Ask Perry about this man at every chance: Cameron Todd Willingham: Wrongfully Convicted & Executed

[Are_grits_groceries]

Cameron Todd Willingham: Wrongfully Convicted and Executed in Texas

Much info here:
http://www.innocenceproject.org/Content/Cameron_Todd_Willingham_Wrongfully_Convicted_and_Executed_in_Texas.php

This site includes every document that could be obtained from the trial transcripts to reports issued about the case.

Some key points:

On December 23, 1991, a fire destroyed the Corsicana, Texas, home Cameron Todd Willingham shared with his wife and three daughters, killing the three girls. Willingham, who was asleep when the fire started, survived. His wife was at the Salvation Army buying Christmas presents for the girl.
<snip>
He was convicted based on the testimony of forensic experts who said they had determined that the fire was intentionally set and a jailhouse informant who said Willingham had confessed to him. On October 29, 1992, he was sentenced to death.
(Note: The original forensic experts testified after using outdated methods. They never had training in more modern techniques.)
<snip>
Thirteen years later, in the days leading up to Willingham’s execution, his attorneys sent the governor and the Board of Pardon and Parole a report from Gerald Hurst, a nationally recognized arson expert, saying that Willingham’s conviction was based on erroneous forensic analysis. Documents obtained by the Innocence Project show that state officials received that report but apparently did not act on it. Willingham was executed by lethal injection in Huntsville on February 17, 2004.
<snip>
In 2008, the Texas Forensic Science Commission agreed to investigate the case. The panel’s review was interrupted several times over the last two years, however, and continues today. In 2009, an arson expert hired by the commission issued a report finding that experts who testified at Willingham’s trial should have known it was wrong at the time. Days before the expert was set to testify, however, Gov. Rick Perry replaced key members of the panel, delayed the investigation for months.

An investigative report in the September 7, 2009, issue of the New Yorker deconstructs every facet of the state’s case against Willingham. The 16,000-word article by David Grann shows that all of the evidence used against Willingham was invalid, including the forensic analysis, the informant’s testimony, other witness testimony and additional circumstantial evidence.
<snip>
http://www.innocenceproject.org/Content/Cameron_Todd_Willingham_Wrongfully_Convicted_and_Executed_in_Texas.php

Rick Perry refused to even consider the new findings before Willingham was executed. This was not a Karla Faye Tucker case in which somebody had already been convicted, but one wonders about her too.

Later, Perry did every thing in his power along with his cronies in every part of the judicial system to obstruct the commission he set up to review the findings.

IMO Perry is guilty of premeditated murder. His mantra is 'Guilty until proven innocent and gawd help you even in that case.'

He wanted to be seen as tough on crime at the expense of an innocent man.

[Ruby the Liberal]

1. One has to ask onesself

Is it better to publically blow this airhorn now, or just quietly stash links into the "2012" folder in the browser bookmarks to wait until after the blood-letting when the country club patrons and their low-information, bumper-sticker BFFs pick a candidate?

Bookmarked and thanks. That folder is getting linked out at this point.

Imma give Perry a pass for now. Holding this for when he is actually a threat and then my "Reoresebt Aneruca!" sign will have "Justice for Cameron Todd Willingham" on the flip side.

[Are_grits_groceries]

2. Good strategy!

However, there is the danger of it getting lost in the MSM mishegas unless it is pushed early and often.

I want this to stick to him so completely that it is a factor that is in the forefront of people's minds whenever they hear his name. I wish we could tilt Google so this would be the first entry when Rick Perry's name is searched.

[Ruby the Liberal]

6. Understood, but it may be in our best interest if he makes it through and is nominated

We were both here for primary season in 2004 and 2008. Don't recall your candidate, but I was a pissed off Deaniac (and glad to be back).

The Republican primaries are not our concern. Seriously. This is :popcorn: time.

Gather the information and wait for them to pick one (or at least narrow the field) and then link bomb the media.

For now, the MOST important thing casual dems can do (IMHO) is to research all 12 (?) of them running, build your info/bookmarks/links and be ready to roll when the time comes after they anoint the one of their choosing.

[DCKit]

3. Good point.

But I'm thinking the Teahadii might fall in love with a murderer. After all, they love the crew that wants to take SS and MediCare away from them. A total lack of judgment over what's right or wrong - even when it may harm them personally.

It's a tough choice when it's impossible to judge the next move of mentally deficient people.

[Are_grits_groceries]

4. I'm sure the Teahadii won't care.

However, the rest of America might. People forget that the teahadii make up a very small % of the population.

[Ruby the Liberal]

8. Let 'em and all the more power to them. I'll send therm all flowers if it helps.

Makes not one damn bit of difference who the teahadists 'fall in love with' in the Presidential race. Between the country club Republicans and wall street (who both laughed while patting the teahadist morons on their heads), congress is one thing, but no way in hell TPTB are letting one of those morons near the Whitehouse.

Best thing EVER (if I can co-opt Rush Limpball's 2008 'destroy dems' strategy) is for us to pick the weakest candidate on the slate and campaign for them through the primaries in our respective states.

Given that I am in PA right now, I'll take :party: Frothy Mixture :party:

You?

[Are_grits_groceries]

9. I live in SC.

It's a banana split republic because the government is made of fruits and nuts.

I have my hands full with our politicians here. However, I will find a presidential fool to go after.

