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

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Speaker 1: It's December twenty third. Last night, you decorated a Christmas
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Speaker 1: tree with your family. You put your two year old
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Speaker 1: on your shoulder so she could hang her favorite ornament
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Speaker 1: way up high on the tree. Your twin babies gazed
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Speaker 1: up at you from the living room floor, taking the
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Speaker 1: scene in with giggles and excited kicks of their little legs.
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Speaker 1: Later on, your wife put the kids to bed, and
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Speaker 1: then you both stayed up late, finishing the tree and
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Speaker 1: cleaning up. In the morning, your wife leaves the house
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Speaker 1: early for some last minute chopping for the girls. The
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Speaker 1: babies hear the door slam and start to cry, as
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Speaker 1: they typically do. You take them out of their cribs,
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Speaker 1: give them eat a bottle, and put them on the
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Speaker 1: soft play mat on the floor so they can keep
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Speaker 1: each other company. You head back to your room and
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Speaker 1: as you lay down, you hear them cooing from across
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Speaker 1: the hall. You drift off to sleep. You are to
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Speaker 1: sleep long. You wake up to your two year old
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Speaker 1: daughter screaming, Daddy, Daddy. You're groggy, startled, but the terror
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Speaker 1: in her voice snaps you awake like a blaring alarm,
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Speaker 1: and then it hits you. The room is a dense
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Speaker 1: cloud of gray and black. You can barely see. You
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Speaker 1: smell charcoal, ash, smoke. Oh no, your girls. Get the
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Speaker 1: girls out of the house. It's loud. It sounds like
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Speaker 1: an angry windstorm. The entire house is crackling, popping. You
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Speaker 1: make your way to the baby's room and feel around
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Speaker 1: on the floor, groping in the darkness. You think you
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Speaker 1: grab one of the twins, but it's just a baby doll.
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Speaker 1: Your hair is on fire. You stand up and pat
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Speaker 1: it out and frantically get on the ground again. Then
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Speaker 1: there's a loud crash. Something is falling from somewhere in
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Speaker 1: the house. It must be the caving in a part
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Speaker 1: of the room for a wall, but you can't see anything.
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Speaker 1: It's so hot you can't breathe. You need to catch
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Speaker 1: your breath before you pass out. You finally make your
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Speaker 1: way outside to get help. You'll come back for them.
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Speaker 1: You see your neighbor on her front lawn and scream
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Speaker 1: for her to call the fire department. She sees a
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Speaker 1: hysterical man covered in soot, and she yells back, they're
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Speaker 1: on the way. You try to get back inside, breaking
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Speaker 1: the window of the baby's room with the stick you
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Speaker 1: find in the yard, flames explode from the opening. Oh God,
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Speaker 1: you can't get in. You're crying out for your children. Someone, anyone,
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Speaker 1: please help. The fire department finally arrives and they have
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Speaker 1: to hold you back. They find your two year old
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Speaker 1: in the bedroom on the floor. You didn't realize she
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Speaker 1: had been right there, right there. Your babies are on
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Speaker 1: the floor of their room where you had left them
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Speaker 1: with their bottle. You had been so close to finding them.
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Speaker 1: They try to do CPR, but it's too late. You're
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Speaker 1: escorted away from the house, and once the fires a
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Speaker 1: under control, investigators in protective gear head inside. There's no
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Speaker 1: sense of urgency anymore. They walk through the remains and
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Speaker 1: disappear into the black and living room where you had
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Speaker 1: spent your last night together as a family. You are
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Speaker 1: dumbfounded when they arrest you for arson murder. This was
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Speaker 1: your family. You would never lay a finger on your children.
