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| The Willingham house after the blaze |
(CNN) -- More than a decade after his execution, Cameron Todd Willingham is still a pawn in the debate over the death penalty.
Opponents of capital punishment say Willingham's is a clear case of an inmate being wrongfully executed, while the original prosecutor and state of Texas have been steadfast in their assertion that Willingham should be no one's cause célèbre.
"Willingham was a psychopathic killer who murdered his three children," John H. Jackson, the former Navarro County prosecutor who handled the case in 1992, wrote in an e-mail. "He submitted to a polygraph with predictable results, he confessed the murders to his wife, the trial evidence established two prior incidents when he tried to kill his children in utero by vicious attacks on his wife."
Willingham was executed in February 2004 after being found guilty in an arson that killed his children, 2-year-old Amber and 1-year-old twins Karmon and Kameron. His family has fought to have his name cleared ever since.
The Innocence Project filed a grievance Monday with the State Bar of Texas, asking that it investigate the now-retired prosecutor. The grievance alleges Jackson "fabricated and concealed evidence," including documents indicating that a jailhouse informant received special treatment in exchange for his testimony, which Jackson and the informant both claimed was not true during the original trial.
A story in The Washington Post on Sunday, written by the Marshall Project, a journalistic group focusing on criminal justice matters, said Willingham's case is especially important to death penalty opponents because it could provide the first case showing "conclusively that an innocent man was put to death in the modern era of capital punishment."
The Marshall Project story reports that informant Johnny Webb, whose testimony was integral to convicting Willingham, now says he lied on the witness stand in exchange for favors from Jackson. The story also alleges that correspondence between Jackson and Johnny Webb indicate the two were in cahoots.
Jackson told CNN the letters are being misconstrued.
Source: CNN, August 6, 2014
