Wrongful Conviction: The Cameron Todd Willingham Case

Darryl Hunt is an African American born in 1965 in North Carolina. In 1984, he was convicted wrongfully of rape and murder of Deborah Sykes, a young white woman working as a newspaper editor. This paper researches oh his wrongful conviction in North Carolina. Darryl Hunt served nineteen and a half years before DNA evidence exonerated him. The charges leveled against him were because of inconsistencies in the initial stages of the case. An all-white bench convicted the then nineteen-year-old Hunt, even though there was no physical evidence linking him to the crime. A hotel employee made false claims that he saw Hunt enter the hotel bathroom, and later emerge with bloodstained towels. Other witnesses also fixed Hunt to the case.

DNA exonerations are very common. So much so that in the United States alone, there have been “317 post-conviction DNA exonerations” (2014). The very first DNA exoneration dated back to 1989. The Innocence Project examined these DNA exonerations and found that “8 of the 317 people exonerated through DNA served time on death row. Another 16 were charged with capital crimes but not sentenced to death” (2014). More so, the average time served was about 13.5 years, and the average age was 27 (2014). This means that before the age of

While it may seem unlikely that many people would be convicted of a few of the latter crimes, there were nearly 3,000 people on death row in the last year. Of those 3,000 people, 117 were found to be innocent. It is predicted that at least 3% more of those sentenced would have been exonerated with enough time and resources.

Every year in the United States of America, millions of crimes are committed that violate and harm the individual rights, properties, and freedoms that are not only guaranteed to American citizens of this country, but also naturally inherent to mankind as whole. Based on the founding principles of our country, which are derived from the Constitution of these United States, justice is dealt accordingly to the perpetrators of these crimes. While this justice is usually fair, due to certain rights given to those who may be charged with crimes, sometimes an error is made. A simple mistake, a missing or broken link in the chain that

False convictions happen very often and can ruin someone's life. Examples of these wrongful convictions are the cases of Steven Avery and Jimmy Ray Bromgard. Steven Avery was wrongfully convicted for the rape of a woman, was exonerated, and is in prison for a new murder case while Jimmy Ray Bromgard was convicted of the rape of a young girl and was exonerated. Both of these men spent time in prison for something they did not do. Steven Avery spent 18 years in prison for a false conviction for the rape of Penny Beernsten in Manitowoc County and is now in prison for the murder of another woman.

The first execution was in 1982 with Charles Brooks, Jr. Death Penalty has become a very important issue in Texas. Many disagree on the harsh punishments others are given, especially those who are executed without any evidence and whom are not guilty. Cameron Todd Willingham was one of the innocent ones. He was wrongfully charged with arson and the murder of his three children.

In many countries across the world people are wrongfully convicted by a system whose sole purpose is to protects its citizens. Wrongful convictions are a grave miscarriage of justice. A report Published by Nation Registry of Exonerations stated that 149 people were cleared in 2015 for crimes that they did not commit in the United States (Ferner, 2016), this number is staggering. Also, in Japan 162 wrongful convicted between 1910 and 2010 (Johnson, 2015). With that said, a lot of people is being detained for crimes they did not commit in every region of the world, meanwhile the real culprits are left to roam freely. Common reasons for wrongful conviction in the United states and Japan are harsh and long interrogations, witness identification, errors or misconduct of the law enforcement and jailhouse informants also known as snitches, but mostly lack of DNA evidences. Even though, these countries have constitutional rights for its citizens, the reasons for wrongful convictions are similar.

