WEBVTT - #149 Wrongful Conviction: Junk Science - Arson Evidence 0:00:00.920 --> 0:00:05.200 It's December twenty third. Last night, you decorated a Christmas 0:00:05.280 --> 0:00:08.319 tree with your family. You put your two year old 0:00:08.320 --> 0:00:10.800 on your shoulder so she could hang her favorite ornament 0:00:11.240 --> 0:00:14.400 way up high on the tree. Your twin babies gazed 0:00:14.480 --> 0:00:16.639 up at you from the living room floor, taking the 0:00:16.680 --> 0:00:20.000 scene in with giggles and excited kicks of their little legs. 0:00:21.160 --> 0:00:24.439 Later on, your wife put the kids to bed, and 0:00:24.480 --> 0:00:26.920 then you both stayed up late, finishing the tree and 0:00:26.960 --> 0:00:30.560 cleaning up. In the morning, your wife leaves the house 0:00:30.600 --> 0:00:33.800 early for some last minute chopping for the girls. The 0:00:33.840 --> 0:00:36.440 babies hear the door slam and start to cry, as 0:00:36.440 --> 0:00:39.880 they typically do. You take them out of their cribs, 0:00:40.120 --> 0:00:41.720 give them eat a bottle, and put them on the 0:00:41.760 --> 0:00:43.800 soft play mat on the floor so they can keep 0:00:43.800 --> 0:00:47.120 each other company. You head back to your room and 0:00:47.159 --> 0:00:49.640 as you lay down, you hear them cooing from across 0:00:49.680 --> 0:00:53.800 the hall. You drift off to sleep. You are to 0:00:53.880 --> 0:00:56.959 sleep long. You wake up to your two year old 0:00:57.040 --> 0:01:05.119 daughter screaming, Daddy, Daddy. You're groggy, startled, but the terror 0:01:05.120 --> 0:01:08.520 in her voice snaps you awake like a blaring alarm, 0:01:09.080 --> 0:01:13.640 and then it hits you. The room is a dense 0:01:13.720 --> 0:01:17.560 cloud of gray and black. You can barely see. You 0:01:17.600 --> 0:01:23.319 smell charcoal, ash, smoke. Oh no, your girls. Get the 0:01:23.400 --> 0:01:29.480 girls out of the house. It's loud. It sounds like 0:01:29.520 --> 0:01:35.600 an angry windstorm. The entire house is crackling, popping. You 0:01:35.680 --> 0:01:38.360 make your way to the baby's room and feel around 0:01:38.400 --> 0:01:42.480 on the floor, groping in the darkness. You think you 0:01:42.560 --> 0:01:45.120 grab one of the twins, but it's just a baby doll. 0:01:45.920 --> 0:01:49.080 Your hair is on fire. You stand up and pat 0:01:49.120 --> 0:01:53.680 it out and frantically get on the ground again. Then 0:01:53.680 --> 0:01:56.880 there's a loud crash. Something is falling from somewhere in 0:01:56.920 --> 0:01:59.600 the house. It must be the caving in a part 0:01:59.600 --> 0:02:02.000 of the room for a wall, but you can't see anything. 0:02:02.560 --> 0:02:06.880 It's so hot you can't breathe. You need to catch 0:02:06.920 --> 0:02:10.760 your breath before you pass out. You finally make your 0:02:10.760 --> 0:02:14.520 way outside to get help. You'll come back for them. 0:02:14.960 --> 0:02:17.359 You see your neighbor on her front lawn and scream 0:02:17.440 --> 0:02:20.280 for her to call the fire department. She sees a 0:02:20.400 --> 0:02:23.840 hysterical man covered in soot, and she yells back, they're 0:02:23.880 --> 0:02:28.040 on the way. You try to get back inside, breaking 0:02:28.080 --> 0:02:30.160 the window of the baby's room with the stick you 0:02:30.200 --> 0:02:35.200 find in the yard, flames explode from the opening. Oh God, 0:02:35.280 --> 0:02:40.720 you can't get in. You're crying out for your children. Someone, anyone, 0:02:41.200 --> 0:02:47.040 please help. The fire department finally arrives and they have 0:02:47.120 --> 0:02:50.359 to hold you back. They find your two year old 0:02:50.440 --> 0:02:53.400 in the bedroom on the floor. You didn't realize she 0:02:53.440 --> 0:02:57.200 had been right there, right there. Your babies are on 0:02:57.240 --> 0:02:59.359 the floor of their room where you had left them 0:02:59.360 --> 0:03:03.080 with their bottle. You had been so close to finding them. 0:03:04.240 --> 0:03:10.919 They try to do CPR, but it's too late. You're 0:03:11.040 --> 0:03:13.519 escorted away from the house, and once the fires a 0:03:13.560 --> 0:03:18.840 under control, investigators in protective gear head inside. There's no 0:03:18.880 --> 0:03:23.200 sense of urgency anymore. They walk through the remains and 0:03:23.720 --> 0:03:27.079 disappear into the black and living room where you had 0:03:27.120 --> 0:03:32.440 spent your last night together as a family. You are 0:03:32.600 --> 0:03:38.120 dumbfounded when they arrest you for arson murder. This was 0:03:38.280 --> 0:03:43.520 your family. You would never lay a finger on your children. 