A lot of dead people

It may seem like everyone in the practical legal blogisphere is talking about this, eg. Simple Justice , Grits for Breakfast, The Matlock Blog , but here is my view. It was bound to happen that one day Texas would execute a man for a crime he did not commit. To be honest that has almost certainly happened many times in the past. However, now it can be established that Texas has executed a man who not only did not commit the crime, but a man for a crime that did not occur!

Cameron Todd Willingham was executed in 2004 for the death of his two twin one year old girls and his two year old daughter. They all died in a house fire on December 23, 1991. Willingham received burns trying to return to the house for his children. (The prosecutor said they were "superficial") A police Chaplin said that Willingham had to be handcuffed and restrained to prevent him returning into the house for his children. The reason this execution has returned to the public's attention is because of a recent report that became known through recent articles in the New York Times and New Yorker Magazine. The article in the New York Times refers to a recent report and quotes one of the authors,

a noted scientist, Craig Beyler, who was hired by a special commission, established by the state of Texas to investigate errors and misconduct in the handling of forensic evidence. The report is devastating, the kind of disclosure that should send a tremor through one’s conscience. There was absolutely no scientific basis for determining that the fire was arson, said Beyler. No basis at all. He added that the state fire marshal who investigated the case and testified against Willingham “seems to be wholly without any realistic understanding of fires.” He said the marshal’s approach seemed to lack “rational reasoning” and he likened it to the practices “of mystics or psychics.”

So most people would look at this incident and recoil from the injustice. The reason I have changed my view on the death penalty is because of the inability to remedy injustice in these cases. Once a man is put to death by the state, there is no chance to "do over" if science or other evidence comes to light. The only justification for the death penalty is retribution for the victim's family. To keep the victim's family from "taking the law into their own hands." But what message does that send? Since murder is so horrible, we will kill the murderer for you. Of course if the victim's family did kill the murderer we might only call that manslaughter. What do you call it when the state murders someone under the color of law? And are we the taxpayers now complicit in this murder? The end result is the same. There are a lot of dead people in this case and none were guilty of a crime.