Reading Between the Lies

So today I'd like to inaugurate an occasional feature for which I'll no doubt have ample material. I'm calling it "Reading Between the Lies," and the basic idea will be to post interview clips of various public personages and officials and then point out the truth behind whatever lies, obfuscations, or non-answers they're peddling in the clips.

For this first clip, a little background is useful. If you have time, I'd recommend reading David Grann's much discussed piece in the New Yorker. Here's the short of it, though: My home state of Texas seems to have earned the dubious distinction of being the first state known to have executed an innocent man, namely Cameron Todd Willingham, who was put to death in 2004. As Grann's piece and other reporting makes clear, Willingham was certainly no saint (he beat his wife, among other things), but he could not reasonably have been found guilty of the murder of his three young children by arson for one very simple reason: there was no evidence that arson started the fire that killed them. Or so say all the leading fire experts who have looked at the evidence since his conviction and subsequent state-sponsored killing. And of course, if there was no evidence of the alleged crime (arson), then obviously a jury should not have have convicted Willingham of murder "beyond a reasonable doubt."

But they did. Why? Mainly, it would seem, because the prosecutor, John Jackson, did put forth investigators who testified that there was indeed evidence of arson. The problem, according to the aforementioned fire experts, was that these investigators apparently had no idea what they were talking about. What they said was evidence of arson simply wasn't.

So yeah, while the jury may be excused in light of that bogus testimony, the state of Texas executed an innocent man. Naturally, this has caused some consternation for various people, chief among them the aforementioned prosecutor John Jackson, who is now a judge, and Governor Rick Perry, who denied Willingham's appeals to halt the execution, in spite of the fact that serious questions had already been raised by then about the validity of the conviction. Depressingly, disgustingly, but in the end unsurprisingly, neither of these individuals has expressed any doubt, remorse, regret, etc. for the the central roles they played in putting an innocent man to death. Quite the contrary: in the loathsome tradition of politicians everywhere -- one which reached its most recent nadir in the person of fellow Texan George W. Bush -- these guys are all about the ass-covering, and have steadfastly refused to admit that maybe, just maybe, they made a mistake, and Willingham should not have been put to death...

Anyway, I think that's preamble enough. Here then, is the clip in question, and I direct your attention particularly to the first minute and a half:



So what's really going on here? How can this slug of a human being, John Jackson, dare to defend these ridiculous assertions about Willingham being a devil worshiper? Well, I think the truth is pretty clear: Jackson is one of those attorneys, one among all too many, who would do or say anything to win a case. And, in what was then a relatively obscure case in some podunk Texas town back in 1991, he figured (probably correctly, alas) that he could get some mileage out of the idiotic idea that the burn patterns suggested a pentagram, and that Willingham's affinity for Iron Maiden must've meant he loved Satan. Sure, why not? Hickville, TX, 1991 -- the jury would eat that up...

But then, fast forward 18 years -- the case has since become famous for all the wrong reasons, and now national media are asking Jackson to defend his prosecution. Can he do it? Well, he's damn well gonna try. But that's the most despicable thing about this clip: there's no way in hell that Jackson believes a single word he's saying. He may be dumb for a lawyer, but even he's not that stupid, and it's written all over his smug little face. He knows damn well that the devil worship charge is complete bullshit, but he's never gonna take it back now, come hell or high water...

Well, along those lines, if there is a devil, I imagine he's keeping a special spot warm for judge John Jackson.