0:03:45.280 --> 0:03:49.320 At your trial, the prosecutors call expert witnesses who tell 0:03:49.360 --> 0:03:52.840 the jury that the proven science of fire tells the 0:03:52.880 --> 0:03:57.040 story of how you committed this crime. You pour lighter fluid, 0:03:57.280 --> 0:04:00.280 which they referred to as an accelerant, under your baby's 0:04:00.360 --> 0:04:04.520 beds in the hallway by the front door. The burn 0:04:04.600 --> 0:04:07.320 marks seared into the floor indicate where that light or 0:04:07.360 --> 0:04:11.440 fluid was puddled on the carpet. They say, there's no 0:04:11.600 --> 0:04:14.480 way you tried to save your girls. If you had, 0:04:14.600 --> 0:04:18.360 your feet would have been burned. Dripstains proved that you 0:04:18.440 --> 0:04:22.479 poured accelerant up and down the hallway. The melted metal 0:04:22.520 --> 0:04:26.159 door frame, the shattered glass, It all proves the fire 0:04:26.360 --> 0:04:30.080 was so unnaturally hot that it produced temperatures that could 0:04:30.080 --> 0:04:34.400 only have been created by chemicals that you intentionally poured 0:04:34.440 --> 0:04:39.800 all over your home and your motive. Prosecutors argued this, 0:04:40.960 --> 0:04:44.160 you love heavy metal music, and that indicates that you 0:04:44.200 --> 0:04:47.599 have a dark side. You have posters on the walls 0:04:47.600 --> 0:04:50.599 of your home, one of which depicts a grim reaper 0:04:51.160 --> 0:04:55.520 that proves you're obsessed with death. You have a tattoo 0:04:55.680 --> 0:04:59.680 of a skull and snake on your arm that indicates 0:05:00.040 --> 0:05:04.160 that you're a violent person. You have psychiatric problems, perhaps 0:05:04.160 --> 0:05:08.440 a demonic disposition. You couldn't afford to hire a lawyer, 0:05:08.800 --> 0:05:12.560 so the court appointed you an attorney. He too, suspects 0:05:12.600 --> 0:05:16.200 that you killed your children. He tells you to plead guilty. 0:05:16.279 --> 0:05:19.839 If you do, they'll give you life in prison instead 0:05:19.839 --> 0:05:24.440 of the death sentence. You can't do this. This was 0:05:24.480 --> 0:05:27.640 an accident. There was no crime here. You're not going 0:05:27.720 --> 0:05:31.359 to confess to killing your three beautiful children. You didn't 0:05:31.400 --> 0:05:37.159 do anything wrong here. You were convicted and sentenced to 0:05:37.240 --> 0:05:43.080 death on death row. The events of that day haunt you. 0:05:43.080 --> 0:05:46.560 You look at the photos of your children, your wife 0:05:46.800 --> 0:05:50.840 to remember the man you were, the life you once had. 0:05:52.440 --> 0:05:55.520 Time seems to stand still on death row, and the 0:05:55.560 --> 0:06:00.320 whole experience is nothing short of paralyzing. The date of 0:06:00.360 --> 0:06:04.919 your execution eventually closes in. You write a letter to 0:06:04.960 --> 0:06:08.160 your parents, telling them to never stop fighting to clear 0:06:08.200 --> 0:06:11.440 your name, even if it's after they put you to death. 0:06:13.160 --> 0:06:16.200 The last wars of your fellow inmates, the ones who 0:06:16.200 --> 0:06:20.560 were executed before you, one by one, were often apologies. 0:06:21.480 --> 0:06:25.560 Sometimes they were confessions. But before you're strapped into the 0:06:25.600 --> 0:06:30.600 gurney and given a lethal injection, you say, I am 0:06:30.640 --> 0:06:34.600 an innocent person convicted of a crime I did not commit. 0:06:36.080 --> 0:06:40.320 I have been persecuted for twelve years for something I 0:06:40.400 --> 0:06:44.400 did not do. From God's dust I came, and to 0:06:44.520 --> 0:06:52.080 dust I will return, so the earth shall become my throne. 0:06:52.240 --> 0:06:59.200 Your parents scatter your ashes over the graves of your children. 