“ we make mistakes. Scores of innocent people have been exonerated after being sentenced to death” (Stevenson 16), this quotation reminds me of a story that happened in 1991 to Todd Willingham, as detailed by the Travis County District Court of Texas. Willingham was executed as he was found guilty of the murder of his three children in a fire that took place at their home. The Innocence Project, however emphasizes that the wrongful execution of Willingham is a tragedy and must never happen again. We must restore the good name of Willingham, and ensure that a tragedy of this kind never happens again of executing an innocent man. These objectives were arrived at based on the petition of Willingham’s relatives.
Texas legislature has designed
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Willingham was injured but his three daughters died in the fire. Assistant Fire Marshal Douglas Fogg and investigator Manuel Vasquez did separate investigations and both determined that the fire was an arson case, also a criminal investigation followed. In early 1992, Willingham was arrested and charged with the murders of his daughters. The trial then began, and the two main pieces of evidence were the findings of Fogg and Vasquez, and the testimony of one Johnny Webb, who was a fellow inmate of Willingham at the Navarro County Jail. Willingham was found guilty of murder. Willingham and his lawyers then filed a series of appeals. All of these were denied. Before execution, the family of Willingham also needed the findings of Dr. Gerald Hurst who was an arson expert, who assured that the fire was an accident, and was not set by a person. Despite this report, Willingham was sentenced to death on February 17, …show more content…
The latter is composed of experts in the field of arson, and the committee eventually cooperated with the results of the findings of Dr. Hurst. The committee negated the so-called arson indicators mentioned by Fogg and Vasquez. Among these were the presence of accelerants and their pour patterns, the presence of brown stains on the porch which allegedly indicated the use of fire accelerants, higher floor than ceiling temperatures, low-char burning, among others, all of which were not found to be true by Dr. Hurst and the committee. Afterwards, the testimony of Johnny Webb was questioned. The conflict in his testimony were pointed out. It was also noted that Webb actually recanted his testimony in a handwritten note submitted to the Navarro County District Attorney’s Office on March 30, 2000. He also said that he was promised certain privileges by the prosecutors of the case if he testified against