Lawyers for relatives of Cameron Todd Willingham, executed for the 1991 arson murder of his three young daughters in Corsicana, on Friday petitioned a judge in Travis County to hear evidence and determine whether Willingham was wrongly convicted.
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Willingham’s execution has caught national attention for the specter that Texas may have killed an innocent man. Several arson experts in recent years have rejected the science that the investigators who testified at Willingham’s trial used to determine that the fire that killed his daughters was intentionally set.
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Willingham, above right, was convicted of murder in 1992 in the deaths of his children —1-year-old twins Karmon and Kameron and 2-year-old Amber — who died of smoke inhalation after a fire at the family’s house in Corsicana, about 55 miles northeast of Waco.
He maintained his innocence until his 2004 execution.
Willingham’s lawyers have claimed that local and state fire investigators relied on faulty scientific methods in concluding that the fire at Willingham’s house had been intentionally set.
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Willingham was executed during (Governor) Perry’s tenure (February 16, 2004) and Perry was accused of playing politics with the case last year when he replaced three members of the nine-member Texas Commission on Forensic Science, including the chairman, Austin defense lawyer Sam Bassett. The members, whose terms had expired, were replaced just days before the commission had been scheduled to hear the findings of the expert they had hired to evaluate the case. That presentation was postponed indefinitely.