-
Posts filed under category: The Rick Perry Beat
Why You Can’t Blame TMA for Endorsing Perry
Gov. Rick Perry picked up a key endorsement earlier this week from the political arm of the Texas Medical Association.
The endorsement wasn't a huge shock. TMA, which represents more than 40,000 doctors, has been tight with Perry since 2003, especially on tort reform issues.
But it wasn't an easy choice. TMA has also endorsed Kay Bailey Hutchison every time she's been on the ballot. On TMA's core policy issues, there isn't much difference between Perry and Hutchison. The doctors' group might have endorsed Hutchison or taken the easy path by sitting the primary race out and waiting to make an endorsement until the general election.
David Reynolds, the director of political education for TEXPAC (TMA's political arm), told me the group considers both candidates "friends." One advantage for the governor is that "Perry has been a friendly incumbent."
It's clear not everyone in TMA's leadership is thrilled with the Perry endorsement. Quorum Report wrote earlier this week that the vote by TMA leaders to endorse Perry wasn't unanimous. A group of present and past leaders at TMA have broken ranks to support Hutchison by forming a group called Physicians for Kay.
But no one should be angry with the Perry endorsement. TMA had no choice. Endorsements are political decisions, and this one was good politics.
For one, it's always wise to support -- as Reynolds put it -- a friendly incumbent. But it's larger than that.
Perry isn't just any incumbent. He's an incumbent who will carve your guts out if you cross him.
Let's flashback to 2002. TMA leaders were angry that Perry had vetoed a favored bill, and they endorsed Democrat Tony Sanchez for governor.
After Perry crushed Sanchez, the governor took revenge on TMA. As the well-told story goes, Perry's people pressured TMA to let go long-time lobbyist Kim Ross. The message from the governor's office was clear enough.
On the other side, I don't get the sense that Hutchison -- if she were elected -- would play hardball in quite the same way.
I suspect that if Hutchison is elected governor, she won't take revenge on the groups who endorsed Perry. She'll probably forgive and move on.
But had TMA endorsed Hutchison or stayed neutral, and Perry had won anyway....well, we've seen that scenario before.
So you can't blame TMA for endorsing Perry. It was just good politics.
Posted under: The Rick Perry BeatWhat Perry Knew About Willingham
Just hours before Cameron Todd Willingham was put to death for a crime he likely didn't commit, Gov. Rick Perry's office received clear mitigating evidence that showed the forensics in Willingham's case were flawed.
What did Perry's office receive?
We know -- from Lise Olsen's story in Sunday's Houston Chronicle -- that Willingham's lawyer sent a five-page fax to Perry's office on Feb. 17, 2004, just 88 minutes before the scheduled execution.
In that five-page fax was a report from Dr. Gerald Hurst, a nationally renowned fire expert who's helped exonerate dozens of people. In his report, Hurst said the forensic evidence against Willingham -- a man about to be executed -- was outdated and incorrect. Hurst concludes that the 1991 fire that killed Willingham's three kids was accidental.
I've posted the full report here (it's in pdf format).
You can read for yourself exactly what Perry and his staff saw before they OK'd Willingham's execution.
(A note about the report: Hurst is a scientist, and the report can be technical in parts, but it's understandable to a layperson.)
Hurst wrote:
As will be shown later, most of the conclusions reached by the Fire Marshall [in this case] would be considered invalid in light of current knowledge."
One-by-one, Hurst debunks the supposed evidence that the fire at Willingham's house was arson: the pour patterns, the multiple origins, the V-shaped burn patterns, the burns under the door threshold, the burned tiles, the supposed presence of gasoline, the crazed glass, the brown burn patterns on the porch.
This is the essence of the case. It's inconsequential whether Willingham was a nice guy or a "monster," as Perry contended yesterday.
The central issue is whether a crime was committed.
You would think that a report from a nationally respected scientist like Hurst that challenged the forensic evidence in a death penalty case would give someone pause before allowing an execution to go forward. Why not postpone the execution to check the veracity of Hurst's conclusions? Perry has postponed and rescheduled executions many times.
We don't yet know what kind of attention Perry's office gave Hurst's report. (Perry's office has refused to release the relevant records.)
But it doesn't really matter whether they read and ignored the report or never even looked at it.
Either way, Perry's office knew -- or should have known -- before the execution that Willingham's case was flawed.
Posted under: The Rick Perry BeatPerry Tried to Meddle in Willingham Inquiry
So maybe it wasn't "business as usual" after all.
Critics have been hounding Gov. Rick Perry for weeks about his decision to fire three members of the Forensic Science Commission before they could finish investigating the case of an apparently innocent man executed in 2004. The governor's office has said the replacements were bureaucratic business as usual.
Well, this morning The Chicago Tribune is reporting that the governor's office pressured the Forensic Science Commission to scale back (or end) its investigation into the case of Cameron Todd Willingham. (Perry allowed Willingham's execution despite receiving last-minute mitigating evidence.)
