:: NEWS COCKTAIL aka BlahBlahBlog ::
"Everything is being compressed into tiny tablets. You take a little pill of news every day - 23 minutes - and that's supposed to be enough." -Walter Cronkite, RE TV news. The Web has changed that for many, however, and here is an extra dose for your daily news cocktail. This prescription tends to include surveillance and now war-related links, along with the occasional pop culture junk and whatever else seizes my attention as I scan online news sites.:: 9.11.2009 ::
:: Death in Texas, what a concept ::
Man convicted of murder, executed over arson that wasn't, scientist says
Faulty investigation of fire that killed 3 kids led to conviction, state-funded report concludes.
By Chuck Lindell
Austin American-Statesman
The fatal house fire that led Texas to execute Cameron Todd Willingham in 2004 was erroneously ruled to be arson by fire investigators who relied on bad science, unproven theories and personal bias, a state-funded analysis concludes.
The analysis, prepared by nationally known fire scientist Craig Beyler, raises the possibility that Willingham did not commit the crime for which he was executed, a 1991 fire that killed his three young children in the Corsicana house they shared.
Only Willingham escaped the burning house, and he insisted on his innocence until the moment of his death.
"I have been persecuted for 12 years for something I did not do," he said while strapped to the execution-chamber gurney.
Beyler's report, requested by the Texas Forensic Science Commission, listed more than a dozen instances of improper analysis and mistaken conclusions provided by two fire officials during Willingham's capital murder trial.
Read more here.
A L S O
Did Texas execute an innocent man?
The New Yorker
posted by me
:: 3:31:00 PM [+] ::
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