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Speaker 1: At your trial, the prosecutors call expert witnesses who tell
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Speaker 1: the jury that the proven science of fire tells the
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Speaker 1: story of how you committed this crime. You pour lighter fluid,
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Speaker 1: which they referred to as an accelerant, under your baby's
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Speaker 1: beds in the hallway by the front door. The burn
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Speaker 1: marks seared into the floor indicate where that light or
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Speaker 1: fluid was puddled on the carpet. They say, there's no
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Speaker 1: way you tried to save your girls. If you had,
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Speaker 1: your feet would have been burned. Dripstains proved that you
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Speaker 1: poured accelerant up and down the hallway. The melted metal
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Speaker 1: door frame, the shattered glass, It all proves the fire
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Speaker 1: was so unnaturally hot that it produced temperatures that could
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Speaker 1: only have been created by chemicals that you intentionally poured
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Speaker 1: all over your home and your motive. Prosecutors argued this,
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Speaker 1: you love heavy metal music, and that indicates that you
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Speaker 1: have a dark side. You have posters on the walls
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Speaker 1: of your home, one of which depicts a grim reaper
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Speaker 1: that proves you're obsessed with death. You have a tattoo
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Speaker 1: of a skull and snake on your arm that indicates
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Speaker 1: that you're a violent person. You have psychiatric problems, perhaps
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Speaker 1: a demonic disposition. You couldn't afford to hire a lawyer,
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Speaker 1: so the court appointed you an attorney. He too, suspects
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Speaker 1: that you killed your children. He tells you to plead guilty.
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Speaker 1: If you do, they'll give you life in prison instead
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Speaker 1: of the death sentence. You can't do this. This was
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Speaker 1: an accident. There was no crime here. You're not going
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Speaker 1: to confess to killing your three beautiful children. You didn't
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Speaker 1: do anything wrong here. You were convicted and sentenced to
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Speaker 1: death on death row. The events of that day haunt you.
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Speaker 1: You look at the photos of your children, your wife
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Speaker 1: to remember the man you were, the life you once had.
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Speaker 1: Time seems to stand still on death row, and the
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Speaker 1: whole experience is nothing short of paralyzing. The date of
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Speaker 1: your execution eventually closes in. You write a letter to
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Speaker 1: your parents, telling them to never stop fighting to clear
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Speaker 1: your name, even if it's after they put you to death.
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Speaker 1: The last wars of your fellow inmates, the ones who
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Speaker 1: were executed before you, one by one, were often apologies.
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Speaker 1: Sometimes they were confessions. But before you're strapped into the
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Speaker 1: gurney and given a lethal injection, you say, I am
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Speaker 1: an innocent person convicted of a crime I did not commit.
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Speaker 1: I have been persecuted for twelve years for something I
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Speaker 1: did not do. From God's dust I came, and to
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Speaker 1: dust I will return, so the earth shall become my throne.
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Speaker 1: Your parents scatter your ashes over the graves of your children.
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Speaker 1: The story you just heard is based on the wrongful
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Speaker 1: conviction of Cameron Todd Willingham, who was wrongfully convicted and
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Speaker 1: executed in two thousand and four. I'm Josh Dubin, civil
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Speaker 1: rights and criminal defense attorney and Innocent Ambassador to the
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Speaker 1: Innocence Project in New York. Today on wrongful conviction junk science,
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Speaker 1: we examine arson evidence. In nineteen seventy three, the Nixon
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Speaker 1: administration published a report entitled America Burning. It was all
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Speaker 1: about damage the fires caused in America, both in terms
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Speaker 1: of physical destruction and the billions of dollars spent to
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Speaker 1: repair and rebuild. But unfortunately, much of what was considered
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Speaker 1: fire signs in America Burning was merely a set of
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Speaker 1: core assumptions that were never subjected to the rigors of
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Speaker 1: the scientific method, that is, develop a hypothesis, test it,
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Speaker 1: confirm it, reconfirm it, and repeat until you know you
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Speaker 1: have something sound and verifiable. As a result of this study,
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Speaker 1: fire investigators were given a handbook, a guide to reading
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Speaker 1: fire damage like a psychic reads tea leaves. An investigator,
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Speaker 1: having learned from this handbook, starts his investigation at the
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Speaker 1: exterior of a burnt down house. He sees a V
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Speaker 1: shaped burn on what's left of the walls of the
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Speaker 1: living room. He notes this is the room where the
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Speaker 1: fire started. He walks through the home, keeping an eye
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Speaker 1: out for the telltale signs of arson. First, crazed glass
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Speaker 1: windows shattered into irregular pieces with light smoke deposits that
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Speaker 1: indicate a rapid buildup of heat that can only be
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Speaker 1: caused by an accelerant. Second, alligatoring large shiny blisters on
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Speaker 1: burnt wood. Fast hot fires produced by accelerants create this pattern. Third,
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Speaker 1: puddle formations and burns that look like drip trails. These
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Speaker 1: are caused by the spreading of accelerant like gasoline or
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Speaker 1: paint thinner throughout a house before it is intentionally set
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Speaker 1: on fire. The investigator checks all of these signs off
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Speaker 1: the list. He knows this must be arson. It turns
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Speaker 1: out the investigator only had a fifty percent chance of
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Speaker 1: being right at best, because fire science was built on
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Speaker 1: a foundation of conjecture and best guesses that were never
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Speaker 1: adequately tested and confirmed according to valid scientific principles. What
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Speaker 1: experts and prosecutors had been telling juries for decades about
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Speaker 1: how you can definitively determine that a fire was intentionally
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Speaker 1: set was completely wrong. In fact, signs that indicated to
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Speaker 1: investigators that they were dealing with arson, crazed glass, alligator patterns,
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Speaker 1: burn marks indicating drips or puddles of accelerant were actually
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Speaker 1: the same things left in the wake of an accidental fire.
