Last week, a Texas attorney named David Martin made an ass of himself and likely violated his ethical obligations when, during an interview on Anderson Cooper 360, he repeatedly declared that his former client, Cameron Todd Willingham, was guilty of arson and murder.
In an attempt to find "evidence" of his own client's guilt, Martin reported that he and his co-counsel had conducted a test-burn to see if they could create similar burn patterns to those found in Willingham's home using lighter fluid, as the state asserted Willingham had done. Martin, declaring that the patterns his "experiment" produced were identical to the ones at the Willingham fire scene, became convinced that the state's theory was correct.
Here's why Martin was so dangerously wrong:
Allow me to offer a brief quiz. Take a look at these photos:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
[Photos courtesy of my father, John J. Lentini CFI. If you're into fire science at all, you really should go buy his book.]
Now, which of these photographs depict a fire started using a liquid accelerant? Which of these photographs depict a fire started without any liquid accelerant? Take a minute to decide which ones you think had or didn't have accelerants present. (The answer is at the end of the entry. Take a guess and see if you were right.)
Okay, checked your answer? Good, now that we know which ones were and weren't caused by accelerants, the obvious next question is could those patterns only be caused with or without accelerants? Could one of the non-accelerant patterns be reproduced with accelerants? Could a pattern caused by an accelerant occur naturally during the course of a fire?
For decades, fire investigators claimed that, through experience and professional insight, they could tell a "pour pattern" from an accidental burn pattern. The process is termed "floor pattern analysis." This expert 'knowledge' was permitted as testimony in court, and often formed the basis for both criminal and civil claims.
This is the sort of evidence that killed Todd Willingham.
As you might have guessed, there's really no way to determine based on sight whether a pattern comes from an accelerant or the naturally occurring heat radiating in a fully developed fire. This was demonstrated through a series of test burns conducted in 1997 by fire scientist James Shanley, which showed that the radiating heat in a fully developed fire will not only create its own floor patterns, but can also obliterate any pour patterns that might have been present at an earlier stage of the fire.
The only way to accurately and conclusively determine if there was an accelerant present in a fire is, quite simply, to test for it in the debris analysis. This is surprisingly simple to do, with proper equipment (a gas chromatograph-mass spectrometer). Any testimony that an accelerant was used that isn't accompanied by either a.) a GC-Mass Spec result or b.) a signed and sworn confession ought to be treated as speculative at best. The reason that the use of a GC-Mass Spec is now standard procedure in fire investigation is that the risk of false positives (and, for that matter, false negatives) without one is so great, because it is so difficult to accurately determine a cause simply based on how a fully involved fire burned that even experts with decades of experience cannot do it properly.
Unsurprisingly, in the Willingham case, the state investigators never found evidence of an accelerant inside the house (a small sample consistent with charcoal lighter fluid was found on the door near where a bottle of fluid was stored, but none was found inside the house--this one positive sample is therefore not inconsistent with an accidental fire).
Todd Willingham's trial came during the period where fire investigation was being transitioned from an art to a science. In his case, the scientific method was simply not followed, and as a result false and misleading testimony was presented to the jury, leading to his conviction and execution. Another Texan, Ernest Willis, was released from death row a few months after Willingham was executed, after a review of his case found similar errors to the ones in Willingham's case (Willis was convicted in the mid-80s, and exonerated in 2004).
The Innocence Project estimates that there are between 100 and 200 people currently serving sentences for arson-related crimes who were convicted based on similar testimony to that which led to Willingham's execution. Inmates like Ed Graf, Daniel Dogherty (who now sits on death row in Pennsylvania awaiting execution) and Han Tak Lee have spent decades in prison based on this pseudo-science.
So what did David Martin's backyard experiment prove? First, it proved that someone intending to reproduce a burn pattern can do so by using an accelerant. It didn't prove by any stretch that the burn pattern in the Willingham home was caused by an accelerant, and it didn't prove that similar patterns couldn't be created in an accidental fire.
Second, and most importantly, it proved that Cameron Todd Willingham had a fool for a trial attorney, who neither understood the scientific method nor provided the sort of advocacy that all defendants are entitled to receive under the law.
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ON THE WEB:
Cameron Todd Willingham - Innocent and Executed: http://camerontoddwillingham.com/
Texas Moratorium Network: http://www.texasmoratorium.org/
Death Penalty News: http://deathpenaltynews.blogspot.com/
Innocence Project: http://www.innocenceproject.org/...
PAST WILLINGHAM POSTS:
http://scott-cobb.dailykos.com/
http://www.dailykos.com/...
http://www.dailykos.com/...
(cleanup crew: we need a merger!)
CONTACT RICK PERRY:
Office of the Governor
P.O. Box 12428
Austin, Texas 78711-2428
Citizen’s Opinion Hotline [for Texas callers] :
(800) 252-9600
Information and Referral and Opinion Hotline [for Austin, Texas and out-of-state callers] :
(512) 463-1782
*Number 4 was set with a gallon of paint thinner. None of the other fires had so much as a drop of liquid accelerant used.