WEBVTT - #392 Wrongful Conviction: Junk Science - Arson Evidence 0:00:01.840 --> 0:00:04.560 Hey, folks, Kate Judson here. I'm a lawyer and the 0:00:04.600 --> 0:00:09.039 executive director of the Center for Integrity and Forensic Sciences. 0:00:10.240 --> 0:00:13.399 We're back with another episode of Junk Science, a series 0:00:13.440 --> 0:00:16.840 we first released in twenty twenty, but these stories are 0:00:17.000 --> 0:00:21.040 just as relevant as ever. This week is all about 0:00:21.280 --> 0:00:24.759 arson evidence, the faulty forensic science that was used to 0:00:24.800 --> 0:00:32.320 convict Cameron Willingham, whose story you're about to hear. Since 0:00:32.360 --> 0:00:36.080 Cameron Willingham was convicted, we're realizing more and more that 0:00:36.200 --> 0:00:39.800 this type of evidence cannot be relied on. But the 0:00:39.920 --> 0:00:43.800 lessons of this case don't go far enough. We still 0:00:43.840 --> 0:00:47.199 have cases today where the only evidence presented is an 0:00:47.240 --> 0:00:51.360 expert opinion. The problem is that the jury doesn't always 0:00:51.440 --> 0:00:55.440 understand that what they're hearing is opinion, not indisputable fact, 0:00:56.120 --> 0:00:59.800 and deciding someone's fate based on one person's opinion is 0:00:59.840 --> 0:01:01.280 a recipe for disaster. 0:01:07.080 --> 0:01:11.360 It's December twenty third. Last night, you decorated a Christmas 0:01:11.400 --> 0:01:14.440 tree with your family. You put your two year old 0:01:14.480 --> 0:01:16.920 on your shoulder so she could hang her favorite ornament 0:01:17.360 --> 0:01:20.559 way up high on the tree. Your twin babies gazed 0:01:20.640 --> 0:01:22.800 up at you from the living room floor, taking the 0:01:22.840 --> 0:01:26.160 scene in with giggles and excited kicks of their little legs. 0:01:27.319 --> 0:01:30.600 Later on, your wife put the kids to bed, and 0:01:30.640 --> 0:01:33.080 then you both stayed up late, finishing the tree and 0:01:33.120 --> 0:01:36.720 cleaning up. In the morning, your wife leaves the house 0:01:36.720 --> 0:01:39.920 early for some last minute chopping for the girls. The 0:01:39.959 --> 0:01:42.560 babies hear the door slam and start to cry, as 0:01:42.600 --> 0:01:46.000 they typically do. You take them out of their cribs, 0:01:46.240 --> 0:01:47.840 give them eat a bottle, and put them on the 0:01:47.880 --> 0:01:49.960 soft play mat on the floor so they can keep 0:01:49.960 --> 0:01:53.280 each other company. You head back to your room and 0:01:53.320 --> 0:01:55.800 as you lay down, you hear them cooing from across 0:01:55.800 --> 0:02:01.760 the hall. You drift off to sleep, sleep long. You 0:02:01.800 --> 0:02:06.040 wake up to your two year old daughter screaming, Daddy, Daddy. 0:02:07.760 --> 0:02:12.440 You're groggy, startled, but the terror in her voice snaps 0:02:12.480 --> 0:02:16.120 you awake like a blaring alarm. And then it hits you. 0:02:18.200 --> 0:02:21.560 The room is a dense cloud of gray and black. 0:02:21.720 --> 0:02:28.240 You can barely see. You smell charcoal, ash, smoke. Oh no, 0:02:28.360 --> 0:02:34.680 your girls. Gefted girls out of the house. It's loud. 0:02:34.840 --> 0:02:40.679 It sounds like an angry windstorm. The entire house is crackling, popping. 0:02:41.680 --> 0:02:44.120 You make your way to the baby's room and feel 0:02:44.160 --> 0:02:48.519 around on the floor, groping in the darkness. You think 0:02:48.560 --> 0:02:50.600 you grab one of the twins, but it's just a 0:02:50.600 --> 0:02:54.680 baby doll. Your hair is on fire. You stand up 0:02:54.720 --> 0:02:58.360 and pat it out and frantically get on the ground again. 0:02:59.639 --> 0:03:03.040 Then a loud crash. Something is falling from somewhere in 0:03:03.080 --> 0:03:05.760 the house. It must be the caving in a part 0:03:05.760 --> 0:03:08.160 of the roof or a wall, but you can't see anything. 