America has the finest legal system in the world.  But it’s far from perfect.  One of the problems is concept that if you pit people trained in the law at opposite ends of an issue, the truth will emerge.   The first duty of a District Attorney is to discover the truth, but it doesn’t always plays out that way.  The competitive nature of the system causes many, if not most, prosecutors to only focus on getting a conviction.  Lawyers, for their part, often only focus on getting an acquittal.  The downside of the competitive nature of the legal system is that the battle between such polar opposite views doesn’t always produce justice.  Sometimes it’s because the dueling parties are not evenly matched.  A sharp prosecutor can often run rings around an inexperienced public defender, particularly if the public defender has little at stake and, believe me, sometimes keeping an assistant public defender job that pays little and requires lot of hours and loads of stress isn’t enough of a motivator.  A while back I read that the the caseload in St Louis is so overwhelming that the average public defender can spends six minutes a week on each case.  That’s not enough time to read the file.  So what happens is that some defendants get thrown under the bus.  The PD makes a snap judgement on the charges based primarily on their previous offenses and the evidence involved.  He or she tries to help those they can, but it’s pretty hit or miss.  Of course the pendulum swings both ways and some times you have a novice prosecutor going up against a super powerful attorney with equally unjust results.

A classic example of the desire to win a conviction over  the importance of justice being done recently occurred in the State of Texas.  Now, Texas has never been a place you want to commit a crime because Texas justice is known for being swift and harsh and leniency is not a concept often recognized.  It has now come to light that the State of Texas executed an innocent man – an innocent father actually – after prosecutors deliberately concealed evidence in his children’s arson deaths. Now the state bar of Texas has filed a formal misconduct accusation against the prosecutor in this case.  The bar had already filed a petition in Navarro County, near Dallas, earlier this month that alleged that prosecutor John Jackson deliberately withheld evidence which indicated that Cameron Todd Willingham was innocent.  Because of this, Willingham was executed in 2004 for supposedly murdering his three young daughters. His daughters died in a house fire back in 1991, but the evidence Jackson suppressed showed that Willingham had nothing to do with the fire that took his daughters from him.

Prosecutor John Jackson

“Before, during, and after the 1992 trial, [Jackson] knew of the existence of evidence that tended to negate the guilt of Willingham, and failed to disclose that evidence to defense counsel,” the petition reads.

Jackson eventually attained the position of judge, but at the time he was an assistant district attorney. The Marshall Project, a group which obtained the petition and published it, says that Jackson “made multiple attempts to secure favorable treatment for an imprisoned informant” named Johnny Webb, according to the Raw Story.

Webb testified that it was Willingham who started the fire. But for his testimony, Webb’s charge was reduced from aggravated robbery to robbery which gave him a much better chance of parole. His incentive for lying is obvious.

Jackson said that there was “no evidence” which could possibly help Willingham’s defense. But that was far from the case, according to the petition and complaint filed. Forensic evidence from the arson investigators was later discredited by experts who claimed that the investigators had “misinterpreted” the evidence.

Jackson, for his part, maintained his innocence to his dying breath.  Webb later recanted his testimony in 2000. He admitted to the Marshall Project, in 2014, that he lied about the arson so that his sentence would be reduced and so he could receive thousands of dollars in payments from a wealthy local rancher.

Texas governor Rick Perry refused to grant a stay of execution. In fact, after an investigation by the Texas Forensic Science Commission determined that the arson investigation was faulty, Perry doubled down, called Willingham a “monster” and replaced the chairman of the Science Commission for doing his job and following the… science. During presidential debates in 2012, Perry was asked it it troubles him that he executed an innocent man. He replied: “No, sir, I’ve never struggled with that at all.” replied Perry, now a possible Republican presidential candidate again.                                                                                                                                                              Texas Governor Rick Perry

Among Willingham’s last words were: “The only statement I want to make is that I am an innocent man – convicted of a crime I did not commit. I have been persecuted for 12 years for something I did not do.”

If he is convicted for hiding evidence, Jackson might end up being disbarred. But that shouldn’t bother him too much, since he retired three years ago. No matter what, an innocent man will still be dead.

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