off the concrete at the scene of the fire, if
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Speaker 3: they saw scouring on the floor, poor patterns, they immediately
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Speaker 3: assumed that all of these visual cues meant that somebody
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Speaker 3: had spread accelerant around the house and lit it and
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Speaker 3: that was the cause of the fire. And they literally
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Speaker 3: said to the jury, we look at the fire, the
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Speaker 3: fire talks to us. The fire doesn't lie. That's very
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Speaker 3: powerful to a jury. So what happened, Josh, is that
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Speaker 3: when we at the Innocence Project saw what happened in
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Speaker 3: the Willingham case, we had just been involved in setting
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Speaker 3: up what's known as the Texas Forensic Science Commission. They
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Speaker 3: reviewed all the crime scene evidence in the Willingham case
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Speaker 3: and they said was clear and that is this is
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Speaker 3: junk science. This had been discredited by National Fire Protection
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Speaker 3: nine twenty one, ten years ago. The science was completely flawed, unreliable, ridiculous.
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Speaker 2: So even after all of that, the state of Texas
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Speaker 2: still refused to free Cameron Todd Willingham. And to show
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Speaker 2: just how flawed this evidence was, there was a man
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Speaker 2: named Ernest Willis who was convicted of a similar crime
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Speaker 2: with similar evidence than was used in the Willingham case.
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Speaker 2: But while Cameron Todd Willingham was put to death in
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Speaker 2: two thousand and four. Willis was declared innocent that very
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Speaker 2: same year. So how is that possible, Barry, that one
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Speaker 2: man Willingham is executed based on this junk science, while
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Speaker 2: another man, Willis, whose case was very similar, gets to
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Speaker 2: go free.
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Speaker 3: Ernest Willis went to trial, he had a completely incompetent
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Speaker 3: lawyer who was sparred for all kinds of reasons. Willis
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Speaker 3: was so upset by the fire that killed family members
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Speaker 3: that he was literally on psychotropic medication in the witness chair. Right.
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Speaker 3: He was lucky because his lawyer was so incompetent, and
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Speaker 3: on his death penalty appeal he got a patent lawyer
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Speaker 3: from LEITHA Ben Watkins in New York who dove into
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Speaker 3: the case and was able to get the federal courts
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Speaker 3: to vacate that conviction. And when the conviction was remanded
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Speaker 3: on exactly the same evidence, just like the Willingham case,
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Speaker 3: Willis was not only exonerated. There was a prosecutor in
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Speaker 3: Pakos County, Texas took one look at this and said,
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Speaker 3: oh my god, this was an accidental fire. This was
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Speaker 3: not an arson murder. And he not only dismissed the
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Speaker 3: case against Ernest Willis. Ernest Willis was compensated as actually
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Speaker 3: innocent by the State of Texas, while within the same
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Speaker 3: time period, Cameron Todd Willingham was executed.
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Speaker 2: It's just really hard to hear this stuff right because
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Speaker 2: right away this indicates some sort of double standard, or
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Speaker 2: at least some confusion within the justice system about what
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Speaker 2: arson evidence really means and how much it can be trusted.
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Speaker 2: And to be clear, by two thousand and four, there
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Speaker 2: shouldn't have been any confusion about this type of evidence
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Speaker 2: because in the early nineties there were two incidents that
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Speaker 2: I'm going to ask you about that really proved that
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Speaker 2: the kind of arson evidence used in the Cameron Todd
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Speaker 2: Willingham case was bogus. The first was the Lime Street
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Speaker 2: case in nineteen ninety, which was the case of Gerald
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Speaker 2: Wayne Lewis. Mister Lewis was accused of killing his pregnant wife,
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Speaker 2: his sister, and his sister's four children by arson. Now
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Speaker 2: Gerald always maintained his innocence, but it was actually a
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Speaker 2: prosecution expert named John Lentini who was the moving force
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Speaker 2: improving gerald innocence.
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Speaker 3: John Lentini was an arson investigator and he went along
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Speaker 3: with a colleague of his, John Dehan, to investigate an
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Speaker 3: allegation of arson at a home on Lime Street in Jacksonville, Florida.
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Speaker 3: And they examined the crime scene, and they were all ready,
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Speaker 3: by their own admission, to make a recommendation that it
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Speaker 3: was an intentional arson. But they realized that right next
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Speaker 3: to the house that burned down was another house that
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Speaker 3: was abandoned, but it was the same construction. So they
18:39
Speaker 3: rebuilt the house right next door to be identical to
18:45
Speaker 3: the Lime Street house that burned down, and then they
18:50
Speaker 3: basically put a cigarette on a couch. They began the
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Speaker 3: fire in a way that would be completely accidental. The
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Speaker 3: whole place burned down, and they saw all the clues,
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Speaker 3: all the visual clues from the craze glass, alligatoring, burning
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Speaker 3: under furniture, a completely compartmentalized fire. They saw all these cues,
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Speaker 3: and they knew that it was an accidental fire, not
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Speaker 3: a deliberate one, and so that began to change everything.