0:07:06.279 --> 0:07:09.440 The story you just heard is based on the wrongful 0:07:09.480 --> 0:07:14.800 conviction of Cameron Todd Willingham, who was wrongfully convicted and 0:07:15.000 --> 0:07:21.000 executed in two thousand and four. I'm Josh Dubin, civil 0:07:21.080 --> 0:07:24.440 rights and criminal defense attorney and Innocent Ambassador to the 0:07:24.480 --> 0:07:29.520 Innocence Project in New York. Today on wrongful conviction junk science, 0:07:29.920 --> 0:07:45.160 we examine arson evidence. In nineteen seventy three, the Nixon 0:07:45.200 --> 0:07:49.560 administration published a report entitled America Burning. It was all 0:07:49.600 --> 0:07:53.000 about damage the fires caused in America, both in terms 0:07:53.040 --> 0:07:56.280 of physical destruction and the billions of dollars spent to 0:07:56.320 --> 0:08:01.640 repair and rebuild. But unfortunately, much of what was considered 0:08:01.760 --> 0:08:05.080 fire signs in America Burning was merely a set of 0:08:05.120 --> 0:08:08.160 core assumptions that were never subjected to the rigors of 0:08:08.200 --> 0:08:13.280 the scientific method, that is, develop a hypothesis, test it, 0:08:13.800 --> 0:08:17.800 confirm it, reconfirm it, and repeat until you know you 0:08:17.920 --> 0:08:22.840 have something sound and verifiable. As a result of this study, 0:08:23.360 --> 0:08:26.960 fire investigators were given a handbook, a guide to reading 0:08:27.000 --> 0:08:31.480 fire damage like a psychic reads tea leaves. An investigator, 0:08:31.760 --> 0:08:35.240 having learned from this handbook, starts his investigation at the 0:08:35.280 --> 0:08:38.679 exterior of a burnt down house. He sees a V 0:08:38.720 --> 0:08:40.640 shaped burn on what's left of the walls of the 0:08:40.679 --> 0:08:44.120 living room. He notes this is the room where the 0:08:44.160 --> 0:08:48.000 fire started. He walks through the home, keeping an eye 0:08:48.040 --> 0:08:52.800 out for the telltale signs of arson. First, crazed glass 0:08:53.679 --> 0:08:58.040 windows shattered into irregular pieces with light smoke deposits that 0:08:58.160 --> 0:09:01.000 indicate a rapid buildup of heat that can only be 0:09:01.120 --> 0:09:07.360 caused by an accelerant. Second, alligatoring large shiny blisters on 0:09:07.440 --> 0:09:13.920 burnt wood. Fast hot fires produced by accelerants create this pattern. Third, 0:09:14.559 --> 0:09:18.720 puddle formations and burns that look like drip trails. These 0:09:18.720 --> 0:09:21.680 are caused by the spreading of accelerant like gasoline or 0:09:21.720 --> 0:09:25.360 paint thinner throughout a house before it is intentionally set 0:09:25.360 --> 0:09:29.640 on fire. The investigator checks all of these signs off 0:09:29.720 --> 0:09:39.760 the list. He knows this must be arson. It turns 0:09:39.760 --> 0:09:42.839 out the investigator only had a fifty percent chance of 0:09:42.920 --> 0:09:47.680 being right at best, because fire science was built on 0:09:47.720 --> 0:09:51.480 a foundation of conjecture and best guesses that were never 0:09:51.559 --> 0:09:56.840 adequately tested and confirmed according to valid scientific principles. What 0:09:57.000 --> 0:10:00.760 experts and prosecutors had been telling juries for decades about 0:10:00.800 --> 0:10:04.040 how you can definitively determine that a fire was intentionally 0:10:04.120 --> 0:10:09.520 set was completely wrong. In fact, signs that indicated to 0:10:09.640 --> 0:10:15.240 investigators that they were dealing with arson, crazed glass, alligator patterns, 0:10:15.679 --> 0:10:20.200 burn marks indicating drips or puddles of accelerant were actually 0:10:20.280 --> 0:10:24.199 the same things left in the wake of an accidental fire. 0:10:25.400 --> 0:10:28.640 So the evidence that was used to convict Cameron Todd 0:10:28.679 --> 0:10:34.200 Willingham and so many others was deeply, deeply flawed. 0:10:37.960 --> 0:10:43.520 It turns out that there was no evidence whatsoever that 0:10:44.000 --> 0:10:47.000 this had been a fire that was set by Todd 0:10:47.000 --> 0:10:51.360 Willingham running up and down his home, you know, just 0:10:51.480 --> 0:10:55.920 before Christmas, spreading accelerant in all the different rooms and 0:10:55.960 --> 0:10:59.840 down the hallway and killing his three children. It was 0:11:00.120 --> 0:11:03.440 clear that this was junk science. And unfortunately, by this 0:11:03.520 --> 0:11:07.200 point in my career I was familiar enough with the 0:11:07.240 --> 0:11:09.800 phenomenon of junk science not to be surprised. 0:11:12.280 --> 0:11:15.000 Joining us today to tell us about arson evidence and 0:11:15.000 --> 0:11:18.240 how it relates to cases like Cameron Todd Willingham's is 0:11:18.320 --> 0:11:21.959 Barry Sheck, co founder of the Innocence Project and famed 0:11:22.080 --> 0:11:26.480 civil rights and criminal defense attorney. So Barry, first, thanks 0:11:26.480 --> 0:11:29.679 for being here and for our listeners. Barry is one 0:11:29.679 --> 0:11:33.319 of my personal heroes, and I'm just ecstatic that we're 0:11:33.320 --> 0:11:37.959 able to get you to enlighten us about arson evidence. Now, 0:11:38.360 --> 0:11:42.120 you worked to get Cameron Todd Willingham's case overturned after 0:11:42.200 --> 0:11:47.080 he was executed, And this might seem like somewhat of 0:11:47.120 --> 0:11:51.679 a pointless fight to some people, since mister Willingham was 0:11:51.720 --> 0:11:54.920 already put to death in two thousand and four. But 0:11:55.120 --> 0:11:59.360 you are fighting for mister Willingham's final wish for his 0:11:59.559 --> 0:12:02.680 name to be cleared and him to be declared an 0:12:02.679 --> 0:12:07.040 innocent man by a court. I think that it's well 0:12:07.080 --> 0:12:10.120 accepted that he's an innocent man at this point. But 0:12:10.240 --> 0:12:13.160 you're also fighting so that the kind of evidence that 0:12:13.280 --> 0:12:16.800 was used against mister Willingham doesn't get used to convict 0:12:16.800 --> 0:12:22.160 another innocent person. And so, to start off, Barry, if 0:12:22.160 --> 0:12:25.760 some of the clues used an arson investigation or indeed 0:12:25.880 --> 0:12:29.760 junk science, how did Cameron Todd Willingham get convicted in 0:12:29.800 --> 0:12:30.480 the first place? 0:12:31.360 --> 0:12:35.200 What the fire scientists, the arson investigators in Willingham, what 0:12:35.280 --> 0:12:37.880 they did in that case. They would go to the 0:12:37.920 --> 0:12:40.560 scene of a fire and they would look at all 0:12:40.600 --> 0:12:45.760 these visual cues and if they saw what was called alligatoring, 0:12:46.080 --> 0:12:49.600 which was like the scales of an alligator on wood. 0:12:50.240 --> 0:12:53.880 If they saw what was known as craze glass that's 0:12:53.960 --> 0:12:57.600 like a spider type cracking of the glass. If they 0:12:57.679 --> 0:13:01.640 saw spawling of concrete that's like little chips coming off 0:13:01.640 --> 0:13:05.079 the concrete at the scene of the fire. If they 0:13:05.120 --> 0:13:10.360 saw scouring on the floor, poor patterns, they immediately assumed 0:13:10.400 --> 0:13:16.240 that all of these visual cues meant that somebody had 0:13:16.320 --> 0:13:21.400 spread accelerant around the house and lit it and that 0:13:21.720 --> 0:13:24.880 was the cause of the fire. And they literally said 0:13:24.920 --> 0:13:28.040 to the jury, we look at the fire, the fire 0:13:28.200 --> 0:13:31.880 talks to us. The fire doesn't lie. That's very powerful 0:13:31.920 --> 0:13:35.720 to a jury. So what happened, Josh, is that when 0:13:36.720 --> 0:13:40.600 we at the Innocence Project saw what happened in the 0:13:40.640 --> 0:13:44.440 Willingham case, we had just been involved in setting up 0:13:44.440 --> 0:13:48.640 what's known as the Texas Forensic Science Commission. They reviewed 0:13:48.720 --> 0:13:52.360 all the crime scene evidence in the Willingham case and 0:13:52.400 --> 0:13:56.360 they said what was clear, and that is this is 0:13:56.440 --> 0:14:01.320 junk science. This had been discredited by Fire Protection nine 0:14:01.360 --> 0:14:07.760 twenty one, ten years ago. The science was completely flawed, unreliable, ridiculous. 0:14:08.400 --> 0:14:11.319 So even after all of that, the state of Texas 0:14:11.320 --> 0:14:15.760 still refused to free Cameron Todd Willingham. And to show 0:14:15.880 --> 0:14:18.680 just how flawed this evidence was, there was a man 0:14:18.800 --> 0:14:22.920 named Ernest Willis who was convicted of a similar crime 0:14:23.480 --> 0:14:27.200 with similar evidence than was used in the Willingham case. 0:14:27.840 --> 0:14:31.400 But while Cameron Todd Willingham was put to death in 0:14:31.440 --> 0:14:36.000 two thousand and four, Willis was declared innocent that very 0:14:36.040 --> 0:14:38.760 same year. So how is that possible, Barry, that one 0:14:38.800 --> 0:14:43.080 man Willingham is executed based on this junk science, while 0:14:43.120 --> 0:14:46.840 another man, Willis, whose case was very similar, gets to 0:14:46.880 --> 0:14:47.400 go free. 0:14:48.320 --> 0:14:52.920 Ernest Willis went to trial, he had a completely incompetent 0:14:52.960 --> 0:14:56.920 lawyer who was disbarred for all kinds of reasons. Willis 0:14:57.040 --> 0:15:00.040 was so upset by the fire that you know he 0:15:00.080 --> 0:15:05.120 killed family members, that he was literally on psychotropic medication 0:15:06.080 --> 0:15:09.880 in the witness chair, right. He was lucky because his 0:15:09.960 --> 0:15:13.880 lawyer was so incompetent, and on his death penalty appeal 0:15:14.240 --> 0:15:17.040 he got a patent lawyer from Letha Ben Watkins in 0:15:17.160 --> 0:15:21.200 New York who dove into the case and was able 0:15:21.240 --> 0:15:25.720 to get the federal courts to vacate that conviction. And 0:15:25.800 --> 0:15:29.440 when the conviction was remanded on exactly the same evidence. 0:15:30.400 --> 0:15:35.960 Just like the Willingham case, Willis was not only exonerated. 0:15:36.040 --> 0:15:39.480 There was a prosecutor in Pakos County, Texas took one 0:15:39.480 --> 0:15:42.280 look at this and said, oh my god, this was 0:15:42.320 --> 0:15:46.160 an accidental fire. This was not an arson murderer, and 0:15:46.240 --> 0:15:50.120 he not only dismissed the case against Ernest Willis, Ernest 0:15:50.160 --> 0:15:54.880 Willis was compensated as actually innocent by the state of Texas, 0:15:55.440 --> 0:16:00.000 while within the same time period Cameron Todd Willingham was executed. 0:16:00.600 --> 0:16:03.240 It's just really hard to hear this stuff right because 0:16:03.320 --> 0:16:07.760 right away this indicates some sort of double standard, or 0:16:07.800 --> 0:16:10.920 at least some confusion within the justice system about what 0:16:11.120 --> 0:16:13.880 arson evidence really means and how much it can be trusted. 0:16:14.600 --> 0:16:18.240 And to be clear, by two thousand and four, there 0:16:18.280 --> 0:16:21.280 shouldn't have been any confusion about this type of evidence, 0:16:21.320 --> 0:16:25.360 because in the early nineties there were two incidents that 0:16:25.440 --> 0:16:28.800 I'm going to ask you about that really proved that 0:16:29.080 --> 0:16:31.920 the kind of arson evidence used in the Cameron Todd 0:16:31.920 --> 0:16:36.240 Willingham case was bogus. The first was the Lime Street 0:16:36.280 --> 0:16:38.680 case in nineteen ninety, which was the case of Gerald 0:16:38.720 --> 0:16:42.880 Wayne Lewis. Mister Lewis was accused of killing his pregnant wife, 0:16:43.360 --> 0:16:47.440 his sister, and his sister's four children by arson. Now 0:16:47.520 --> 0:16:50.520 Gerald always maintained his innocence, but it was actually a 0:16:50.560 --> 0:16:55.800 prosecution expert named John Lentini who was the moving force 0:16:56.240 --> 0:16:57.800 improving Gerald's innocence. 0:16:58.480 --> 0:17:03.000 John Lentini was arson investigator, and he went along with 0:17:03.040 --> 0:17:08.800 a colleague of his, John Dehan, to investigate an allegation 0:17:08.960 --> 0:17:13.200 of arson at a home on Lime Street in Jacksonville, Florida. 0:17:14.280 --> 0:17:17.600 And they examined the crime scene and they were all ready, 0:17:17.640 --> 0:17:21.320 by their own admission, to make a recommendation that it 0:17:21.359 --> 0:17:26.080 was an intentional arson. But they realized that right next 0:17:26.160 --> 0:17:29.679 to the house that burned down was another house that 0:17:29.800 --> 0:17:33.240 was abandoned, but it was the same construction. So they 0:17:33.400 --> 0:17:39.399 rebuilt the house right next door to be identical to 0:17:39.600 --> 0:17:43.840 the Lime Street house that burned down, and then they 0:17:44.359 --> 0:17:47.919 basically put a cigarette on a couch. They began the 0:17:48.000 --> 0:17:51.600 fire in a way that would be completely accidental. The 0:17:51.600 --> 0:17:55.120 whole place burned down, and they saw all the clues, 0:17:55.320 --> 0:18:00.800 all the visual clues from the craze glass alligator burning 0:18:01.359 --> 0:18:06.200 under furniture, a completely compartmentalized fire. They saw all these 0:18:06.359 --> 0:18:10.760 cues and they knew that it was an accidental fire, 0:18:10.880 --> 0:18:15.400 not a deliberate one, and so that began to change everything. 0:18:16.080 --> 0:18:20.680 So again, this is very ironic and rare because Lentini's 0:18:20.680 --> 0:18:24.359 a fire investigator that's working for the prosecution and he's 0:18:24.400 --> 0:18:27.840 actually trying to prove that this Lime Street case was 0:18:27.880 --> 0:18:31.480 in fact arson and that Gerald Wayne Lewis had actually 0:18:31.520 --> 0:18:36.720 done it. But he realizes that there was some serious 0:18:36.760 --> 0:18:42.040 issues with his assumptions because this accidental fire actually resembled 0:18:42.080 --> 0:18:45.879 an arson, and it resembled it in very critical ways. 0:18:46.760 --> 0:18:50.080 And what was most shocking to me about this was 0:18:50.119 --> 0:18:55.240 that Lentini saw puddlestains and trail marks that looked identical 0:18:55.920 --> 0:18:58.600 to what he had been taught and so many other 0:18:58.680 --> 0:19:02.800 investigators had been taught, or the telltale signs of someone 0:19:02.960 --> 0:19:07.560 dripping gasoline or another accelerant throughout a house. But that 0:19:07.640 --> 0:19:10.040 definitely was not the case here. And they knew that 0:19:10.520 --> 0:19:15.240 because they set the fire themselves with a cigarette exactly, and. 0:19:15.160 --> 0:19:17.399 They'd say, well, that really can't happen unless it's an 0:19:17.480 --> 0:19:21.360 intentionally set fire. But it turns out with this phenomenon 0:19:21.440 --> 0:19:25.560 of flashover, which is you get this hot, combustible object 0:19:25.840 --> 0:19:29.880 in a small space, ordinarily a room, right, and then 0:19:30.080 --> 0:19:34.840 it begins to cause this huge burst of heat and 0:19:34.960 --> 0:19:38.960 fire in that room, and the whole place becomes engulfed. 0:19:39.720 --> 0:19:48.199 So that's what creates the intense heat that arson investigators 0:19:48.480 --> 0:19:53.760 had hypothesized must come from the deliberate use of accelerants. 0:19:54.359 --> 0:19:58.480 It turns out that it could all happen in a 0:19:58.520 --> 0:20:02.359 completely accidental fire. 0:20:10.200 --> 0:20:15.960 So Lintini the investigator realizes that accidental fires can look 0:20:16.240 --> 0:20:20.719 just like arson, and he does something that is actually 0:20:20.800 --> 0:20:24.520 quite remarkable. But it shouldn't be, because whether you're working 0:20:24.520 --> 0:20:28.119 for the prosecution or the defense, when the science tells 0:20:28.160 --> 0:20:32.800 you something, you should not have a bias in its application. Right. 0:20:32.880 --> 0:20:35.960 He doesn't say, Oh, this is just some weird coincidence. 0:20:35.960 --> 0:20:39.399 I'm going to keep working for prosecutors to convict people 0:20:39.400 --> 0:20:43.280 in arson cases based on this evidence that I now 0:20:43.400 --> 0:20:48.840 know is clearly faulty. It's wrong. Instead, he's pretty shocked, 0:20:49.800 --> 0:20:52.760 appalled by what he sees, and he feels like he's 0:20:52.800 --> 0:20:56.480 been misled by this evidence for years. Right, And he 0:20:56.520 --> 0:21:00.800 gets an opportunity to examine a bunch more more accidental 0:21:00.840 --> 0:21:03.240 fires and make sure that his findings in the Lime 0:21:03.280 --> 0:21:06.520 Street case were consistent with other accidental fires. 0:21:07.000 --> 0:21:10.480 I don't know if people remember, but these homes on 0:21:10.560 --> 0:21:13.720 the in the hills in Oakland, California, began to burn down, 0:21:14.600 --> 0:21:17.880 you know, in what was plainly a series of accidental fires. 