0:03:08.720 --> 0:03:13.000 It's so hot you can't breathe. You need to catch 0:03:13.040 --> 0:03:16.880 your breath before you pass out. You finally make your 0:03:16.919 --> 0:03:20.679 way outside to get help. You'll come back for them. 0:03:21.080 --> 0:03:23.480 You see your neighbor on her front lawn and scream 0:03:23.600 --> 0:03:26.440 for her to call the fire department. She sees a 0:03:26.560 --> 0:03:29.960 hysterical man covered in soot, and she yells back, they're 0:03:30.040 --> 0:03:34.200 on the way. You try to get back inside, breaking 0:03:34.240 --> 0:03:36.280 the window of the baby's room with a stick you 0:03:36.360 --> 0:03:41.320 find in the yard. Flames explode from the opening. Oh God, 0:03:41.400 --> 0:03:46.880 you can't get in. You're crying out for your children. Someone, anyone, 0:03:47.360 --> 0:03:53.200 please help. The fire department finally arrives and they have 0:03:53.240 --> 0:03:56.560 to hold you back. They find your two year old 0:03:56.560 --> 0:03:59.520 in the bedroom on the floor. You didn't realize she 0:03:59.560 --> 0:04:03.480 had been there, right there. Your babies are on the 0:04:03.480 --> 0:04:05.600 floor of their room where you had left them with 0:04:05.640 --> 0:04:09.240 their bottles. You had been so close to finding them. 0:04:10.400 --> 0:04:17.040 They try to do CPR, but it's too late. You're 0:04:17.160 --> 0:04:19.680 escorted away from the house, and once the fires are 0:04:19.720 --> 0:04:24.960 under control, investigators in protective gear head inside. There's no 0:04:25.000 --> 0:04:29.359 sense of urgency anymore. They walk through the remains and 0:04:29.839 --> 0:04:33.240 disappear into the black and living room where you had 0:04:33.279 --> 0:04:38.600 spent your last night together as a family. You are 0:04:38.720 --> 0:04:44.240 dumbfounded when they arrest you for arson murder. This was 0:04:44.400 --> 0:04:49.640 your family. You would never lay a finger on your children. 0:04:51.440 --> 0:04:55.440 At your trial, the prosecutors call expert witnesses who tell 0:04:55.520 --> 0:04:58.960 the jury that the proven signs of fire tells the 0:04:59.000 --> 0:05:02.279 story of how you who committed this crime. You poured 0:05:02.360 --> 0:05:05.840 lighter fluid, which they referred to as an accelerant, under 0:05:05.839 --> 0:05:09.400 your baby's beds in the hallway by the front door. 0:05:10.279 --> 0:05:13.080 The burn marks seared into the floor indicate where that 0:05:13.200 --> 0:05:17.360 lighter fluid was puddled on the carpet. They say, there's 0:05:17.480 --> 0:05:20.599 no way you tried to save your girls. If you had, 0:05:20.760 --> 0:05:24.479 your feet would have been burned. Dripstains proved that you 0:05:24.560 --> 0:05:28.599 poured accelerant up and down the hallway, the melted metal 0:05:28.640 --> 0:05:32.320 door frame, the shattered glass. It all proves the fire 0:05:32.480 --> 0:05:36.200 was so unnaturally hot that it produced temperatures that could 0:05:36.240 --> 0:05:40.520 only have been created by chemicals that you intentionally poured 0:05:40.560 --> 0:05:45.960 all over your home and your motive. Prosecutors argued this, 0:05:47.080 --> 0:05:50.279 you love heavy metal music, and that indicates that you 0:05:50.360 --> 0:05:53.719 have a dark side. You have posters on the walls 0:05:53.760 --> 0:05:56.760 of your home, one of which depicts a grim reaper 0:05:57.320 --> 0:06:01.640 that proves you're obsessed with death. You have a tattoo 0:06:01.800 --> 0:06:05.880 of a skull and snake on your arm that indicates 0:06:06.080 --> 0:06:10.239 that you're a violent person. You have psychiatric problems, perhaps 0:06:10.320 --> 0:06:14.560 a demonic disposition. You couldn't afford to hire a lawyer, 0:06:14.920 --> 0:06:18.719 so the court appointed you an attorney. He too, suspects 0:06:18.720 --> 0:06:22.320 that you killed your children. He tells you to plead guilty. 