misinformation cameron towas executed and that can t be corrected. a new documentary about a man who was almost certainly innocent executed in texas. patricia cox s cousin. he lost his three daughters in 1991. he was convicted of arson in the case and executed in february of 2004. independent investigators review the case and found no evidence of arson. the appeal for clemency was denied by govern area rick perry. my guest made a movie about the case. it s good to have you here. the filmmakers. thanks for being here. maybe you can start out by just describing what the theory of the case the prosecution presented and the jury believed
real scientific evidence and they were going by training they learned from other fire investigators themselves. there is this folk art around forensic investigation of fires and my understanding is the fire investigators sort of went through the house and they noted clue after clue after clue after clue that said this had been set intentionally and those clues turned out not to be true, right? they believe they found about 20 indications of arson and over the course of the last several years since, all 20 have been debunked by scientific experts that have looked at the case. actually, it s really strange. nine days after willingham was indicted, the national fire protection association field manual was published on arson investigation where they just started to codify science into
the investigatory practices of field arson investigators. willingham was offered a plea, right? basically said i will not plea to murdering my daughters. right, he did. once he was in prison, when did these doubts become clear and what did governor perry do when these were raised? it was toward the end. he was on death row for 12 years. toward the end his family finally found an expert who is in our film and when he looked at the so-called evidence, he told them it wasn t arson. and then there was a forensic science commission in texas put in place to examine bad forensics and the innocence project filed a case and that s how it became an issue for perry
[ applause ] what do you make of that dynamic that just happened. the mention of the execution of 234 people drew applause? i think americans understand justice. well, that s totally chilling. two things about that quote from perry. we ll talk about buck in a second. one was i love how he sort of boasts about the fact you can go up to the supreme court as if it s a special aspect of texas justice that we even allow the federal court to oversee our justice system. if you re going to the supreme court, it means there s a serious problem with this case. particularly the supreme court. my wife clerked on the supreme court and i m familiar with the routineness with which death penalty cases go to the supreme court and they are essentially almost never accepted. very rare that happens. i thought it was so interesting in that quote. the one line that gets at the emotional core of this issue. if you come into texas and kill one of our citizens i mean,
buck case. a man lost his three daughters in a fire. texas executed him for setting the fire and subsequent investigation show almost definiti definitively, the fire was not arson. filmmakers have told the story and are joining us to tell us about the case and what rick perry did about it coming up. ts without hot sauce. she has kind of funny looking toes. she s always touching my hair. and she does this dancing finger thing. [ male announcer ] with advanced technology from ge, now doctors can diagnose diseases like breast cancer on a cellular level. so that women, like kristy s mom, can get personalized treatment that s as unique as she is. [ kristy ] she s definitely not like other moms. yeah, my mom is pretty weird. i want healthy skin for life. [ female announcer ] don t just moisturize, improve the health of your skin with aveeno daily moisturizing lotion. the natural oatmeal formula goes beyond 24-hour moisture.