|
Post-conviction activists 'contaminate'
evidence in Texas
September 16, 2009
By Crime Lab Report
Click here to Print
When you
hear the phrase evidence contamination, you probably
imagine a police officer who forgot to wear gloves while
handling a suspect firearm, or perhaps you think of a
degraded DNA
sample that was collected thirty years ago before crime
scene personnel routinely searched for biological evidence.
Contamination is generally thought
of as being physical in nature, requiring appropriate
quality control measures to minimize its likelihood of
occurrence.
Crime Lab Report,
however, is alarmed by a newer kind of contamination that is
being introduced by post-conviction litigators and innocence
activists. It is called contextual contamination, and
it can be as dangerous and risky as the physical
contamination we are usually most concerned with.
Managing editors John Collins and
Jay Jarvis documented their concerns in an article that is
pending publication in a major law review this fall.
As they pointed out, contextual contamination means that
“certain circumstances and conditions can cause scientific
findings to be misconstrued as confirming guilt or innocence
when, in fact, they do not. It also means that forensic
evidence and testimony presented at trial can be unfairly
characterized as faulty when, in fact, it was not.”
Collins and Jarvis highlighted
several high profile cases where the risk of contextual
contamination was especially high. But another
controversy brewing in Texas provides an up-close look at
how this problem manifests itself when biases are allowed to distort the meaning of investigative and scientific
facts.
The story begins two days
before Christmas in 1991 when a fire broke out just after
10:30 am in a small, one-story wooden frame house in the
small town of Corsicana, Texas, about fifty-five miles south
of Dallas. At home at the time of the fire was Todd
Willingham, along with his three daughters, 2 year old Amber
and one year old twins Karmon and Kameron. The girls’
mother, Stacy, had left earlier to go pick up Christmas
gifts.
Two doors down, a young girl
playing in the yard smelled smoke. She alerted her
mother, who ran to the home to investigate. She saw Todd
Willingham standing on the front porch, wearing only a pair
of blue jeans, screaming for help. The neighbor ran to call
the fire department, which by all accounts, responded
quickly but too late to save the three children.
An investigation was conducted by
a team that included a thirty-one-year veteran of the
Corsicana Fire Department, a deputy state fire marshal that
had investigated over 1,200 fires, and a local police
sergeant assigned to his first fire investigation. Because
Todd Willingham was the only survivor of the fire,
investigators naturally wanted to question him.
Willingham initially told
investigators that Amber came into the master bedroom and
awoke him, at which point he saw heavy smoke and fire.
Willingham claimed that he made several attempts to rescue
the children but was driven back by the intense heat.
But later, Willingham apparently
offered conflicting explanations on possible causes,
including that a stranger had entered the home, that his
2-year-old daughter had accidently started it, that
squirrels in the attic had caused an electrical short, and
that a gas space heater in the children’s bedroom started
the fire.
As investigators, one by one,
discredited the explanations offered by Willingham, they
were also puzzled about a few other things. Why did he
not grab Amber and carry her out of the house after she
awoke him? Why was Willingham more concerned about
moving his car away from the house than he was about saving
his children? At the emergency room, why did
Willingham complain incessantly about his own relatively
minor burns while doctors worked frantically trying to save
his daughter?
Criminal investigations do not
always center on science. Often times, motive,
opportunity, and behavior speak louder than physical
evidence.
In the Willingham case, all
indications suggest that investigators looked at the
totality of the evidence and concluded that Todd Willingham
had intentionally set the fire that claimed the life of his
children. They arrested him just sixteen days after
the fire and charged him with murder.
In Texas, due to the multiple
murders, the prosecution was legally permitted to seek the
death penalty. But instead, Willingham was offered a
deal to plead guilty and receive a life sentence. His
attorneys advised him to take it but he refused.
Willingham’s trial in August 1992
lasted only two days. The jury needed only one hour to
find him guilty.
Todd Willingham was subsequently
sent to death row, which is where the controversy begins.
A formidable legal team comprised
of death penalty opponents and representatives of the
Innocence Project filed petitions before and after the
execution challenging nearly all of the findings pertaining
to the fire investigation. The team criticized the
interpretation of physical evidence arguing that
investigators judged the fire to be intentional based on
observations that could not scientifically rule out an
accident.
Barry Scheck was quoted as saying
“as long as our system of justice makes mistakes-including
the ultimate mistake – we cannot continue executing people.”
Advances in fire science have
undoubtedly called into question some traditional techniques
that have been around for decades. Well-controlled
experiments conducted at fire-science laboratories using
modern building materials and furnishings, and monitored
with sophisticated devices, have given investigators new
insights into how fires behave.
It is a mistake, however, to
prematurely assume that the investigators' conclusions were
based entirely on physical evidence. It is also a
mistake to assume that questions surrounding the crime scene
interpretations equate to factual innocence.
This is contextual contamination
at its core, and must be corrected.
Janet Jacobs, writing for the
Corsicana Daily Sun, has been one of the few reporters
willing to present some of the lesser-known facts about this
tragic case.
According to investigators, Todd
Willingham had his blood tested at a local hospital after
the fire. It was determined that his carbon monoxide
levels were no higher than if he had just smoked a
cigarette.
Alan Bristol, a prosecutor
assigned to the Willingham case, was quoted as saying “none
of the stories he told us panned out. I think he would have
been convicted whether we had arson evidence or not.”
Willingham’s ex-wife Stacy (they
divorced after his conviction), according to Jacobs, came to
believe that Todd Willingham had in fact murdered her
children.
The most damning statement,
however, probably came from Willingham’s own attorney, David
Martin, who was also convinced his client was guilty.
“He
had no conscience,” Martin said of Willingham.
Martin was also critical of the
reports from the defense experts, calling it “propaganda
from anti-death penalty supporters. The Innocence Project is
an absolute farce… a bunch of hype, in my opinion.”
What Crime Lab Report finds
so interesting about the Willingham case is that many
experts have come forward to present compelling evidence
that some of the physical evidence interpretations may
have been faulty. But by the same token, they have not
presented viable, alternative theories as to how the fire
actually started.
If Todd Willingham did intend to
murder his three children, as the prosecution has asserted,
he could very well have started the fire in a manner that
would mimic an accidental fire.
Another unfortunate aspect to this
case is the typical assertion by the Innocence Project that
forensic science failed. Crime Lab Report is
not distracted by this rhetoric and understands that crime
scene processing is separate and distinct from forensic
laboratory testing. We are confident that the
Innocence Project’s tendency to characterize every
conceivable problem or complication with physical evidence
as being a failure of forensic science is rooted in
political strategy and surprising to nearly no one.
Crime Lab Report
has no opinion about Willingham’s guilt or innocence in this
case. We do, however, have a strong opinion about the
willingness of post-conviction activists to mischaracterize
forensic evidence for the purpose of achieving desired
political and judicial outcomes.
Only
Todd Willingham knows whether he intentionally started the
fire on that tragic December morning in 1991. But
there is no doubt that his strange
behavior after the fire and during the investigation is
relevant.
As the Texas Forensic Science Commission reviews
this matter, it must ensure that the crime scene evidence is
not contextually contaminated by activists and litigators
who may be committed to demonstrating Willingham’s innocence
or guilt by any means necessary.
*****
|