With the number of DNA exonerations growing in the recent years, wrongful convictions reveal disturbing trends and fissures in the justice system. It shows how broken the system is, and why it needs urgent fixing. According to Huff (1996), over ten thousand people are convicted wrongfully for serious crimes each year. This study established that factors leading to wrongful convictions are false eyewitnesses, a prejudiced jury, incompetent prosecutors, and suspects’ ignorance. Where DNA evidence clears a suspect, array of reasons emerge; misconduct, mistakes, to race and class factors. It is important to make DNA data available to attorneys in order to enable them mount a strong

We hear in the news about police misconduct, use of excessive force, embezzlement, but one thing I found while researching what I should write this paper on is the Wrongful convictions of innocent men and women, that spend years in prison being innocent, and there is nothing that gets done till it’s too late. Some wrongful convictions are honest mistakes, but many times law enforcement and prosecutors lose sight of the obligation of ensuring truth and justice, and are focused on their conviction rates. As with any job, they are honest people and ones that just don’t care and are corrupt, this exists in the criminal justice system. One way to prove someone is innocent now is through DNA testing, but even at all levels of a criminal investigation there could be misconduct or mishandling of evidence, which then causes the evidence to become compromised.

According to The Innocence Project, “There have been 329 DNA exonerations, with an average of 14 years served.”

Do you know someone who is serving time for s crime they did not commit? Have you wondered how a system has failed the very people it was designed to serve and protect? The American judicial system has a prolonged record of wrongful conviction dating back centuries ago. Wrongful convictions is when a person, who in actuality is innocent yet have been sentenced by a jury or other official courtroom. This misguided thinking by the system brought about individuals being executed by deadly injection. African Americans are more likely to be wrongfully convicted than Caucasians in murder, sexual assault and drug related cases. Dating back from 1989 to mid-October of 2016 of the 1,900 wrongful convictions documented, 47% involved in the exoneration

Since the late 1980s, there have been thousands of cases in which prime suspects have been wrongfully convicted, the most common causes being eyewitness misidentification, incriminating statements, and statements from informants. According to The Innocence Project, there have been almost four hundred post-conviction DNA exoneration cases in our country, and they are working to investigate even more wrongful conviction cases. This life changing program, along with their six attorneys, gather information about thousands of cases and determine whether or not DNA evidence can be reevaluated. Kenneth Ireland’s case was submitted for litigation after they found that the court relied heavily on false statements from witnesses. Researchers working

In David Grann’s “Trial by Fire: Did Texas Execute an Innocent Man?”, published on September 7, 2009, the overall question addressed is whether we should keep the death penalty legal. Grann begins his argument with his account of the events that occurred on the morning of December 23, 1991 in Corsicana, Texas. Cameron Todd Willingham, the husband and father of three children awakes to a blaze of fire in his one-story house (I). Willingham exits out the front door and distraughtly tells a nearby neighbor to call 911. By the time the fire is extinguished, Willingham’s children are dead and arson investigators come to the house to inspect four days later (I). The two investigators conclude that the fire is arson and it is considered a triple murder committed by Willingham so they bring him in for questioning. This along with neighborhood witness testimony leads to an arrest, which is punishable by death under Texas law. Before the trial, the state gives Willingham a plea deal that if he pleads guilty he will get life in prison avoiding the death penalty (I). Willingham rejects the plea deal and is found guilty. From there, Grann uses sections II through V to pick holes in the original case of the prosecution. Findings of Dr. Gerald Hurst give Willingham some sense of hope that his name might be cleared as an experiment on Lime street is conducted. The intention is to recreate the scene of a previous arson case similar to Willingham’s (IV). In the original findings of the arson investigators, the only way flashover can occur is by the presence of some sort of accelerant; however, the experiment shows that flashover can still occur in a wood structured house and these signs of flashover are similar to the signs of arson

Years went by, and Willingham lost one appeal after another. Finally, in 2004, just weeks before Willingham’s scheduled execution, Gerald Hurst, an internationally known fire and explosives expert from Texas, was brought in to support a petition for clemency. 
After reviewing the evidence and videotapes of the fire scene, Hurst wrote a report debunking the Vasquez findings, calling them “invalid in light of current knowledge” (Starr, 2011). Hurst said the blaze was almost certainly accidental, perhaps caused by a faulty space heater or electrical connection. But even that would be difficult to prove, because the house had been shoveled out by investigators. The cause of the fire should have been labeled “undetermined,” Hurst said, because there