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Speaker 1: So the evidence that was used to convict Cameron Todd
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Speaker 1: Willingham and so many others was deeply, deeply flawed.
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Speaker 2: It turns out that there was no evidence whatsoever that
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Speaker 2: this had been a fire that was set by Todd
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Speaker 2: Willingham running up and down his home, you know, just
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Speaker 2: before Christmas, spreading accelerant in all the different rooms and
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Speaker 2: down the hallway and killing his three children. It was
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Speaker 2: clear that this was junk science. And unfortunately, by this
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Speaker 2: point in my career I was familiar enough with the
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Speaker 2: phenomenon of junk science not to be surprised.
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Speaker 1: Joining us today to tell us about arson evidence and
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Speaker 1: how it relates to cases like Cameron Todd Willingham's is
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Speaker 1: Barry Sheck, co founder of the Innocence Project and famed
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Speaker 1: civil rights and criminal defense attorney. So Barry, first, thanks
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Speaker 1: for being here and for our listeners. Barry is one
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Speaker 1: of my personal heroes, and I'm just ecstatic that we're
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Speaker 1: able to get you to enlighten us about arson evidence. Now,
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Speaker 1: you worked to get Cameron Todd Willingham's case overturned after
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Speaker 1: he was executed, And this might seem like somewhat of
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Speaker 1: a pointless fight to some people, since mister Willingham was
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Speaker 1: already put to death in two thousand and four. But
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Speaker 1: you are fighting for mister Willingham's final wish for his
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Speaker 1: name to be cleared and him to be declared an
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Speaker 1: innocent man by a court. I think that it's well
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Speaker 1: accepted that he's an innocent man at this point. But
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Speaker 1: you're also fighting so that the kind of evidence that
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Speaker 1: was used against mister Willingham doesn't get used to convict
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Speaker 1: another innocent person. And so, to start off, Barry, if
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Speaker 1: some of the clues used an arson investigation or indeed
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Speaker 1: junk science, how did Cameron Todd Willingham get convicted in
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Speaker 1: the first place?
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Speaker 2: What the fire scientists, the arson investigators in Willingham, what
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Speaker 2: they did in that case. They would go to the
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Speaker 2: scene of a fire and they would look at all
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Speaker 2: these visual cues and if they saw what was called alligatoring,
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Speaker 2: which was like the scales of an alligator on wood.
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Speaker 2: If they saw what was known as craze glass that's
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Speaker 2: like a spider type cracking of the glass. If they
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Speaker 2: saw spawling of concrete that's like little chips coming off
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Speaker 2: the concrete at the scene of the fire. If they
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Speaker 2: saw scouring on the floor, poor patterns, they immediately assumed
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Speaker 2: that all of these visual cues meant that somebody had
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Speaker 2: spread accelerant around the house and lit it and that
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Speaker 2: was the cause of the fire. And they literally said
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Speaker 2: to the jury, we look at the fire, the fire
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Speaker 2: talks to us. The fire doesn't lie. That's very powerful
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Speaker 2: to a jury. So what happened, Josh, is that when
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Speaker 2: we at the Innocence Project saw what happened in the
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Speaker 2: Willingham case, we had just been involved in setting up
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Speaker 2: what's known as the Texas Forensic Science Commission. They reviewed
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Speaker 2: all the crime scene evidence in the Willingham case and
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Speaker 2: they said what was clear, and that is this is
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Speaker 2: junk science. This had been discredited by Fire Protection nine
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Speaker 2: twenty one, ten years ago. The science was completely flawed, unreliable, ridiculous.
