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By JAMIE STENGLE (AP) – Aug 26, 2009

DALLAS — A fire investigation that led to the execution of a man in the deaths of his three young children was so seriously flawed that its conclusion of arson can't be supported, a fire expert hired by the state said in a new report.

In a report to the Texas Forensic Science Commission released Tuesday, Craig Beyler said the fire investigation in Cameron Todd Willingham's case didn't adhere to the standards of care in place at the time, nor to current standards.

Beyler, chairman of the London-based International Association for Fire Safety Science, said in the report that the opinions of a state fire official in the case were "nothing more than a collection of personal beliefs that have nothing to do with science-based fire investigation."

The commission, created in 2005 to review forensic misconduct allegations, requested the independent analysis after the Innocence Project submitted claims of questionable evidence in the cases of Willingham and another man who was convicted in a similar case but was later released.

Commission Chairman Sam Bassett called Beyler's report "a major step" in the panel's review of both cases.

Before issuing its final report, the commission will seek responses from the State Fire Marshal's Office and other parties, and will interview Beyler in October, Bassett said.

He said he expects the commission to release its report next spring.

Beyler said that in both cases, "The investigators had poor understandings of fire science ... Their methodologies did not comport with the scientific method or the process of elimination."

He said Manuel Vasquez, a deputy state fire marshal in the Willingham case, appeared "wholly without any realistic understanding of fires and how fire injuries are created."

Beyler said witnesses contradicted Vasquez's arson hypothesis and that Vasquez admitted he had not eliminated other possible causes.

Eric Ferrero, spokesman for the Innocence Project, a New York-based organization dedicated to exonerating wrongfully convicted people, said Beyler's findings on the Willingham case "confirms what several experts have found over the last five years after reviewing thousands of pages of evidence."

"Every expert who has looked at this case has determined there was no reason to call it arson," he said.

Willingham, 36, was executed in 2004. He was convicted of setting the fire that killed 2-year-old Amber and 1-year-old twins Karmon and Kameron on Dec. 23, 1991, in their Corsicana home.

He told The Associated Press before his execution that he was innocent. "The most distressing thing is the state of Texas will kill an innocent man and doesn't care they're making a mistake," he said.

Willingham's cousin, Patricia Cox, of Ardmore, Okla., said she has never doubted her cousin's innocence. Family members tried for years to free him.

"I would definitely like the state of Texas to take responsibility and admit in fact they wrongfully executed Todd Willingham," she said. "Is that going to happen? Probably not. I'm not optimistic."

Willingham's stepmother, Eugenia Willingham, called the report another step in the "long, drawn-out process" of clearing his name.

"He lived 12 years on death row," she said. "He went through hell, I'm telling you. It was probably worse than hell."

She said her husband died in 2005, the year after his son's execution, of prostate cancer and "a broken heart."

Vasquez investigated the case with Douglas Fogg, the assistant Corsicana fire chief. The report said they cited burn patterns on the floor of the children's room, hallway and porch, indicating an accelerant spill. Beyler said those determinations have no basis in modern fire science.

Ben Gonzalez, a spokesman for the Texas Department of Insurance, of which the State Fire Marshal's Office is a part, said he had no comment on the report, saying officials there had not yet seen it. He said Vasquez died in 1994.

A call to a Douglas Fogg in Corsicana was not immediately returned Wednesday.

In the other case cited in the report, Ernest Ray Willis was convicted in 1987 in a fatal house fire in Iraan, but was freed after 17 years on death row when a federal judge ruled that authorities concealed evidence and needlessly drugged him during his trial.

Barron, an assistant public defender, arrived in Kentucky in 2004, just over a year out of law school, to represent some of the worst of the worst - death row inmates. He was admitted to the Kentucky bar in July of that year, and filed his lethal-injection challenge the following September, employing a strategy he had tested out in other jurisdictions.

He was paired with John Palombi, a fellow public defender with at least a decade of experience.

The challenge was brought on behalf of convicted cop killer Ralph Baze and Thomas Clyde Bowling, who was found guilty of killing a couple. Barron lost the cruel-and-unusual argument at a trial and at the Kentucky Supreme Court. But he kept pushing the case, hoping to keep his clients alive a bit longer.

He beat long odds: The Supreme Court gets as many as 7,000 petitions a year but agrees to hear only 100 to 150 cases.

Lethal injections have come under legal attack around the country in recent years, with experts and others arguing that it is not the humane, painless method of execution it was supposed to be.

Legal experts said the Kentucky case apparently got the attention of the high court because it arrived fully developed - it went through a full-blown trial with more than 20 witnesses, who argued both sides of the question of whether inmates suffer extreme pain while immobilized, unable to cry out.

Death penalty proponent Kent Scheidegger, legal director of the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, said the case gives the Supreme Court "a clear shot at the merits of the injection question."

"The trial court took extensive testimony, building a substantial record. That makes a better case for review than one decided summarily in the trial court," Scheidegger said.

The challenge is the ninth case the Kentucky's public defenders have gotten before the high court in the past three decades. Among the others was the landmark 1986 ruling Batson v. Kentucky, in which the Supreme Court found it unconstitutional to dismiss a juror because of his race.

Barron works in the public defender's capital post-conviction unit, a corps of 10 attorneys who handle appeals for Kentucky's 39 death row inmates.

The unit's chief is the only one who has ever argued a case before the U.S. Supreme Court. In fact, for this case, the public defender's office is bringing in Donald Verrilli, a Washington lawyer who frequently appears before the high court, to argue the challenge.

Such a move is not uncommon. Only those who are admitted to the bar of the Supreme Court can argue before the justices.

The shaggy-haired Barron - a Billerica, Mass., native who received a law degree from Brooklyn Law School in 2003 - can be found in his office at nearly all hours. His office is about the size of a walk-in closet and is so cluttered that Barron must move boxes and books for visitors to sit down.

Barron is a hardcore Boston Red Sox fan, papering his office door with pictures and headlines. He draws professional hope from the way the Red Sox finally won the World Series after 86 years of futility.

"There's something to be said about representing the people who society casts aside," Barron said. "They are the ones often left to fend for themselves."

Public defenders work one of the lowest rungs of the legal profession, one that is often not very highly regarded by other lawyers. Many young lawyers right out of law school often get their start as public defenders, and often race from case to case with barely enough time to read the file, much less do the in-depth investigation attorneys in private practice can do.

Public defenders have traditionally received little funding, particularly in the South. Kentucky has one of the lowest-funded offices in the country.

The starting pay for most Kentucky's public defenders is about $38,000 a year.

Kentucky spends about $33.5 million in 2005 (the last year for which numbers were available) on a population of 4.1 million. That's about $8.14 per person for public defense - 23rd among the 30 state-run public defender offices nationally. Oregon leads the nation at $23.75 spent per person.

"It's an uphill battle," said Ernie Lewis, head of the Kentucky Department of Public Advocacy. "We can't provide an O.J. defense."

Florida criminal lawyer Ronald Chapman has been representing people accused of committing crimes in Florida since 1990. You can read more about Mr. Chapman’s experience as a Florida criminal attorney as well as review news articles about some of his cases. Some of the types of cases and issues that Mr. Chapman has handled include:


• Death Penalty Cases
• Assault and Battery Cases
• DUI Cases
• Drug Cases
• Sex Crimes Cases
• Sealing & Expunging Criminal Records
• Bond|Bail
• Mistaken Identification and Wrongful Conviction
• Police Interrogations
• Sentencing