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| Todd Willingham in cell on death row |
In a major turn in one of the country’s most-noted death penalty cases, the State Bar of Texas has filed a formal accusation of misconduct against the county prosecutor who convicted Cameron Todd Willingham, a Texas man executed in 2004 for the arson murder of his three young daughters.
Following a preliminary inquiry that began last summer, the bar this month filed a disciplinary petition in Navarro County District Court accusing the former prosecutor, John H. Jackson, of obstruction of justice, making false statements and concealing evidence favorable to Willingham’s defense.
“Before, during, and after the 1992 trial, [Jackson] knew of the existence of evidence that tended to negate the guilt of Willingham and failed to disclose that evidence to defense counsel,” the bar investigators charged.
The bar action was filed March 5 without any public announcement. It accuses Jackson of having intervened repeatedly to help a jailhouse informant, Johnny E. Webb, in return for his testimony that Willingham confessed the murders to him while they were both jailed in Corsicana, the Navarro County seat.
Webb has since recanted that testimony. In a series of recent interviews, he told the Marshall Project that Jackson coerced him to lie, threatening a long prison term for a robbery to which Webb ultimately pleaded guilty, but promising to reduce his sentence if he testified against Willingham.
From the time of the house fire that killed his children on Dec. 23, 1991, Willingham maintained his innocence. He said he awoke from a nap to find his home engulfed in smoke and flames, and that he could not locate the three toddlers before stumbling outside to seek help. Texas fire examiners concluded that the blaze was an arson, and Jackson later said it was “very likely” that Willingham had poured some accelerant on the floor in the shape of a pentagram, apparently as a symbol of Satanic worship.
Willingham was executed on Feb. 17, 2004, after Gov. Rick Perry refused to grant a stay requested by Willingham’s lawyers on the basis of a report by an independent arson expert who concluded there was no evidence the fire was intentionally set. Perry later called Willingham “a monster.”
A staff attorney for the Innocence Project, Bryce Benjet, said the group was encouraged by the bar’s disciplinary action. “Withholding exculpatory evidence and the presentation of false testimony in a death penalty case is quite possibly the most serious ethical breach for a lawyer you can imagine,” he said.
Source: The Washington Post, Maurice Possley, The Marshall Project, March 18, 2015
Texas prosecutor accused of misconduct for role in famous execution case
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| Willingham's house after the blaze |
The state bar of Texas has filed a formal misconduct accusation against the prosecutor who secured a conviction in one of the country's most dubious and disputed death penalty cases.
Earlier this month the bar lodged a petition in Navarro County, near Dallas, alleging that John Jackson withheld evidence that pointed to the innocence of Cameron Todd Willingham, who was executed in 2004 for the murder of his 3 young daughters, who died in a house fire in 1991.
"Before, during, and after the 1992 trial, [Jackson] knew of the existence of evidence that tended to negate the guilt of Willingham, and failed to disclose that evidence to defence counsel," it reads.
Jackson was an assistant district attorney at the time, later becoming a judge. The petition, obtained by the criminal-justice journalism group the Marshall Project, alleges that he made multiple attempts to secure favourable treatment for an imprisoned informant named Johnny Webb, who testified that Willingham started the fire. They included taking steps to reduce Webb's charge from aggravated robbery to robbery, giving him a better chance of parole.
The complaint also claims that Jackson dishonestly told a court that he had no evidence that could help Willingham's defence. It follows a grievance filed last year by the New York-based miscarriage of justice investigatory group the Innocence Project, which has investigated the case.
Jackson has strongly maintained his innocence and insisted that Willingham, who was 23 at the time of the deaths, was guilty of arson.
However, Webb recanted his testimony in 2000 and gave interviews to the Marshall Project in 2014 in which he said he lied on the witness stand so that Jackson would help reduce his sentence and arrange thousands of dollars in help via a wealthy local rancher.
Also key to Willingham's conviction was forensic evidence from arson investigators that was subsequently discredited by experts as being based on a misinterpretation.
Despite mounting concern that Willingham was innocent, the former Texas governor Rick Perry refused to stay his execution. In 2009, after an investigation by the Texas forensic science commission found that the arson evidence was faulty, Perry replaced the board's chairman and 2 other members and called Willingham "a monster".
The execution was briefly a contentious topic during Perry's bid for the Republican nomination for the 2012 US presidential election. During a debate, Perry was asked whether the possibility of having executed an innocent person made it hard for him to sleep at night. "No, sir, I've never struggled with that at all," replied Perry, now a possible Republican presidential candidate again.
In 2013 another former Texas prosecutor, Ken Anderson, was sentenced to 10 days in jail and 500 hours of community service as part of a plea deal related to evidence withheld in the erroneous conviction of Michael Morton, who spent nearly 25 years behind bars for murdering his wife until DNA evidence exonerated him in 2011.
Among Willingham's last words in the Texas death chamber before the lethal injection took effect were: "The only statement I want to make is that I am an innocent man - convicted of a crime I did not commit. I have been persecuted for 12 years for something I did not do."
If found guilty, Jackson could be disbarred. He retired in 2012.
Source: The Guardian, March 20, 2015
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