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Speaker 1: So even after all of that, the state of Texas
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Speaker 1: still refused to free Cameron Todd Willingham. And to show
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Speaker 1: just how flawed this evidence was, there was a man
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Speaker 1: named Ernest Willis who was convicted of a similar crime
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Speaker 1: with similar evidence than was used in the Willingham case.
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Speaker 1: But while Cameron Todd Willingham was put to death in
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Speaker 1: two thousand and four, Willis was declared innocent that very
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Speaker 1: same year. So how is that possible, Barry, that one
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Speaker 1: man Willingham is executed based on this junk science, while
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Speaker 1: another man, Willis, whose case was very similar, gets to
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Speaker 1: go free.
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Speaker 2: Ernest Willis went to trial, he had a completely incompetent
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Speaker 2: lawyer who was disbarred for all kinds of reasons. Willis
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Speaker 2: was so upset by the fire that you know he
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Speaker 2: killed family members, that he was literally on psychotropic medication
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Speaker 2: in the witness chair, right. He was lucky because his
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Speaker 2: lawyer was so incompetent, and on his death penalty appeal
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Speaker 2: he got a patent lawyer from Letha Ben Watkins in
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Speaker 2: New York who dove into the case and was able
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Speaker 2: to get the federal courts to vacate that conviction. And
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Speaker 2: when the conviction was remanded on exactly the same evidence.
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Speaker 2: Just like the Willingham case, Willis was not only exonerated.
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Speaker 2: There was a prosecutor in Pakos County, Texas took one
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Speaker 2: look at this and said, oh my god, this was
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Speaker 2: an accidental fire. This was not an arson murderer, and
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Speaker 2: he not only dismissed the case against Ernest Willis, Ernest
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Speaker 2: Willis was compensated as actually innocent by the state of Texas,
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Speaker 2: while within the same time period Cameron Todd Willingham was executed.
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Speaker 1: It's just really hard to hear this stuff right because
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Speaker 1: right away this indicates some sort of double standard, or
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Speaker 1: at least some confusion within the justice system about what
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Speaker 1: arson evidence really means and how much it can be trusted.
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Speaker 1: And to be clear, by two thousand and four, there
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Speaker 1: shouldn't have been any confusion about this type of evidence,
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Speaker 1: because in the early nineties there were two incidents that
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Speaker 1: I'm going to ask you about that really proved that
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Speaker 1: the kind of arson evidence used in the Cameron Todd
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Speaker 1: Willingham case was bogus. The first was the Lime Street
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Speaker 1: case in nineteen ninety, which was the case of Gerald
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Speaker 1: Wayne Lewis. Mister Lewis was accused of killing his pregnant wife,
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Speaker 1: his sister, and his sister's four children by arson. Now
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Speaker 1: Gerald always maintained his innocence, but it was actually a
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Speaker 1: prosecution expert named John Lentini who was the moving force
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Speaker 1: improving Gerald's innocence.
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Speaker 2: John Lentini was arson investigator, and he went along with
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Speaker 2: a colleague of his, John Dehan, to investigate an allegation
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Speaker 2: of arson at a home on Lime Street in Jacksonville, Florida.
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Speaker 2: And they examined the crime scene and they were all ready,
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Speaker 2: by their own admission, to make a recommendation that it
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Speaker 2: was an intentional arson. But they realized that right next
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Speaker 2: to the house that burned down was another house that
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Speaker 2: was abandoned, but it was the same construction. So they
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Speaker 2: rebuilt the house right next door to be identical to
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Speaker 2: the Lime Street house that burned down, and then they
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Speaker 2: basically put a cigarette on a couch. They began the
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Speaker 2: fire in a way that would be completely accidental. The
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Speaker 2: whole place burned down, and they saw all the clues,
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Speaker 2: all the visual clues from the craze glass alligator burning
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Speaker 2: under furniture, a completely compartmentalized fire. They saw all these
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Speaker 2: cues and they knew that it was an accidental fire,
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Speaker 2: not a deliberate one, and so that began to change everything.
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Speaker 1: So again, this is very ironic and rare because Lentini's
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Speaker 1: a fire investigator that's working for the prosecution and he's
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Speaker 1: actually trying to prove that this Lime Street case was
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Speaker 1: in fact arson and that Gerald Wayne Lewis had actually
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Speaker 1: done it. But he realizes that there was some serious
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Speaker 1: issues with his assumptions because this accidental fire actually resembled
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Speaker 1: an arson, and it resembled it in very critical ways.
