Texas cover-up update: Governor Rick tried to defund the scientific commission looking into his little execution boo-boo
>
Come on, guv, are these the best lies you cancome up with? Don't Texans deserve better lies?
by Ken
Monday I wrote about Texas Gov. Rick "Don't You Say I'm Not Dumb Enough for You" Perry's frantic effort to derail the investigation by the state's Forensic Science Commission into serious scientific doubts raised about the evidence used to prove that a man subsequently executed for murder started the fire that killed his three children. He went to his death protesting his innocence, and if the arson experts who have looked into it are right, he was.
As has been moderately well reported, Governor Rick got the brilliant idea of replacing three commission members, including the chairman, two days before the long-scheduled hearing, at which the forensics expert hired by the commission, Craig Beyler, was to discuss his already-turned-in report that the fire most likely wasn't arson at all, which would kind of kick the crap out of the prosecution's whole murder-by-arson theory.
The thing about Texans is that the good ones are among the best people on the planet. Yesterday one of my favorite Texans, Glenn Smith, did a post on the blog over which he presides, Dog Canyon, which went well beyond what I reported, including an interview with Craig Beyler and the (to me) startling revelation that the governor tried frantically during the last legislative session to defund the commission, in an attempt to prevent it from meeting and looking into that arson evidence. That evidence, again, was being formally questioned before the convicted man, Todd Willingham, was executed -- and our Rick did nothing to delay the execution, making him, as Glenn puts it, "likely the first governor in modern history to have presided over the execution of an innocent man."
As I noted previously, Governor Rick is the latest in a growing line of public figures to ignore the increasingly well-established adage that it's not the crime but the cover-up that'll do you in. Glenn's report looks to me like something very close to the nail in the coffin. It begins:
Craig L. Beyler, the nationally recognized forensics expert whose public testimony was scuttled when Gov. Rick Perry shook up the Texas Forensic Science Commission, said today his testimony would have been matter-of-fact and based on his report that is already public.
Also, Capitol sources confirmed today that Perry’s office worked hard to kill funding for the Texas Forensic Science Commission during the last legislative session. “They knew what was coming,” said one source. “They worked the halls hard to defund the agency.” That news could be devastating to Perry’s public argument that his dismissal of his three appointees was “business as usual.”
Oops!
(Have you noticed that it's almost impossible to talk about Rick Perry's career in public "service" without punctuating the talk with "oops"?)
Glenn also noted that the governor has now been blasted editorially by the Houston Chronicle and the San Antonio Express-News, and added to his previous report that state Sen. John Whitmire, chairman of the Senate Criminal Justice Committee, was already planning to hold committee hearings on the matter. The AP has also reported that members of the Forensic Science Commission tried to dissuade the governor from replacing the commission chairman (who of course was himself a Perry appointee, twice over), and the flow of reporting from papers around the state is picking up.
Come on, Governor Rick, these lies you're telling, trying to wiggle out of what you did, are really kind of pathetic, don't you think? Don't you think that Texans at the very least deserve better lies?
#
Labels: death penalty, Rick Perry, Texas
posted by KenInNY @ 6:00 AM
5 comments
|
Reddit
5 Comments:
Not to rain on your parade, but what's your goal, here? To get Perry to do anything? He won't respond if Texans ask, and they won't; and he certainly will laugh if out-of-staters make up most of this petition. Besides, he would be the last person to acknowledge such a thing. And it won't get any publicity, either--so why bother? Better spend your time simply putting together as much money as you can to run anti-Perry ads. Not that this will do much good either, since Perry really belongs behind bars, but it's likely to make more of a dent than a petition directed to the scoundrel.
I have to agree that the governor is beyond the reach of reason or appeal, and the people who need to be reached are the good citizens of the Lone Star State. As I've said, they may or may not care that their governor completely whiffed on his responsibility to delay the execution to allow for proper review of the serious scientific questions that had been raised, but they may well care -- at least I hope they will care -- that once the schmo came to understand what he did, he began yanking every lever of power he could get his horned mitts on trying to cover up what he did.
In addition, even though we know not to expect a whole lot from Texas's criminal justice system, it sure seems to me that somebody there should be looking into obstruction-of-justice and who knows what other kinds of abuse-of-power charges in connection with the cover-up. Maybe that way our Rick can be persuaded to worry less about his reelection campaign and focus on his resignation speech.
Ken
On second thought, I looked at the Web page and signed the petition, which is calling for the governor to order a moratorium on executions in Texas. This seems to me the minimum step necessary to make possible the development of safeguards to ensure that this can't ever happen again (though what those safeguards might be short of abolishing the death penalty, I have no idea).
If nothing else, the petition tells the governor, "We know what you did."
I also took advantage of the site's suggestion to communicate directly with Governor Perry, and following links to the state website sent this letter:
Dear Governor Perry,
I'm not a Lone Stater, but as a fellow American, I urge you to come to your senses and stop trying to cover up the blunder you made in not allowing the faulty scientific evidence in the Todd Willingham murder case to be competently reexamined.
I'm surprised you don't realize that the cover-up is likely to get you even if the original offense didn't. Everything you've done to try to prevent the Forensic Science Commission to do its job tells us that you KNOW what you did. For the proper administration of justice in Texas, you need to 'fess up and get together with legislators and the state's criminal justice authorities to make sure such a thing doesn't ever happen again.
Sincerely,
Kenneth Furie
Thing is, Ken, in Texas the powerful and privileged have never had an ounce of shame. Read up on LBJ's 1948 senatorial race: it was fixed to the gills, with a huge number of votes in a Republican-heavy district vanishing from the backseat of a car--and Johnson used to chuckle about it, afterwards. Trying to embarrass a Texas politician is like trying to fling crap at a pig. They don't get angry. They just wallow.
Now, provide a serious challenge to their power, and that's another story. I'd rather see all that anger at Perry channeled into something that will truly help, instead of dead-ended into a "How dare you, sir, there shall be a letter about your scurrilous doings in the Times in the morning!" effort, if you follow me.
Your petition to abolish the death penalty states Texas has executed 18 people already in 2009 and has executed 441 people since 1982. What about the thousands of babys that are killed in your state every year by abortion clinics?
Post a Comment
<< Home