0:06:22.400 --> 0:06:25.960 If you do, they'll give you life in prison instead 0:06:25.960 --> 0:06:30.599 of the death sentence. You can't do this. This was 0:06:30.640 --> 0:06:33.800 an accident. There was no crime here. You're not going 0:06:33.880 --> 0:06:37.480 to confess to killing your three beautiful children. You didn't 0:06:37.520 --> 0:06:43.320 do anything wrong here. You were convicted and sentenced to 0:06:43.360 --> 0:06:49.200 death on death row. The events of that day haunt you. 0:06:49.200 --> 0:06:52.720 You look at the photos of your children, your wife 0:06:52.960 --> 0:06:57.000 to remember the man you were, the life you once had. 0:06:58.600 --> 0:07:01.680 Time seems to stand still on death row, and the 0:07:01.720 --> 0:07:06.360 whole experience is nothing short of paralyzing. But the date 0:07:06.360 --> 0:07:10.960 of your execution eventually closes in. You write a letter 0:07:10.960 --> 0:07:14.000 to your parents, telling them to never stop fighting to 0:07:14.040 --> 0:07:17.120 clear your name, even if it's after they put you 0:07:17.200 --> 0:07:21.960 to death. The last words of your fellow inmates, the 0:07:21.960 --> 0:07:25.720 ones who were executed before you, one by one, were 0:07:25.720 --> 0:07:31.360 often apologies. Sometimes they were confessions. But before you're strapped 0:07:31.400 --> 0:07:35.480 into the gurney and given a lethal injection, you say, 0:07:36.520 --> 0:07:39.840 I am an innocent person convicted of a crime I 0:07:39.880 --> 0:07:45.840 did not commit. I've been persecuted for twelve years for 0:07:46.000 --> 0:07:50.000 something I did not do. From God's dust I came, 0:07:50.280 --> 0:07:54.640 and to dust I will return, so the earth shall 0:07:54.680 --> 0:08:01.160 become my throne. Your parents scatter your ashes over the 0:08:01.160 --> 0:08:14.400 graves of your children. The story you just heard is 0:08:14.480 --> 0:08:18.680 based on the wrongful conviction of Cameron Todd Willingham, who 0:08:18.720 --> 0:08:22.960 was wrongfully convicted and executed in two thousand and four. 0:08:25.600 --> 0:08:29.200 I'm Josh Dubin, civil rights and criminal defense attorney, an 0:08:29.280 --> 0:08:33.160 innocent ambassador to the Innocence Project in New York Today 0:08:33.440 --> 0:08:49.400 on wrongful conviction junk science, we examine arson evidence. In 0:08:49.480 --> 0:08:53.640 nineteen seventy three, the Nixon administration published a report entitled 0:08:53.679 --> 0:08:57.400 America Burning. It was all about damage the fires caused 0:08:57.400 --> 0:09:00.960 in America, both in terms of physical distrutuction and the 0:09:01.000 --> 0:09:06.160 billions of dollars spent to repair and rebuild. But unfortunately, 0:09:06.600 --> 0:09:09.640 much of what was considered fire signs in America Burning 0:09:10.240 --> 0:09:12.920 was merely a set of core assumptions that were never 0:09:12.960 --> 0:09:16.760 subjected to the rigors of the scientific method. That is, 0:09:17.040 --> 0:09:22.160 develop a hypothesis, test it, confirm it, reconfirm it, and 0:09:22.280 --> 0:09:26.239 repeat until you know you have something sound and verifiable. 0:09:27.600 --> 0:09:31.000 As a result of this study, fire investigators were given 0:09:31.040 --> 0:09:34.160 a handbook, A Guide to Reading fire damage like a 0:09:34.200 --> 0:09:39.400 psychic reads tea leaves. An investigator, having learned from this handbook, 0:09:39.880 --> 0:09:43.160 starts his investigation at the exterior of a burnt down house. 0:09:44.080 --> 0:09:46.160 He sees a V shaped burn on what's left of 0:09:46.200 --> 0:09:49.640 the walls of the living room. He notes this is 0:09:49.640 --> 0:09:53.200 the room where the fire started. He walks through the home, 0:09:53.559 --> 0:09:55.920 keeping an eye out for the telltale signs of arson. 