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Speaker 1: And what was most shocking to me about this was
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Speaker 1: that Lentini saw puddlestains and trail marks that looked identical
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Speaker 1: to what he had been taught and so many other
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Speaker 1: investigators had been taught, or the telltale signs of someone
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Speaker 1: dripping gasoline or another accelerant throughout a house. But that
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Speaker 1: definitely was not the case here. And they knew that
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Speaker 1: because they set the fire themselves with a cigarette exactly, and.
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Speaker 2: They'd say, well, that really can't happen unless it's an
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Speaker 2: intentionally set fire. But it turns out with this phenomenon
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Speaker 2: of flashover, which is you get this hot, combustible object
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Speaker 2: in a small space, ordinarily a room, right, and then
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Speaker 2: it begins to cause this huge burst of heat and
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Speaker 2: fire in that room, and the whole place becomes engulfed.
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Speaker 2: So that's what creates the intense heat that arson investigators
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Speaker 2: had hypothesized must come from the deliberate use of accelerants.
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Speaker 2: It turns out that it could all happen in a
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Speaker 2: completely accidental fire.
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Speaker 1: So Lintini the investigator realizes that accidental fires can look
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Speaker 1: just like arson, and he does something that is actually
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Speaker 1: quite remarkable. But it shouldn't be, because whether you're working
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Speaker 1: for the prosecution or the defense, when the science tells
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Speaker 1: you something, you should not have a bias in its application. Right.
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Speaker 1: He doesn't say, Oh, this is just some weird coincidence.
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Speaker 1: I'm going to keep working for prosecutors to convict people
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Speaker 1: in arson cases based on this evidence that I now
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Speaker 1: know is clearly faulty. It's wrong. Instead, he's pretty shocked,
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Speaker 1: appalled by what he sees, and he feels like he's
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Speaker 1: been misled by this evidence for years. Right, And he
20:56
Speaker 1: gets an opportunity to examine a bunch more more accidental
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Speaker 1: fires and make sure that his findings in the Lime
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Speaker 1: Street case were consistent with other accidental fires.
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Speaker 2: I don't know if people remember, but these homes on
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Speaker 2: the in the hills in Oakland, California, began to burn down,
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Speaker 2: you know, in what was plainly a series of accidental fires.
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Speaker 2: And after all these homes were burned down, the fire
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Speaker 2: scientists went at and examined each and every one of
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Speaker 2: them and they realized, once again, here were plainly accidental fires.
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Speaker 2: But all these visual cues that arson experts had been
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Speaker 2: relying on demonstrated that it was an accident. It was
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Speaker 2: not an intentionally set fire. So take just the craze glass.
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Speaker 2: That's a simple thing to understand. You know, you look
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Speaker 2: at the glass, it's sort of spider glass, and that
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Speaker 2: supposedly an indication of suddenly intense heat that comes from
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Speaker 2: you know, an accelerant induced fire. In fact, you've had
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Speaker 2: craze glass all over in Oakland in the Lime Street fire.
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Speaker 2: Because craze glass happens when people come to put out
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Speaker 2: the fire and they put cold water on it and
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Speaker 2: the glass cracks. That's how you get crazed glass.
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Speaker 1: So these arson investigators have been testifying for years and
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Speaker 1: years that the reason you see crazed glass, and it's
22:26
Speaker 1: no pun intend that it's actually a crazy notion that
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Speaker 1: they're testifying to one thing and it turns out to
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Speaker 1: be the exact opposite. All right, So crazed glass was
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Speaker 1: caused by the cooling of the glass when they're putting
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Speaker 1: the fire out. What were some other things they were
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Speaker 1: wrong about?
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Speaker 2: They would say, oh, we're looking at mattress springs in
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Speaker 2: a bed or something and they're melted. That can only
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Speaker 2: happen if it's an intentionally set fire. But when they
22:51
Speaker 2: went to the hills of Oakland and looked at these homes,
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Speaker 2: they saw the same thing, and the same thing at
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Speaker 2: the Lime Street fire.
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Speaker 1: I mean, you would think that would be the end
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Speaker 1: of people trying to use this kind of junk science,
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Speaker 1: this kind of false evidence, but that isn't the case.