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Speaker 2: So again, this is very ironic and rare because Lentini's
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Speaker 2: a fire investigator that's working for the prosecution, and he's
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Speaker 2: actually trying to prove that this Lime Streek case was
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Speaker 2: in fact arson and that Gerald Wayne Lewis had actually
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Speaker 2: done it. But he realizes that there was some serious
19:42
Speaker 2: issues with his assumptions because this accidental fire actually resembled
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Speaker 2: an arson, and it resembled it in very critical ways.
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Speaker 2: And what was most shocking to me about this was
19:56
Speaker 2: that Lentini saw puddlestains and trailmar that looked identical to
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Speaker 2: what he had been taught and so many other investigators
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Speaker 2: had been taught, or the telltale signs of someone dripping
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Speaker 2: gasoline or another accelerant throughout a house. But that definitely
20:14
Speaker 2: was not the case here. And they knew that because
20:17
Speaker 2: they set the fire themselves with a cigarette exactly.
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Speaker 3: And they'd say, well, that really can't happen unless it's
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Speaker 3: an intentionally set fire. But it turns out with this
20:26
Speaker 3: phenomenon of flashover, which is you get this hot combustible
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Speaker 3: object in a small space, ordinarily a room, right, and
20:35
Speaker 3: then it begins to cause this huge burst of heat
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Speaker 3: and fire in that room and the whole place becomes engulfed.
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Speaker 3: So that's what creates the intense heat that arson investigators
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Speaker 3: had hypothesized must come from the deliberate use of accelerants.
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Speaker 3: It turns out that it could all happen in a
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Speaker 3: completely accidental fire.
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Speaker 2: So Linini the investigator, realizes that accidental fires can look
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Speaker 2: just like arson, and he does something that is actually
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Speaker 2: quite remarkable. But it shouldn't be, because whether you're working
21:30
Speaker 2: for the prosecution or the defense, when the science tells
21:34
Speaker 2: you something, you should not have a bias in its application.
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Speaker 3: Right.
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Speaker 2: He doesn't say, Oh, this is just some weird coincidence.
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Speaker 2: I'm going to keep working for prosecutors to convict people
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Speaker 2: in arson cases based on this evidence that I now
21:49
Speaker 2: know is clearly faulty, it's wrong. Instead, he's pretty shocked,
21:55
Speaker 2: appalled by what he sees, and he feels like he's
21:58
Speaker 2: been misled by this evidence for years. Right, And he
22:02
Speaker 2: gets an opportunity to examine a bunch more accidental fires
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Speaker 2: to make sure that his findings in the Lime Street
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Speaker 2: case were consistent with other accidental fires.
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Speaker 3: I don't know if people remember, but these homes on
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Speaker 3: in the hills in Oakland, California, began to burn down,
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Speaker 3: you know, in what was plainly a series of accidental fires.
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Speaker 3: And after all these homes were burned down, the fire
22:27
Speaker 3: scientists went at and examined each and every one of them,
22:31
Speaker 3: and they realized, once again, here were plainly accidental fires.
22:35
Speaker 3: But all these visual cues that arson experts had been
22:39
Speaker 3: relying on demonstrated that it was an accident. It was
22:43
Speaker 3: not an intentionally set fire. So take just the craze glass.
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Speaker 3: That's a simple thing to understand. You know, you look
22:51
Speaker 3: at the glass, it's sort of spider glass, and that
22:54
Speaker 3: supposedly an indication of suddenly intense heat that comes from
23:01
Speaker 3: an accelerant induced fire. In fact, you found craze glass
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Speaker 3: all over in Oakland in the Lime Street fire. Because
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Speaker 3: craize glass happens when people come to put out the
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Speaker 3: fire and they put cold water on it and the
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Speaker 3: glass cracks. That's how you get crazed glass.
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Speaker 2: So these arson investigators have been testifying for years and
23:28
Speaker 2: years that the reason you see crazed glass and it's
23:32
Speaker 2: no pun intent. That it's actually a crazy notion that
23:35
Speaker 2: they're testifying to one thing, and it turns out to
23:37
Speaker 2: be the exact opposite. All right, So crazed glass was
23:41
Speaker 2: caused by the cooling of the glass when they're putting
23:43
Speaker 2: the fire out. What were some other things that were wrong.
