John Bradley

Williamson County Sun, Oct. 4, 2009: AUSTIN — Williamson County District Attorney John Bradley will serve as the state’s newest chairman of the Texas Forensic Science Commission.

Governor Rick Perry tapped Bradley to replace Austin defense attorney Sam Bassett as head of the commission Wednesday, just days before the commission was set to meet in Dallas to review a controversial arson case that led to the 2004 execution of a Corsicana man.

After accepting Perry’s appointment, Bradley canceled the commission’s Oct. 2 meeting, where officials were slated to hear Craig Beyler, an arson expert who has written a report that discredits arson investigators’ work on the deadly December 1991 Corsicana house fire that resulted in the death of three children.

Cameron Todd Willingham, the father of the girls killed in the fire, was found guilty of capital murder and sentenced to death.

“I simply needed more time,” Bradley said. “This is a new position and I felt I needed more information, and would not be able to catch up by Friday’s meeting.”

Perry also replaced commission members Alan Levy, head of the Travis County District Attorney’s criminal division, and Alice Watts, quality director at Euless-based Integrated Forensic Laboratories. Perry named Norma Farley, chief forensic pathologist for Cameron and Hildago counties to the commission and will name a third member in the coming days.

During Friday’s news conference for his re-election campaign, Perry defended his shake up of the Texas Forensic Science Commission.

“What’s happening is we’re following pretty normal protocol,” Perry said. “Those individuals’ terms were up, so we’re replacing them. That’s not out of the ordinary.”

Willingham, 24 at the time and an unemployed auto mechanic, was found guilty by a Navarro County grand jury and sentenced to death in 1992. He protested his innocence until his execution on Feb. 17, 2004.

Beyler, who commissioners appointed to investigate the case earlier this year, disclosed in his August report that investigators —former Corsicana Assistant Fire Chief Douglas Fogg and Deputy Fire Marshal Manuel Vasquez — appeared “wholly without any realistic understanding of fires and how fire injuries are created.”

The report further charges the investigation was, “nothing more than a collection of personal beliefs that have nothing to do with science-based fire investigation.”

Three independent reviews over the last year, involving seven of the nation’s top arson experts, also found no evidence the fire was intentionally set, according to review documents.

The report leads some to believe that Willingham was wrongly executed for murdering his children because of a potentially flawed arson investigation.

Perry, who denied Willingham’s request for a stay of execution five years ago, recently expressed skepticism over Beyler’s conclusions during a September event in Washington, D.C., saying: “I’m familiar with the latter-day supposed experts on the arson side of it.”

Perry added that documents he reviewed before Willingham’s execution showed, “clear and compelling, overwhelming evidence that he was in fact the murderer of his children,” according to an Associated Press report.

Jeff Blackburn, chief counsel with the Innocence Project of Texas, called Perry’s decision to remove key members of the commission a “dangerous political power move.”

The Innocence Project is a national litigation and public policy organization dedicated to exonerating wrongfully convicted people through DNA testing and flawed investigation reports.

The group has carefully followed the Willingham case, and has been openly critical of Perry’s action surrounding the case.

“We hoped that the Forensic Science Commission would be able to make some headway into the use of such science,” Blackburn said. “But clearly that’s not going to happen with the appointment of Bradley.”

Blackburn said Bradley’s tough-on-crime, politically conservative method threatens to undermine gains made to correct wrongful convictions and flawed evidence used in high-profile arson cases.

“Bradley represents every militant, backward, anti-progress policeman in the state,” Blackburn said. “We are very suspicious of the governor’s timing and selections for this committee, and realize the only hope innocent prisoners have in the state is from the legislature.”

Bradley said despite the criticism swirling around his appointment, he will serve firm and fair on the commission.

“I’m flattered that the governor has appointed me to this position,” Bradley said. “I have a job to do, and I intend to do it.”