The story is a must read. Here's the lead:
Just months before the controversial removal of three members of a state commission investigating the forensics that led to a Texas man's 2004 execution, top aides to Gov. Rick Perry tried to pressure the chairman of the panel over the direction of the inquiry, the chairman has told the Tribune.
Samuel Bassett, whom Perry replaced on the Texas Forensic Science Commission two weeks ago, said he twice was called to meetings with Perry's top attorneys. At one of those meetings, Bassett said he was told they were unhappy with the course of the commission's investigation."The Tribune reports that Perry's office also expressed concern about the cost of hiring a national expert to examine the Willingham case:
According to Bassett, the governor's attorneys questioned the cost of the inquiry and asked why a fire scientist from Texas could not be hired to examine the case instead of the expert from Maryland that the panel ultimately settled on."
Attorneys from Perry's office later started attending commission meetings. One of the attorneys, David Cabrales, apparently told Bassett that:
Bassett said, Cabrales told him in February that the Willingham investigation was not the kind of work the legislature intended for the commission."
That's just a shocking statement. And incorrect. Anyone who's followed the Forensic Science Commission knows that the Legislature created the commission to investigate cases exactly like Willingham's.
In fact, Barry Scheck of the Innocence Project -- when lobbying for the commission's creation and funding in 2005 and 2007 -- frequently mentioned the Willingham case in his arguments for why Texas needed a commission to investigate flawed forensics. And almost immediately after the commission received funding in 2007, the Innocence Project asked the commission to make Willingham one of its first investigations.
It's unusual for the governor's office to become so deeply involved in a small state government body -- to say nothing of trying to manipulate its work.
Of course, Perry likely didn't want the Forensic Science Commission to conclude that the forensics in Willingham's case were flawed -- that might have made Texas the first state in the country to officially admit executing an innocent man.
It certainly appears that Gov. Perry's office pressured the Forensic Science Commission to scale back the Willingham investigation.
And when some of the commissioners would play along, they were replaced.
Posted under: The Rick Perry BeatMore Strange Comments from Perry
Rick Perry made more head-scratching public comments yesterday about Cameron Todd Willingham, a likely innocent man executed in 2004.
Asked about Willingham and accusations that he's trying to scuttle the investigation into the case, the governor told KHOU in Houston:
I suggest folks take a look at the process when it's over with and the results. I think that's really important.....What's most important is an appropriate answer and that's what we're going to do....I think the court has made a decision and I agree with the courts. So, unless there's some change of that ruling, I agree with the courts."
In the first sentence, Perry asks for patience to let the process work. As Grits has pointed out, we will know soon enough whether John Bradley -- the prosecutor Perry chose to head the Forensic Science Commission -- is committed to the Willingham investigation.
Perry also argues that he's simply agreeing with the courts' rulings in the case. That's true.
But I will note that in death penalty cases, the governor has an explicit role in the process that's separate from the courts.
Perry reviewed the Willingham case before the execution. The governor's role isn't to just rubber-stamp court rulings. It's supposed to be another check in the system before someone is put to death.
Moreover, Perry was given mitigating evidence -- which wasn't available to the trial or appeals courts -- that showed the forensics in the case were utterly flawed. And yet he allowed the execution to go forward.
I don't begrudge Perry the right to defend himself, especially on an issue that's become so politicized just months before an election. And, yes, the courts sent Willingham to the execution chamber. But Perry had a hand in it too.
Posted under: The Rick Perry Beat« Older PostsThe Problem for Perry
Kay Bailey Hutchison is gingerly, and ever so slightly, becoming more critical of Rick Perry's controversial decision to remove three members of the Forensic Science Commission just days before a key hearing on the case of Cameron Todd Willingham case, a likely innocent man executed in 2004.
Hutchison said yesterday that she disagrees with the removals and -- while still stressing her support for the death penalty -- said she wouldn't have made such a move.
The Willingham case has become quite the political problem for Perry.
For one, documents are leaking out that show even some of Perry's own appointees to the Forensic Science Commission lobbied the governor not to remove chairman Sam Bassett, according to reports from several media outlets.
And two, Perry's camp doesn't have a good defense. Spokesman Mark Miner responded, according to the AP, that "Hutchison doesn't have all the facts."
Doesn't have all the facts? That seems unlikely after this 16,000-word New Yorker story.
Posted under: The Rick Perry Beat -
Recent Posts
-
The Contrarian Returns
-
Does John Bradley Get It?
-
The Willingham Hearing
-
The Fort Hood Tragedy
-
Why You Can’t Blame TMA for Endorsing Perry
-
Women More Likely to Be Uninsured
-
Dept. of Corrections
-
Manslaughter at a State School
-
Heath Care Reform Would Benefit Texas
-
The Supposed Willingham Confession
-
Back to the Science on Willingham
-
Public Option Lives
-
How the Health Care System Screws Us
-
As Burka Goes, So Goes the State
-
Public Option Ain’t Dead Just Yet
Archive
Categories
-
The Contrarian Returns
Subscribe to this feed via RSS
