In 2004, Texas executed Cameron Todd Willingham after he was convicted of a triple murder. According to the state, Willingham deliberately started a house fire in which his three young children died of smoke inhalation just before Christmas in 1991. There were two main strands to the prosecution's case: fire investigators who testified the blaze was arson, and a jailhouse informant who testified that Willingham told him he had done it. The forensic evidence was always dubious and, in the years following the execution, has been further discredited by advances in fire science. More recently, the Innocence Project has shown that the testimony of the informant amounted to perjury suborned by the prosecutor, John H. Jackson. It appears a virtual certainty that Willingham wasn't guilty of the crime for which he was executed.
Jailhouse informants are so unreliable that in some venues their testimony is not allowed in court, a practice that might have saved Willingham's life. The recent disclosures of the Innocence Project are distressing, even sickening. The informant, Johnny Webb, was in prison for bank rolling his drug habit with robberies. He now says he was approached by Jackson about testifying against Willilngham. Jackson would help him get out of jail and would arrange for ongoing cash assistance from a rich rancher of his acquaintance, Charles Pearce, who is now dead. The Innocence Project has uncovered letters and other documents that corroborate this arrangement. Asked about the latest revelations, the formerly combative Jackson, who was elected to a judgeship a few years after the Willingham case, has declined to comment. The more that comes to light, the more it appears that the crimes in this case were committed by the prosecuting attorney. He didn't have a drug habit to feed, but he did have a resume to build.
When "human fallibility" is cited as a reason for opposing the death penalty, the concept is too narrowly construed. Yes, individual jurors can exercise faulty judgment. But the entire justice system is a human invention administered by human beings who are subject to all the familiar shortcomings of our kind. Something of the same might be said about human society in general. One of the sorriest aspects of the Willingham case concerns the likelihood that he died because Webb was not in a position to resist Jackson's come-on. According to Webb:
"He [Jackson] says, 'Your story doesn't have to match exactly,' Webb continued. "He says, 'I want you to just say he put fires in the corners. I need you to be able to say that so we can convict him, otherwise we're going to have a murderer running our streets.'"
Webb told Jackson he hoped to turn his life around and become an underwater welder. That could be arranged, Jackson assured him, according to Webb. In the taped interviews, Webb recalled, "He says, 'Look, we can get Chuck [Pearce] to help you with anything you need. He's already there to help you.'"
"He [Jackson] had me believing 100 percent this dude was guilty--that's why I testified," Webb said. The perks--they was willing to do anything to help me. No one has ever done that, so why wouldn't I help them?"
Johnny Webb was a nobody, and no one had ever taken an interest in him--lifted a finger to help him in any way--until an ambitious district attorney wanted to convict another nobody in a high-profile, capital case.