[Ruby the Liberal]

11. I saw where Greene reactivated his campaign against DeMint this week

http://twitter.com/#!/greeneforsenate/status/100631332497006593

(It gets better - that was just the opening salvo)

Let me apologize in advance for Toomey, who will undoubtedly embarrass us all and make Ayn Rand and Milton Friedman look like liberals before this is all over.

Trade me?

[Are_grits_groceries]

14. I'll keep Greene just

for the amusement factor. Toomey seems a little sour to me.

[Ruby the Liberal]

16. Heh.

Gotta admit, we all need an Alvin Greene.

[Are_grits_groceries]

17. Twitter is a great method for him.

Let's get his follower count up.
I didn't vote for him in 2008 because I could not bring myself to do that with the obscenity charge hanging over him. That was one step too far down the crazy ladder for me.
The disposition of his case: Alvin Greene accepts pre-trial program to erase charges

I am pondering my next vote if the Dems here can't defeat him in a primary. Their track record in the last 2 senate elections ain't good.
This is the loon that won the Dem primary to oppose Lindsay Graham in 2002:
Flattop Bob Conley vs Lindsey Graham: Republican vs Republican in SC Senate Race
<snip>
Tough to support is an understatement. Conley was a member of the Horry County GOP Committee until he won the Democratic Primary. That in itself would not rule him out from being a DP candidate, but Conley is seriously out of step with the majority of DP voters.

Conley is endorsed by neoconfederates, and he is proud enough of the support to include youtube videos of these endorsements on his campaign website. Neoconfederates position themselves as small government isolationists. Support for the CSA as a social model is implicitly a position of apology for slavery and a carefully rebranded exposition of white nationalist extremism.

Whatever else his campaign may run on (and its taken on an isolationist foreign policy and a return to the gold standard), the association of Conley with the neoconfederates completely alienates the African-American South Carolinians who are a majority in the SCDP and without whom no Democratic victory is possible.
<snip>
http://djsilverfish.wordpress.com/2008/09/15/flattop-bob-conley-republican-vs-republican-in-sc-senate-race/

The Dem Party is being purged of the hacks who have run it as their little club for years. I refuse to have anything to do with them until they clean up their act. There are some good people and groups here working to change it from the Greene Party. I work with them.

[Are_grits_groceries]

5. We can bomb Perry's books on Amazon with tags such as Willingham and arson.

It's working against Christine O'Donnell.

Christine O’Donnell’s Amazon page ‘bombed’ with tags 'associating her name with products like vibrators, sex guides and books about witches.

The tagged items are clearly intended to mock O'Donnell's past statements.'
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/08/11/christine-odonnells-amazon-page-bombed-with-dildos/

Tie him to this book The Skeptical Juror and The Trial of Cameron Todd Willingham It's expensive unless you have a kindle then it is $2.99.

[DCKit]

7. They should all have books, no? It's like a prerequisite for becoming pResident now.

Geez, I'm going to be busy on Amazon through November 2012.

[guruoo]

10. 'Quick, kill 'em while they're still guilty.' nt

[Are_grits_groceries]

12. Here's a tag for T-Paw:"Will you leave the people hurt by the economy like you left a deer to die?"

Gov. Pawlenty shoots deer, leaves it to die

<snip>
It turns out that, unlike most years, the governor actually shot a deer this time, according to the Star Tribune. The bad news is that he didn't kill it, and the seriously wounded buck bounded off into the forest.
But rather than help look for the suffering animal, which is every hunter's ethical responsibility, Pawlenty delegated the job to others because he had to fly off to a Republican Party fundraiser in Iowa.

We understand; the man has commitments. But this can't be the story he was hoping for. Despite a two-day search by the hunting party, the deer was never found. "It was extremely frustrating," the landowner Warren Sparby was quoted as saying. "We do know he shot it, because it was bleeding profusely. We combed and combed and combed, but still couldn't find it. ... We gave it the best shot we could."
<snip>
http://blogs.citypages.com/blotter/2009/11/gov_pawlenty_sh.php

This isn't as minor as it may seem. He got his hide scaled in a lot of places. He broke a cardinal rule of hunting. If you wound an animal, you find it and put it out of it's misery. My brother hunted for a deer he wounded for 8 hours until he found it. It was through some nasty terrain.

This will make some people think twice about him. I heard some people talk about it here in SC. If it can penetrate the brains of the fools here, it is a tough message. This kind of conduct will hurt him with groups of people he will need support from. Even if you don't hunt, a lot of people know those who do. In addition, even if people didn't realize this fact, it is a story that portrays him in a very negative light.



(Change deer to Bambi and he's toast)

[malaise]

13. That will probably give him more votes

The RW lunatics love old testament vengeance - justice never mattered to them.
:hi:

[Are_grits_groceries]

15. It may give him more votes with the RW nuts.

However, I don't think it will help with the general populace. They want at least a pretense of justice. :hi:

[Ilsa]

18. Karla Faye Tucker was guilty. She and her friends

were on a drug-enduced spree and brutally murdered someone (or two). She admitted to it.

That being said, she was a model prisoner, and I don't think anything was served by her execution except to make W. look "tough on crime".

As for Rick Perry, I don't know how he can sleep at night knowing that he sent an innocent man to death just to look tough.

[Scurrilous]

19. K & R

:thumbsup: