“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.”

            That was the “final statement” of Todd Cameron Willingham before the State of Texas executed him on February 17, 2004 for allegedly killing his three children in a trailer fire in 1991. No one really believed him; certainly not any the officials involved in Texas’ massive machine of death.

            However, as time passed and the need to establish evidence that Texas has in fact executed innocent people escalated, the Willingham case become a focal point in the raging innocence debate. Former District Attorney Sam Millsap, who believes he prosecuted and sent to death an innocent man named Reuben Cantu, joined the ranks of those who believe Willingham was wrongfully convicted and executed.

            These beliefs gained substantial credibility in 2008 when the New York-based Cardoza University School of Law’s Innocence Project released the findings of a study that was highly critical of the state arson investigation that led to Willingham’s arrest, conviction, and eventual execution. In a December 9, 2009 Chicago Tribune investigative report written by Steven Mills, Barry Scheck, co-director of the Innocence Project, said: “It’s essential that this matter [the arson investigation techniques employed in the Willingham case] is resolved for the sake of those who have been wrongfully convicted by unreliable evidence, as well as those under investigation in new arson cases. It’s critical that sound science is used in these cases.”

            In January of this year the Texas Forensic Science Commission hired famed Maryland fire scientist and expert Craig Beyler to conduct an independent examination of the state arson investigation that sent Willingham to the state’s death chamber. The Houston Chronicle reported on August 26, 2009 that Beyler had completed a 51-page report that stopped short of saying Willingham had been wrongfully convicted but ripped credibility of the arson investigation techniques that led to his conviction. Beyler charged that the investigation did not even measure up to the National Fire Prevention Association’s standards in place at the time.

            In sharply critical comments about the state fire marshals who conducted the Willingham arson investigation, Beyler said in his report: “He [Corsicana Assistant Fire Chief Douglas Fogg] relied on his personal belief rather than using the scientific method or the process of elimination. In the end, the only [basis] for the determination of arson … is the burn patterns on the floor of the children’s bedroom, the hallway and the porch interpreted as accelerant spill. None of these determinations have any basis in modern fire science.”

            Former Navarro County District Attorney Jackson, who prosecuted Willingham, could not be reached for comment by the Houston Chronicle. The newspaper, however, reported that Austin attorney and Chairman of the Forensic Science Commission, Sam Bassett, said the commission will interview Beyler at an October 2, 2009 hearing and will entertain a response from the state arson investigators who conducted the Willingham investigation.

            While Beyler stopped short of concluding Willingham had been wrongfully convicted and executed, his expert critical analysis of the arson investigation that convicted Willingham joins the conclusion of the five national fire experts employed by the Innocence Project who concluded that the Willingham arson investigation was terribly flawed and premised on faulty fire forensics. In fact, Beyler said the fire marshal investigators in the Willingham case had a “poor understanding of fire science.”

            Against this backdrop, the Willingham case offers the most convincing and compelling evidence that the State of Texas has executed an innocent person. The only evidence of guilt against him was “junk science.”