Another Innocent Victim?

Today's New York Times has a chilling article about a new report by a panel of forensic experts that Cammeron Willingham, who was executed by Texas in 2004, was innocent of the crime for which he was convicted. Willingham was convicted of burning down his own house, killing his three children in the process. Not only did Willingham not commit the crime - there was no crime at all. What experts at the time labeled arson was not, in fact, an intentional fire. As Dan Markel points out over at PrawsBlawg, this would appear to be the second innocent man Texas has killed.

How did this happen? Because the arson "expert" the state used back then just got it wrong:

[i]n 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.

Why might that be? Well,

[m]any arson investigators were self-taught and 'inept,' the report said, adding: 'There is no crime other than homicide by arson for which a person can be sent to death row based on the unsupported opinion of someone who received all his training 'on the job.' '

My experience with arson cases backs that up. In one case I worked on while I was in the county PD office the conclusion of arson came after the investigator, basically, threw up his hands and said he couldn't figure out what else it could be. Hardly the product of a rigorous scientific method.