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Speaker 2: What is really upsetting is that you see over the
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Speaker 2: next few decades, nonetheless, lots of people who were convicted
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Speaker 2: because they never did scientific validation in the first place.
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Speaker 2: You actually have to conduct experiments, you have to have hypotheses,
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Speaker 2: and you have to prove that they're true, instead of
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Speaker 2: just having you know, really you know, sort of law
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Speaker 2: enforcement people in lab codes, so to speak, or people
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Speaker 2: that have expertise by way of quote unquote experience going
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Speaker 2: to crime scenes and looking at fire scenes and really
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Speaker 2: coming up with their own hypotheses that were never demonstrated
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Speaker 2: to be true by science. That's what's so shocking about
23:55
Speaker 2: this whole area. In other words, if you believe all
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Speaker 2: these different visual cues demonstrate that an accelerant has been used,
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Speaker 2: you should do experiments to prove the point.
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Speaker 1: Now, Barry, this isn't the case where these investigators were
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Speaker 1: out to harm people. This is just how they were trained.
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Speaker 2: I have some sympathy for a whole group of people
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Speaker 2: who had, many of them just high school graduates who
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Speaker 2: were trained in arson investigation to believe all these different
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Speaker 2: visual cues were a sign of the use of an
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Speaker 2: accelerant and intentionally set fire that was never empirically demonstrated,
24:43
Speaker 2: and yet they were doing it, and that's how they
24:48
Speaker 2: made a living. That's true, and they thought that they
24:51
Speaker 2: had expertise. It's imagine how horrendous it is to believe,
24:56
Speaker 2: as a prosecutor or as a so called know arson investigator,
25:02
Speaker 2: that you were wrong and you destroyed people's lives. People
25:06
Speaker 2: don't get up in the morning and say let's do that, right,
25:12
Speaker 2: But it happens and it's very hard to admit to it.
25:15
Speaker 1: All right, So why do you think it is that?
25:18
Speaker 1: You know, generations of experts have all been proven to
25:21
Speaker 1: be wrong. The assumptions they rely on turn out to
25:25
Speaker 1: be incorrect, but there's this unwillingness to change.
25:29
Speaker 2: Once you have invested yourself in this belief and all
25:35
Speaker 2: these very weighty consequences follow, it's very hard to admit
25:41
Speaker 2: that you were wrong, even when there's scientific proof that
25:45
Speaker 2: you're wrong. John Linini and John de Haan and all
25:49
Speaker 2: these various experts, you know, they started off as regular
25:53
Speaker 2: ARSON investigators that we're taught to believe these things, but
25:58
Speaker 2: engaging in real sessellience and doing these experiments, they realized
26:02
Speaker 2: it was all wrong, and they had an enormous amount
26:06
Speaker 2: of trouble persuading the forensic science community to stop, and
26:12
Speaker 2: they're still fighting about it even to this day. I mean,
26:17
Speaker 2: I think that the Willingham case and all these other
26:20
Speaker 2: exonerations have exposed the community to it, and you literally
26:26
Speaker 2: can see fewer ARSON convictions since that happened. But Josh,
26:31
Speaker 2: you're absolutely right, it's mystifying. It's so upsetting that it
26:36
Speaker 2: is taking so long to change it.
26:39
Speaker 1: And meanwhile these convictions based on this false arson science
26:44
Speaker 1: or there's fire evidence, just keep on coming.
26:48
Speaker 2: Hantak Lee, whose daughter, who suffered from mental illness, was
26:53
Speaker 2: found literally burnt to death, incinerated, you know, in a
26:56
Speaker 2: small community in Pennsylvania. He gets convicted of killing his
27:02
Speaker 2: daughter intentionally in a fire which did not happen.
27:06
Speaker 1: Right. The case of Hantok Lee is just it's really
27:10
Speaker 1: really troubling. I mean, here's a guy that spent fifteen
27:13
Speaker 1: years in prison for a murder he did not commit.
27:16
Speaker 1: And there's a quote that always stuck with me from
27:20
Speaker 1: an opinion written by a judge during Hantok Lee's appeal,
27:24
Speaker 1: and it was this quote. Much of what was presented
27:27
Speaker 1: to Lee's jury as science is now conceded to be
27:31
Speaker 1: little more than superstition end quote. I mean, that's so remarkable,
27:36
Speaker 1: isn't it. And you know, again, the fact that this
27:40
Speaker 1: is still used in the face of quotes like that,
27:42
Speaker 1: it's just it's hard to understand. You know. He was
27:45
Speaker 1: granted a new trial and finally exonerated, thankfully, in twenty fifteen.
