Is Rick Perry Delaying Investigation Into Death Penalty Case for Political Purposes?
By Heather Tuesday Oct 06, 2009 4:00am
From CNN's The Situation. As Randi Kaye asks in her report, "Is Texas Governor Rick Perry, a Republican in a tough re- election fight, trying to cover up the execution of an innocent man on his watch?"
From TPM--Texas Governor Stymieing Panel Probing Flawed Death Penalty Case?:
Even by the standards of Texas's enthusiasm for state-sanctioned killing, this is pretty shocking...
A Texas scientific panel has been looking into possible missteps in a criminal investigation of a 1991 arson case which led to the execution of Cameron Todd Willingham. A recent New Yorker story about the case laid out compelling evidence that Willingham may well have been wrongly put to death.
The panel, the Texas Forensic Science Commission, was scheduled to hear today from a nationally recognized arson expert it had hired, Craig Beyler, who had last month released a report which called the original probe slipshod.
But on Wednesday, Texas governor Rick Perry abruptly removed three members of the commission. In their place, he appointed a new chair with a reputation as a hardline conservative prosecutor, who promptly canceled the hearing at which Beyler was to testify.
As the TPM article points to, there is a lengthy piece on this at The New Yorker--Trial by Fire: Did Texas execute an innocent man?.
Transcript below the fold.
