Three young children died in a house fire in Corsicana, Texas in 1991. In a two-day trial, their father was convicted of murdering them by setting the fire. Just before he was scheduled for execution in 2004, an independent investigator reported that the fire was caused by accident, not by arson as Cameron Todd Willingham's jury was told. He was executed anyway, and since then two more investigations have found no evidence of arson. One was commissioned by the State of Texas. Did the state execute an innocent man?
Capital Punishment, Due Process and the Constitution
Credits
Guests:
- David Grann - Author of “Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI” and “The Lost City of Z” ; The New Yorker
- Barry Matson - Deputy Director, Alabama District Attorney’s Association
- Peter Neufeld - Co-director of the Innocence Project
- Dahlia Lithwick - Author; Senior legal affairs correspondent, Slate; podcast host, Amicus podcast - @@Dahlialithwick