Which Way, L.A.?
Capital Punishment, Due Process and the Constitution
Three young children died in a house fire in Corsicana, Texas in 1991. In a two-day trial, their father was convicted of murdering them by setting the fire. Just before he was scheduled for execution in 2004, an independent investigator reported that the fire was caused by accident, not by arson as Cameron Todd Willingham's jury was told.
By Warren Olney • • 1 min readThree young children died in a house fire in Corsicana, Texas in 1991. In a two-day trial, their father was convicted of murdering them by setting the fire. Just before he was scheduled for execution in 2004, an independent investigator reported that the fire was caused by accident, not by arson as Cameron Todd Willingham's jury was told. He was executed anyway, and since then two more investigations have found no evidence of arson. One was commissioned by the State of Texas. Did the state execute an innocent man?
Warren Olney
former KCRW broadcaster
Christian Bordal
Managing Producer, Greater LA
Andrea Brody
Senior Producer, KCRW's Life Examined and To the Point podcast
David Grann
Author of “Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI” and “The Lost City of Z” ; The New Yorker
Barry Matson
Deputy Director, Alabama District Attorney’s Association
Peter Neufeld
Co-director of the Innocence Project