Is this the case that can overturn the DEATH PENALTY?!!

[The Shepherd]

This article is long, but it is well worth the read! What you will read will shock you, educate you, and enrage you. It delves into human nature, forensic science, and politics. The argument is made in this article, and very forcefully and convincingly, that Texas has executed an innocent man. But... is it enough?!

Read it and let's have a good old fashioned Askheartbeat discussion. I'm looking for all of the usual suspects on this one, too!

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/09/07/090907fa_fact_grann?currentPage=1

The fire moved quickly through the house, a one-story wood-frame structure in a working-class neighborhood of Corsicana, in northeast Texas. Flames spread along the walls, bursting through doorways, blistering paint and tiles and furniture. Smoke pressed against the ceiling, then banked downward, seeping into each room and through crevices in the windows, staining the morning sky.

Buffie Barbee, who was eleven years old and lived two houses down, was playing in her back yard when she smelled the smoke. She ran inside and told her mother, Diane, and they hurried up the street; that’s when they saw the smoldering house and Cameron Todd Willingham standing on the front porch, wearing only a pair of jeans, his chest blackened with soot, his hair and eyelids singed. He was screaming, “My babies are burning up!” His children—Karmon and Kameron, who were one-year-old twin girls, and two-year-old Amber—were trapped inside...
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/09/07/090907fa_fact_grann?currentPage=1

[MsHeartBeat]

The State of Texas always was trigger happy when it comes to killing people.  I doubt it will overturn the death penalty, but it should certainly bring attention to the fact that any and all "expert" work should be double and triple checked before it is used to as justification to murder someone.

[da6cents]

What you will read will shock you, educate you, and enrage you.

Shep. Read the entire article and must admit that I wasn't either of the 3 things you promised  . This has only confirmed my criticisms of this culture and their so called 'justice' system. In America, the poor catch hell while the rich get away with murder. How is it that Bush can lie about alleged weapons of mass destruction, cause the deaths of hundreds of thousands, and walk away a free man. While Willingham can be arrested, tried, convicted and put to death for a crime he didn't commit?  MONEY my Brother. It's the only thing "these people" truly care about.  Justice is simply too expensive for most of us to afford.

[The Shepherd]

da6cents, I don't think it's just about money and the inequality of the system of justice related to money. The fact that JUNK science, fables, folklore got this man convicted and executed is the real injustice. Not only that, exposing exactly how cavalierly THE STATE takes a human life, and how egregious of an error it can be is where the injustice lies.

True, the scales of justice are unequally tilted in favor of the non-poor. But the fact that capital punishment is regarded as 'justice' is much more glaring indictment of this culture, especially in this case, than the disparities of justice between rich and poor. I'm with you on it, but for capital punishment to be overturned the justice/money dichotomy won't do it.

This case won't do it either. We're gonna need an indisputable dna case.