27:50
Speaker 2: Another was a Sonya Casey, who is convicted of burning
27:56
Speaker 2: Dana house and killing I guess it was her uncle
27:59
Speaker 2: Bill Richardson, and and of course it turned out that
28:01
Speaker 2: Bill Richardson was actually a heavy smoker and had probably
28:05
Speaker 2: fallen asleep with a burning cigarette. But plainly she did
28:09
Speaker 2: not start this fire. All the same kind of junk
28:12
Speaker 2: science was used in that case. And that's the great tragedy.
28:17
Speaker 2: When you look at the arson cases, so many people
28:21
Speaker 2: like Ernest Willis or Cameron Todd Willingham or a Hantock League,
28:25
Speaker 2: you know, they're all convicted of killing with intentionally set fires.
28:31
Speaker 2: They're loved ones. That to me is, you know, the horrible,
28:36
Speaker 2: horrible irony of these junk science cases.
28:40
Speaker 1: Now, for our listeners, I know, Barry, you know twenty
28:44
Speaker 1: years and I've seen you get emotional before and passionate
28:50
Speaker 1: about a lot of cases. But I want to go
28:54
Speaker 1: back to the Cameron Todd Willingham case for a moment
28:56
Speaker 1: because it seems to me that this is one that
29:00
Speaker 1: really stuck with you. And it seems to me like
29:03
Speaker 1: one of the two or three cases that has really
29:05
Speaker 1: haunted you in all your innocence work.
29:09
Speaker 2: How can it not haunt you? It should haunt everyone
29:13
Speaker 2: in this country. I mean, this is a case that
29:16
Speaker 2: ought to change the way the people look at capital
29:20
Speaker 2: punishment and forensic science. I think we look we've made
29:25
Speaker 2: a lot of progress, but we still haven't corrected the
29:29
Speaker 2: biggest injustice of all, and that is the wrongful execution
29:33
Speaker 2: of Cameron Todd Willingham. You see the suffering up to
29:37
Speaker 2: the very very end, and the execution of an innocent man.
29:42
Speaker 2: How could it not haunt you? There's so much importance
29:47
Speaker 2: attached with the state finally admitting that it was wrong
29:53
Speaker 2: and that an innocent person is executed, and that will
29:56
Speaker 2: happen in Texas. It will.
30:13
Speaker 1: Something we keep returning back to in this podcast is
30:16
Speaker 1: the two thousand and nine National Academy of Sciences Report,
30:21
Speaker 1: which is a report published by rigorous scientists that is
30:26
Speaker 1: very critical of forensic sciences like arson investigation. In fact,
30:31
Speaker 1: the only one that it's not really critical of is DNA.
30:34
Speaker 1: And you've done a lot to try to push the
30:38
Speaker 1: lessons of this report to overturn convictions based on junk science.
30:44
Speaker 2: Truth is The two thousand and nine and National Academy
30:49
Speaker 2: of Science Report recommended that there be an independent entity
30:54
Speaker 2: in the federal government that would be dedicated to providing
31:01
Speaker 2: a scientific basis and oversight to all these forensic science
31:05
Speaker 2: disciplines and independent entity. The National Commission on Forensic Science
31:11
Speaker 2: was put into place, which had independent experts from lots
31:15
Speaker 2: of different scientific communities. When Trump was elected, he abolished
31:21
Speaker 2: the National Commission on Forensic Science.
31:24
Speaker 1: Look, it's really inspiring to see that, despite all that's
31:29
Speaker 1: gone wrong and all that hasn't worked, that you're still hopeful.
31:32
Speaker 1: Because something else that's so shocking is that this issue
31:36
Speaker 1: about what kind of evidence should be considered scientific facts,
31:40
Speaker 1: something that can literally determine whether or not some much
31:43
Speaker 1: live or die based on a crime they may not
31:46
Speaker 1: have committed. It's all still being treated like a political issue,
31:50
Speaker 1: and you have personal experience with these political barriers. Yet
31:54
Speaker 1: you're still hopeful despite all of the harm that's been
31:57
Speaker 1: done and continues to be done by political officials, by presidents,
32:03
Speaker 1: by judges who, unlike Lentini, refuse to see the light,
32:09
Speaker 1: so to speak.