0:21:18.320 --> 0:21:21.720 And after all these homes were burned down, the fire 0:21:21.800 --> 0:21:24.800 scientists went at and examined each and every one of 0:21:24.800 --> 0:21:29.160 them and they realized, once again, here were plainly accidental fires. 0:21:29.560 --> 0:21:33.640 But all these visual cues that arson experts had been 0:21:33.640 --> 0:21:37.280 relying on demonstrated that it was an accident. It was 0:21:37.320 --> 0:21:41.520 not an intentionally set fire. So take just the craze glass. 0:21:41.600 --> 0:21:45.200 That's a simple thing to understand. You know, you look 0:21:45.240 --> 0:21:47.760 at the glass, it's sort of spider glass, and that 0:21:47.880 --> 0:21:54.160 supposedly an indication of suddenly intense heat that comes from 0:21:55.320 --> 0:22:00.280 you know, an accelerant induced fire. In fact, you've had 0:22:00.400 --> 0:22:05.600 craze glass all over in Oakland in the Lime Street fire. 0:22:05.960 --> 0:22:10.320 Because craze glass happens when people come to put out 0:22:10.359 --> 0:22:13.640 the fire and they put cold water on it and 0:22:13.680 --> 0:22:17.600 the glass cracks. That's how you get crazed glass. 0:22:18.160 --> 0:22:21.960 So these arson investigators have been testifying for years and 0:22:22.040 --> 0:22:26.440 years that the reason you see crazed glass, and it's 0:22:26.480 --> 0:22:28.879 no pun intend that it's actually a crazy notion that 0:22:28.920 --> 0:22:31.280 they're testifying to one thing and it turns out to 0:22:31.280 --> 0:22:35.119 be the exact opposite. All right, So crazed glass was 0:22:35.160 --> 0:22:37.280 caused by the cooling of the glass when they're putting 0:22:37.280 --> 0:22:39.719 the fire out. What were some other things they were 0:22:39.720 --> 0:22:40.560 wrong about? 0:22:40.680 --> 0:22:44.720 They would say, oh, we're looking at mattress springs in 0:22:44.800 --> 0:22:47.520 a bed or something and they're melted. That can only 0:22:47.600 --> 0:22:50.919 happen if it's an intentionally set fire. But when they 0:22:51.000 --> 0:22:53.680 went to the hills of Oakland and looked at these homes, 0:22:53.920 --> 0:22:56.120 they saw the same thing, and the same thing at 0:22:56.119 --> 0:22:57.160 the Lime Street fire. 0:22:57.960 --> 0:23:01.160 I mean, you would think that would be the end 0:23:01.200 --> 0:23:04.800 of people trying to use this kind of junk science, 0:23:04.880 --> 0:23:07.800 this kind of false evidence, but that isn't the case. 0:23:08.440 --> 0:23:12.919 What is really upsetting is that you see over the 0:23:12.960 --> 0:23:18.600 next few decades, nonetheless, lots of people who were convicted 0:23:18.960 --> 0:23:24.240 because they never did scientific validation in the first place. 0:23:24.480 --> 0:23:28.560 You actually have to conduct experiments, you have to have hypotheses, 0:23:28.880 --> 0:23:32.080 and you have to prove that they're true, instead of 0:23:32.200 --> 0:23:36.280 just having you know, really you know, sort of law 0:23:36.359 --> 0:23:40.040 enforcement people in lab codes, so to speak, or people 0:23:40.080 --> 0:23:44.240 that have expertise by way of quote unquote experience going 0:23:44.280 --> 0:23:49.119 to crime scenes and looking at fire scenes and really 0:23:49.240 --> 0:23:52.840 coming up with their own hypotheses that were never demonstrated 0:23:52.840 --> 0:23:55.920 to be true by science. That's what's so shocking about 0:23:55.960 --> 0:23:59.800 this whole area. In other words, if you believe all 0:24:00.000 --> 0:24:06.040 these different visual cues demonstrate that an accelerant has been used, 0:24:06.320 --> 0:24:08.920 you should do experiments to prove the point. 0:24:09.400 --> 0:24:13.280 Now, Barry, this isn't the case where these investigators were 0:24:13.320 --> 0:24:16.080 out to harm people. This is just how they were trained. 