Another Ruben Cantu?

Back in November, I wrote about the Texas execution of Ruben Cantu here and at Slate.  Cantu, you might recall, had the misfortune of being the best candidate for the unattractive title "first innocent American person executed in the modern period."  Well, Texas may well be at it again.  According to this article in today's NYT, new evidence indicates that Texas has executed another innocent man. Cameron T. Willingham was convicted of homicidal arson in 1992 and was executed in 2004. But according to a forensic panel commissioned by the Innocence Project, Barry Scheck's professional mitzvah service, Willingham was convicted on the basis of faulty testimony by amateur arson investigators.

In the Willingham trial, the committee found, a deputy state fire marshal, Manuel Vasquez, erred in tracing the blaze to an accelerant. The committee discredited his finding of arson. "Each and every one of the 'indicators' listed by Mr. Vasquez means absolutely nothing," the report said. A Corsicana assistant fire chief, Douglas Fogg, "seemed to harbor many of the same misconceptions held by Mr. Vasquez," the report went on. It concluded that the fire had been "grossly misinterpreted." Mr. Fogg did not respond to a message left on his answering machine. Mr. Vasquez is dead.

Hmmm.  We already know that Houston's crime lab has problems.  So it's a good thing that Texas established the Texas Forensic Science Commission.  They will no doubt read the report presented by Scheck's panel--and maybe they'll be impressed by it.  After all, the government's type and use of evidence here has already been discredited in a similar case, culminating in the exoneration of another man on death row in Texas.  But in Willingham's case, any such sympathy will arrive too late.  The guillotine in Texas has dropped.  And the state's opportunity for apology to Mr. Willingham--poof, it's vanished.

Update: HJB's got more links to media coverage of the case here.