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Speaker 3: About They would say, oh, we're looking at mattress springs
23:50
Speaker 3: in a bed or something and they're melted. That can
23:53
Speaker 3: only happen if it's an intentionally set fire. But when
23:56
Speaker 3: they went to the hills of Oakland and looked at
23:59
Speaker 3: these homes, they saw the same thing, and the same
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Speaker 3: thing at the Lime Street fire.
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Speaker 2: I mean, you would think that would be the end
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Speaker 2: of people trying to use this kind of junk science,
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Speaker 2: this kind of false evidence, but that isn't the case.
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Speaker 3: What is really upsetting is that you see over the
24:19
Speaker 3: next few decades, nonetheless, lots of people who were convicted
24:25
Speaker 3: because they never did scientific validation in the first place.
24:30
Speaker 3: You actually have to conduct experiments, you have to have hypotheses,
24:35
Speaker 3: and you have to prove that they're true, instead of
24:38
Speaker 3: just having you know, really you know, sort of law
24:42
Speaker 3: enforcement people in lab coats, so to speak, or people
24:46
Speaker 3: that have expertise by way of quote unquote experience going
24:50
Speaker 3: to crime scenes and looking at fire scenes and really
24:55
Speaker 3: coming up with their own hypotheses that were never demonstrated
24:59
Speaker 3: to be true by science. That's what's so shocking about
25:02
Speaker 3: this whole area. In other words, if you believe all
25:06
Speaker 3: these different visual cues demonstrate that an accelerant has been used,
25:12
Speaker 3: you should do experiments to prove the point.
25:15
Speaker 2: Now, Barry, this isn't the case where these investigators were
25:19
Speaker 2: out to harm people. This is just how they were trained.
25:22
Speaker 3: I have some sympathy for a whole group of people
25:28
Speaker 3: who had, many of them just high school graduates who
25:31
Speaker 3: were trained in arson investigation, to believe all these different
25:39
Speaker 3: visual cues were a sign of the use of an
25:43
Speaker 3: accelerant and intentionally set fire that was never empirically demonstrated,
25:50
Speaker 3: and yet they were doing it, and that's how they
25:54
Speaker 3: made a living. That's true, and they thought that they
25:57
Speaker 3: had expertise. It's imagine how horrendous it is to believe,
26:02
Speaker 3: as a prosecutor or as a so called you know,
26:06
Speaker 3: arson investigator, that you were wrong and you destroyed people's lives.
26:12
Speaker 3: People don't get up in the morning and say let's
26:15
Speaker 3: do that, right, but it happens, and it's very hard
26:20
Speaker 3: to admit to it.
26:22
Speaker 2: All right, So why do you think it is that?
26:25
Speaker 2: You know, generations of experts have all been proven to
26:27
Speaker 2: be wrong. The assumptions they rely on turn out to
26:31
Speaker 2: be incorrect, But there's this unwillingness to change.
26:35
Speaker 3: Once you have invested yourself in this belief and all
26:41
Speaker 3: these very weighty consequences follow. It's very hard to admit
26:47
Speaker 3: that you were wrong, even when there's scientific proof that
26:51
Speaker 3: you're wrong. John Lintini and John de Haan and all
26:55
Speaker 3: these various experts, you know, they started off as regular
26:59
Speaker 3: are and investigators that were taught to believe these things.
27:04
Speaker 3: But engaging in real science and doing these experiments, they
27:08
Speaker 3: realized it was all wrong, and they had an enormous
27:11
Speaker 3: amount of trouble persuading the forensic science community to stop,
27:18
Speaker 3: and they're still fighting about it even to this day.
27:22
Speaker 3: I mean, I think that the Willingham case and all
27:26
Speaker 3: these other exonerations have exposed the community to it, and
27:31
Speaker 3: you literally can see fewer arson convictions since that happened.
27:36
Speaker 3: But Josh, you're absolutely right. It's mystifying. It's so upsetting
27:42
Speaker 3: that it is taking so long to change.
27:44
Speaker 2: It, and meanwhile, these convictions based on this false arson
27:49
Speaker 2: science or there's fire evidence just keep on coming.
27:55
Speaker 3: Hantak Lee, whose daughter who suffered from mental illness, was
27:59
Speaker 3: found yeah, literally burnt to death, incinerated, you know, in
28:03
Speaker 3: a small community in Pennsylvania. He gets convicted of killing
28:08
Speaker 3: his daughter intentionally in a fire which did not happen.
28:12
Speaker 2: Right, The case of Hantok Lee is just it's really
28:16
Speaker 2: really troubling. I mean, here's a guy that spent fifteen
28:19
Speaker 2: years in prison for a murder he did not commit.
28:22
Speaker 2: And there's a quote that always stuck with me from
28:26
Speaker 2: an opinion written by a judge during Hantok Lee's appeal,
28:30
Speaker 2: and it was this quote. Much of what was presented
28:33
Speaker 2: to Lee's jury as science is now conceded to be
28:37
Speaker 2: little more than superstition end quote. I mean, that's so remarkable,
28:42
Speaker 2: isn't it. And you know, again, the fact that this
28:46
Speaker 2: is still used in the face of quotes like that
28:48
Speaker 2: is just it's hard to understand. You know. He was
28:51
Speaker 2: granted a new trial and finally exonerated, thankfully, in twenty fifteen.
28:56
Speaker 3: Another was a Sonia Casey, who is convicted of burning
29:02
Speaker 3: down a house and killing I guess it was her uncle,
29:05
Speaker 3: Bill Richardson. And and of course it turned out that
29:07
Speaker 3: Bill Richardson was actually a heavy smoker and had probably
29:11
Speaker 3: fallen asleep with a burning cigarette. But plainly she did
29:15
Speaker 3: not start this fire. All the same kind of junk
29:19
Speaker 3: science was used in that case. And that's the great
29:22
Speaker 3: tragedy when you look at the arson cases, so many
29:26
Speaker 3: people like Ernest Willis or Cameron Todd Willingham or a
29:30
Speaker 3: Hantock League, you know, they're all convicted of killing with
29:35
Speaker 3: intentionally set fires. They're loved ones. That to me is,
29:41
Speaker 3: you know, the horrible, horrible irony of these junk science cases.
29:46
Speaker 2: Now for our listeners, I know Barry, you know twenty
29:51
Speaker 2: years and I've seen you get emotional before and passionate
29:56
Speaker 2: about a lot of cases. I want to go back
30:00
Speaker 2: to the Cameron Todd Willingham case for a moment because
30:03
Speaker 2: it seems to me that this is one that really
30:06
Speaker 2: stuck with you, and it seems to me like one
30:10
Speaker 2: of the two or three cases that has really haunted
30:12
Speaker 2: you in all your innocence work.
30:15
Speaker 3: How can it not haunt you? It should haunt everyone
30:19
Speaker 3: in this country. I mean, this is a case that
30:22
Speaker 3: ought to change the way the people look at capital
30:26
Speaker 3: punishment and forensic science. I think we look we've made
30:32
Speaker 3: a lot of progress, but we still haven't corrected the
30:35
Speaker 3: biggest injustice of all, and that is the wrongful execution
30:40
Speaker 3: of Cameron Todd Willingham. Do you see the suffering up
30:43
Speaker 3: to the very very end and the execution of an
30:46
Speaker 3: innocent man. How could it not haunt you? There's so
30:52
Speaker 3: much importance attached with the state finally admitting that it
30:58
Speaker 3: was wrong and that an innocent person is executed, and
31:01
Speaker 3: that will happen in Texas. It will.
31:19
Speaker 2: Something we keep returning back to in this podcast is
31:23
Speaker 2: the two thousand and nine National Academy of Sciences Report,
31:27
Speaker 2: which is a report published by rigorous scientists that is
31:32
Speaker 2: very critical of forensic sciences like arson investigation. In fact,
31:37
Speaker 2: the only one that it's not really critical of is DNA.
31:40
Speaker 2: And you've done a lot to try to push the
31:44
Speaker 2: lessons of this report to overturn convictions based on junk science.
31:50
Speaker 3: Truth is the two thousand and nine and National Academy
31:55
Speaker 3: of Science Report recommended that there be an independent entity
32:00
Speaker 3: in the federal government that would be dedicated to providing
32:07
Speaker 3: a scientific basis and oversight to all these forensic science disciplines.
32:12
Speaker 3: And independent entity, the National Commission on Forensic Science was
32:17
Speaker 3: put into place, which had independent experts from lots of
32:21
Speaker 3: different scientific communities. When Trump was elected, he abolished the
32:28
Speaker 3: National Commission on Forensic Science.
32:30
Speaker 2: Look, it's really inspiring to see that despite all that's
32:35
Speaker 2: gone wrong and all that hasn't worked that you're still
32:37
Speaker 2: hopeful because something else that's so shocking is that this
32:42
Speaker 2: issue about what kind of evidence should be considered scientific facts,
32:47
Speaker 2: something that can literally determine whether or not someone should
32:49
Speaker 2: live or die based on a crime they may not
32:52
Speaker 2: have committed. It's all still being treated like a political issue,
32:56
Speaker 2: and you have personal experience with these political barrier Yet
33:00
Speaker 2: you're still hopeful despite all of the harm that's been
33:04
Speaker 2: done and continues to be done by political officials, by presidents,
33:09
Speaker 2: by judges who, unlike Lentini, refuse to see the light,
33:15
Speaker 2: so to speak.
33:16
Speaker 3: You know, it becomes this big echo chamber. Junk science
33:20
Speaker 3: is admitted by one court, right, and all the experts
33:23
Speaker 3: can then testify again and again and again, even though
33:27
Speaker 3: it was never properly validated in the first place. And
33:31
Speaker 3: we've had a lot of that, and judges really have
33:33
Speaker 3: to be rigorous on dealing with it. And the problem
33:36
Speaker 3: with judges is that we all went to law school
33:39
Speaker 3: and not medical school. The judges really do have to
33:43
Speaker 3: be better in terms of getting into the nuts and
33:48
Speaker 3: bolts of the science. It's intimidating to them, just as
33:51
Speaker 3: it's intimidating to a lot of lawyers.
33:58
Speaker 2: You might be listening to this what you can do
34:00
Speaker 2: to help. I want every listener to consider that even
34:05
Speaker 2: those who were wrongly convicted and are lucky enough to
34:08
Speaker 2: be released from prison, their lives are just never the same.
34:12
Speaker 2: Let's take the example of Sonya Casey. She's the woman
34:16
Speaker 2: Barry Shek mentioned who was accused of murdering her uncle
34:19
Speaker 2: by arson. We know that miss Casey was innocent because,
34:23
Speaker 2: amongst other evidence, it was later found during the autopsy
34:27
Speaker 2: of her uncle that he most likely died from a
34:30
Speaker 2: heart attack. There was no soot in his lungs, which
34:33
Speaker 2: would have been there if he had in fact died
34:36
Speaker 2: in the fire. Instead, there was fluid in his lungs,
34:40
Speaker 2: so the evidence supported the conclusion that he was dead
34:43
Speaker 2: before the fire had even spread. Nevertheless, Casey was sentenced
34:48
Speaker 2: to ninety nine years in prison. Sonya Casey was eventually exonerated,
34:54
Speaker 2: but the stain of her wrongful conviction meant that on
34:57
Speaker 2: every job application or when she try to rent an apartment,
35:01
Speaker 2: she would either have to check a box saying that
35:03
Speaker 2: she had been convicted of a crime, or it would
35:06
Speaker 2: be revealed on a background check that made it nearly
35:09
Speaker 2: impossible for her to find work or a place to live. So,
35:15
Speaker 2: if you own a business, or you're a landlord, or
35:18
Speaker 2: you're just in a position to either approve or reject
35:22
Speaker 2: someone for work or a place to live, and someone
35:25
Speaker 2: checks the box that they had previously been convicted of
35:27
Speaker 2: a crime, please talk to them. Learn about the circumstances
35:32
Speaker 2: of their arrest, the accusations against them, who they are
35:36
Speaker 2: now as a human being. Perhaps you'll find that they
35:39
Speaker 2: were the victim, yes, the victim of a wrongful conviction.
35:43
Speaker 2: Or maybe it's just that they've done something in their
35:46
Speaker 2: past and are no longer that person. The great civil
35:50
Speaker 2: rights attorney Brian Stevenson said it best. Each one of
35:54
Speaker 2: us is more than the worst thing we've ever done.
35:58
Speaker 2: The true measure of our character is how we treat
36:01
Speaker 2: the poor, the disfavored, the accused, the incarcerated, and the condemned.
36:07
Speaker 2: I think we can all learn something from that. Next
36:18
Speaker 2: week will analyze hair microscopy, the profoundly flawed junk science
36:24
Speaker 2: that attempts to use human hair to accuse and convict
36:27
Speaker 2: people of crimes they did not commit.
36:31
Speaker 4: Wrongful conviction junk science is a production of Lava for
36:34
Speaker 4: Good Podcasts and association with Signal Company Number One. Thanks
36:39
Speaker 4: to our executive producer Jason Flahm and the team at
36:42
Speaker 4: Signal Company Number One executive producer Kevin Wardis and senior
36:46
Speaker 4: producers Karen Kornhaber and Britz Spangler.
36:49
Speaker 2: Our music was composed by Jay Ralph. You can follow
36:52
Speaker 2: me on Instagram at dubin Josh.
36:55
Speaker 4: Follow the Wrongful Conviction podcast on Facebook and on Instagram
36:59
Speaker 4: at Wrongful Conviction and on Twitter at wrong Conviction