32:10
Speaker 2: You know, it becomes this big echo chamber. Junk science
32:13
Speaker 2: is admitted by one court, right, and all the experts
32:17
Speaker 2: can then testify again and again and again, even though
32:21
Speaker 2: it was never properly validated in the first place. And
32:24
Speaker 2: we've had a lot of that, and judges really have
32:27
Speaker 2: to be rigorous on dealing with it. And the problem
32:30
Speaker 2: with judges is that we all went to law school
32:33
Speaker 2: and not medical school. The judges really do have to
32:37
Speaker 2: be better in terms of getting into the nuts and
32:42
Speaker 2: bolts of the science. It's intimidating to them, just as
32:45
Speaker 2: it's intimidating to a lot of lawyers.
32:52
Speaker 1: You might be listening to this wondering what you can
32:54
Speaker 1: do to help. I want every listener to consider that
32:58
Speaker 1: even those who are wrongly convicted and are lucky enough
33:01
Speaker 1: to be released from prison, their lives are just never
33:05
Speaker 1: the same. Let's take the example of Sonia Casey. She's
33:09
Speaker 1: the woman Barry shk mentioned who was accused of murdering
33:12
Speaker 1: her uncle by arson. We know that miss Casey was
33:16
Speaker 1: innocent because, amongst other evidence, it was later found during
33:20
Speaker 1: the autopsy of her uncle that he most likely died
33:23
Speaker 1: from a heart attack. There was no soot in his lungs,
33:27
Speaker 1: which would have been there if he had in fact
33:29
Speaker 1: died in the fire. Instead, there was fluid in his lungs,
33:34
Speaker 1: so the evidence supported the conclusion that he was dead
33:37
Speaker 1: before the fire had even spread. Nevertheless, Casey was sentenced
33:42
Speaker 1: to ninety nine years in prison. Sonya Casey was eventually exonerated,
33:48
Speaker 1: but the stain of her wrongful conviction meant that on
33:51
Speaker 1: every job application or when she would try to rent
33:54
Speaker 1: an apartment, she would either have to check a box
33:57
Speaker 1: saying that she had been convicted of a crime, or
33:59
Speaker 1: it would be revealed on a background check that made
34:02
Speaker 1: it nearly impossible for her to find work or a
34:06
Speaker 1: place to live. So, if you own a business, or
34:10
Speaker 1: you're a landlord, or you're just in a position to
34:13
Speaker 1: either approve or reject someone for work or a place
34:17
Speaker 1: to live, and someone checks the box that they have
34:20
Speaker 1: previously been convicted of a crime, please talk to them,
34:24
Speaker 1: learn about the circumstances of their arrest, the accusations against them,
34:29
Speaker 1: who they are now as a human being. Perhaps you'll
34:32
Speaker 1: find that they were the victim, yes, the victim of
34:35
Speaker 1: a wrongful conviction. Or maybe it's just that they've done
34:39
Speaker 1: something in their past and are no longer that person.
34:44
Speaker 1: The great civil rights attorney Brian Stevenson said it best.
34:48
Speaker 1: Each one of us is more than the worst thing
34:50
Speaker 1: we've ever done. The true measure of our character is
34:54
Speaker 1: how we treat the poor, the disfavored, the accused, the incarcerated,
34:59
Speaker 1: and the condemned. I think we can all learn something
35:02
Speaker 1: from that. Next week will analyze hair microscopy, the profoundly
35:16
Speaker 1: flawed junk science that attempts to use human hair to
35:20
Speaker 1: accuse and convict people of crimes they did not commit.
35:25
Speaker 1: Wrongful Conviction Junk Science is a production of Lava for
35:28
Speaker 1: Good Podcasts and association with Signal Company Number One. Thanks
35:33
Speaker 1: to our executive producer Jason Flam and the team at
35:35
Speaker 1: Signal Company Number one executive producer Kevin Wardis and senior
35:40
Speaker 1: producers Karen Kornhaber and Britz Spangler. Our music was composed
35:44
Speaker 1: by Jay Ralph. You can follow me on Instagram at
35:47
Speaker 1: dubin Josh, follow the Wrongful Conviction podcast on Facebook and
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Speaker 1: on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction and on Twitter at wrong
35:56
Speaker 1: Conviction