0:24:16.520 --> 0:24:21.359 I have some sympathy for a whole group of people 0:24:21.880 --> 0:24:25.560 who had, many of them just high school graduates who 0:24:25.600 --> 0:24:33.000 were trained in arson investigation to believe all these different 0:24:33.119 --> 0:24:36.960 visual cues were a sign of the use of an 0:24:37.000 --> 0:24:43.359 accelerant and intentionally set fire that was never empirically demonstrated, 0:24:43.960 --> 0:24:48.160 and yet they were doing it, and that's how they 0:24:48.200 --> 0:24:51.040 made a living. That's true, and they thought that they 0:24:51.080 --> 0:24:55.600 had expertise. It's imagine how horrendous it is to believe, 0:24:56.080 --> 0:25:01.720 as a prosecutor or as a so called know arson investigator, 0:25:02.320 --> 0:25:06.679 that you were wrong and you destroyed people's lives. People 0:25:06.800 --> 0:25:10.600 don't get up in the morning and say let's do that, right, 0:25:12.520 --> 0:25:15.639 But it happens and it's very hard to admit to it. 0:25:15.880 --> 0:25:17.840 All right, So why do you think it is that? 0:25:18.840 --> 0:25:21.719 You know, generations of experts have all been proven to 0:25:21.720 --> 0:25:25.280 be wrong. The assumptions they rely on turn out to 0:25:25.320 --> 0:25:29.000 be incorrect, but there's this unwillingness to change. 0:25:29.560 --> 0:25:34.880 Once you have invested yourself in this belief and all 0:25:35.000 --> 0:25:40.399 these very weighty consequences follow, it's very hard to admit 0:25:41.680 --> 0:25:45.399 that you were wrong, even when there's scientific proof that 0:25:45.440 --> 0:25:48.960 you're wrong. John Linini and John de Haan and all 0:25:49.000 --> 0:25:53.240 these various experts, you know, they started off as regular 0:25:53.800 --> 0:25:58.639 ARSON investigators that we're taught to believe these things, but 0:25:58.880 --> 0:26:02.520 engaging in real sessellience and doing these experiments, they realized 0:26:02.560 --> 0:26:06.120 it was all wrong, and they had an enormous amount 0:26:06.160 --> 0:26:12.080 of trouble persuading the forensic science community to stop, and 0:26:12.119 --> 0:26:17.040 they're still fighting about it even to this day. I mean, 0:26:17.880 --> 0:26:20.360 I think that the Willingham case and all these other 0:26:20.720 --> 0:26:25.920 exonerations have exposed the community to it, and you literally 0:26:26.000 --> 0:26:31.320 can see fewer ARSON convictions since that happened. But Josh, 0:26:31.640 --> 0:26:36.399 you're absolutely right, it's mystifying. It's so upsetting that it 0:26:36.520 --> 0:26:38.879 is taking so long to change it. 0:26:39.320 --> 0:26:44.160 And meanwhile these convictions based on this false arson science 0:26:44.280 --> 0:26:48.280 or there's fire evidence, just keep on coming. 0:26:48.880 --> 0:26:53.080 Hantak Lee, whose daughter, who suffered from mental illness, was 0:26:53.160 --> 0:26:56.960 found literally burnt to death, incinerated, you know, in a 0:26:56.960 --> 0:27:02.600 small community in Pennsylvania. He gets convicted of killing his 0:27:02.760 --> 0:27:06.240 daughter intentionally in a fire which did not happen. 0:27:06.840 --> 0:27:10.679 Right. The case of Hantok Lee is just it's really 0:27:10.720 --> 0:27:13.320 really troubling. I mean, here's a guy that spent fifteen 0:27:13.400 --> 0:27:16.399 years in prison for a murder he did not commit. 0:27:16.480 --> 0:27:20.080 And there's a quote that always stuck with me from 0:27:20.119 --> 0:27:23.399 an opinion written by a judge during Hantok Lee's appeal, 0:27:24.080 --> 0:27:27.600 and it was this quote. Much of what was presented 0:27:27.640 --> 0:27:31.199 to Lee's jury as science is now conceded to be 0:27:31.359 --> 0:27:36.600 little more than superstition end quote. I mean, that's so remarkable, 0:27:36.720 --> 0:27:39.919 isn't it. And you know, again, the fact that this 0:27:40.040 --> 0:27:42.320 is still used in the face of quotes like that, 0:27:42.359 --> 0:27:45.359 it's just it's hard to understand. You know. He was 0:27:45.400 --> 0:27:49.480 granted a new trial and finally exonerated, thankfully, in twenty fifteen. 0:27:50.160 --> 0:27:55.960 Another was a Sonya Casey, who is convicted of burning 0:27:56.040 --> 0:27:58.560 Dana house and killing I guess it was her uncle 0:27:59.240 --> 0:28:01.760 Bill Richardson, and and of course it turned out that 0:28:01.800 --> 0:28:05.560 Bill Richardson was actually a heavy smoker and had probably 0:28:05.600 --> 0:28:09.240