Connecticut abolishes the Death penalty

The Wikipedia article doesn't present the matter as being as clear-cut as you claim it to be.Would you care to elaborate on how you came to believe there was a "scientific conclusion that the fire that killed his children was not arson"?Jon

From this, presumably

quote:

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{From, Analysis of the Fire Investigation Methods and Procedures Used in the Criminal Arson Cases Against Ernest Ray Willis and Cameron Todd Willingham}

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The investigations of the Willis and Willingham fires did not comport with either the modern standard of care expressed by NFPA 921, or the standard of care expressed by fire investigation texts and papers in the period 1980—1992. The investigators had poor understandings of fire science and failed to acknowledge or apply the contemporaneous understanding of the limitations of fire indicators. Their methodologies did not comport with the scientific method or the process of elimination. A finding of arson could not be sustained based upon the standard of care expressed by NFPA 921, or the standard of care expressed by fire investigation texts and papers in the period 1980—1992.

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There's an oxymoron for you.

Precisely.There wasn't really any evidence to force a conclusion of arson.

Well that doesn't support at all what Crash said. Nor does the case of Willingham even come close to satisfying Onifre's request for an example of an innocent person who was executed.Looking at the facts of the case (as presented on Wiki) it isn't really clear whether the man is guilty or not. There's certainly ample amounts of reasonable doubt, and I am not at all convinced of Willingham's guilt. But neither am I convinced of his innocence.Jon

Sure it does. That's the scientific conclusion that no arson occurred. "A finding of arson could not be sustained." Ergo, the fire was not an arson. Ergo, the crime of arson did not occur. Ergo, the three deaths that occurred during the fire were not murders for which Willingham was responsible. Ergo, he was innocent of the crime of murder. Ergo, Texas executed an objectively innocent person.There's no room for any other conclusion. The fire was scientifically determined not to be the result of arson. You don't have to be. You simply have to accept the abundant scientific evidence that the fire was not the result of arson. Willingham can't be guilty of a crime that did not occur, by definition.

Innocent until proven guilty. Proven guilty beyond reasonable doubt. Fortunately, in most cases, we don't have to prove someone is innocent as that is very difficult in most cases. While I can prove my innocence in the JFK murder, I cannot prove my innocence in the murder of Halton McCollin (who was murdered very close to where I was at the time).If there is reasonable doubt whether an arson occurred, there is even more doubt that he is guilty of arson.

That's not quite right crashfrog. What the review says is that it is impossible to determine that a fire was arson using the methods employed by the investigators. The fire could have been arson, or it might not have been. What is known is that the investigation was bungled, badly.What we can say is that Texas executed a person who should never have been found guilty at trial.

No, they specifically ruled out the supportability of a conclusion of arson. That language was quoted by Modulous.Thus, scientifically, the fire was not the result of arson. it could have been an arson that looked exactly like a non-arson, but it couldn't scientifically be an arson that looked exactly like a non-arson.What I said was completely accurate. There's no need to pretend, here, that there's even a possibility that Willingham committed a crime that did not actually occur. No, what we can say is that Texas executed an innocent person by both the dictionary and legal definitions of "innocent." It's certainly ontologically possible that Willingham was guilty in some kind of metaphysical way, but scientifically he was innocent by virtue of the scientific nonexistence of the crime, and legally he was innocent by the prosecution's inability to produce evidence of his guilt beyond reasonable doubt.Willingham was innocent. There's no basis on which that can be contested.

If you'd clicked on the first link, you'd know better: It's in the first paragraph, just after his name. Apart from, y'know, the ones where there is. Because, by magic, wrongful convictions don't happen when there's the death penalty. It makes juries infallible ... oh, except for the mistakes they make, which you can apparently wish out of existence. I can't see that we get that much out of killing the guilty that makes it worth it.Same with Seal Team 6 --- if their mission was purely vengeance, rather than defending us against a threat, and if there's risk of them killing the innocent, then why do it? How much fun is vengeance, really?

But there is no evidence that there wasn't a crime. There's a lot of ambiguous evidence. And there's plenty of missing evidence in support of an arson conclusion.And the wording used in reports on the matter makes it very clear that the independent investigators are not concluding that there was no arson. They are only commenting on the fact that there is no evidence to support an arson conclusion.Based on this an acquittal or verdict of not-guilty should have been handed out. But not a declaration of innocence.And so you're right, and I agree on this point: Willingham should have been found not guilty.But Onifre isn't talking about not-guilty, is he? He's talking about innocence.Jon

It's far from clear that Mr. Willingham was innocent. It's only clear that he should not have been found guilty (and executed).And Onifre was very specific in his request for examples of innocent people being executed. Onifre made it further clear in an earlier message that he is looking for 'serious proof' of innocence. I was showing that Crash's example of Willingham doesn't address Onifre's request since he failed to present the required 'serious proof' of innocence.Edited by Jon, : No reason given.

I'm with you regarding the wording of the reports, but how can you conclude that there is missing evidence that supports arson? If an investigatory technique does not get used, then we cannot conclude that the technique would have supported a conclusion of arson even if, in fact, the fire was deliberately set. Yes, and Onifre's point is a red herring. There are a number of cases where executed people have been pardoned after execution, and in fact one such case occurred in Connecticut. We don't really have to debate about the close or dubious cases.

Let's try this again. Emphasis mine.Let me repeat, for emphasis, since it seems you have yet to absorb the point. "It was just a fire."If it was just a fire, it wasn't arson. If it wasn't arson, he was innocent of murder.