0:09:56.960 --> 0:10:02.480 First crazed glass when windows shattered into irregular pieces with 0:10:02.600 --> 0:10:06.120 light smoke deposits that indicate a rapid buildup of heat 0:10:06.280 --> 0:10:11.400 that can only be caused by an accelerant. Second alligatoring, 0:10:12.040 --> 0:10:16.720 large shiny blisters on burnt wood. Fast hot fires produced 0:10:16.720 --> 0:10:22.439 by accelerants create this pattern. Third, puddle formations and burns 0:10:22.440 --> 0:10:25.640 that look like drip trails. These are caused by the 0:10:25.679 --> 0:10:29.160 spreading of accelerant like gasoline or paint thinner throughout a 0:10:29.240 --> 0:10:34.239 house before it is intentionally set on fire. The investigator 0:10:34.320 --> 0:10:37.800 checks all of these signs off the list. He knows 0:10:38.200 --> 0:10:47.559 this must be arson. It turns out the investigator only 0:10:47.600 --> 0:10:50.600 had a fifty percent chance of being right at best, 0:10:51.600 --> 0:10:55.439 because fire science was built on a foundation of conjecture 0:10:55.520 --> 0:10:59.360 and best guesses that were never adequately tested and confirmed 0:10:59.360 --> 0:11:04.640 according to valid scientific principles. What experts and prosecutors had 0:11:04.640 --> 0:11:08.120 been telling juries for decades about how you can definitively 0:11:08.200 --> 0:11:12.400 determine that a fire was intentionally set was completely wrong. 0:11:13.240 --> 0:11:17.120 In fact, signs that indicated to investigators that they were 0:11:17.120 --> 0:11:23.120 dealing with arson, crazed glass, alligator patterns, burn marks indicating 0:11:23.240 --> 0:11:27.560 drips or puddles of accelerant were actually the same things 0:11:27.679 --> 0:11:31.880 left in the wake of an accidental fire. So the 0:11:31.920 --> 0:11:36.120 evidence that was used to convict Cameron Todd Willingham and 0:11:36.240 --> 0:11:40.360 so many others was deeply, deeply flawed. 0:11:44.120 --> 0:11:49.680 It turns out that there was no evidence whatsoever that 0:11:50.160 --> 0:11:53.120 this had been a fire that was set by Todd 0:11:53.160 --> 0:11:57.520 Willingham running up and down his home, you know, just 0:11:57.600 --> 0:12:02.360 before Christmas, spreading in all the different rooms and down 0:12:02.400 --> 0:12:06.520 the hallway, and killing his three children. It was clear 0:12:06.880 --> 0:12:09.920 that this was junk science. And unfortunately, by this point 0:12:09.920 --> 0:12:13.920 in my career, I was familiar enough with the phenomenon 0:12:13.960 --> 0:12:15.960 of junk science not to be surprised. 0:12:18.400 --> 0:12:21.120 Joining us today to tell us about arson evidence and 0:12:21.160 --> 0:12:24.400 how it relates to cases like Cameron Todd Willingham's is 0:12:24.480 --> 0:12:28.120 Barry Sheck, co founder of the Innocence Project and famed 0:12:28.240 --> 0:12:32.640 civil rights and criminal defense attorney. So Barry, first, thanks 0:12:32.640 --> 0:12:35.800 for being here and for our listeners. Barry is one 0:12:35.840 --> 0:12:39.439 of my personal heroes, and I'm just ecstatic that we're 0:12:39.480 --> 0:12:44.080 able to get you to enlighten us about arson evidence. Now, 0:12:44.520 --> 0:12:48.280 you worked to get Cameron Todd Willingham's case overturned after 0:12:48.320 --> 0:12:53.200 he was executed, and this might seem like somewhat of 0:12:53.240 --> 0:12:57.840 a pointless fight to some people, since mister Willingham was 0:12:57.840 --> 0:13:01.040 already put to death in two thousand and four. But 0:13:01.240 --> 0:13:05.520 you are fighting for mister Willingham's final wish for his 0:13:05.720 --> 0:13:08.800 name to be cleared and him to be declared an 0:13:08.840 --> 0:13:13.200 innocent man by a court. I think that it's well 0:13:13.200 --> 0:13:16.240 accepted that he's an innocent man at this point. But 0:13:16.400 --> 0:13:19.280 you're also fighting so that the kind of evidence that 0:13:19.440 --> 0:13:22.920 was used against mister Willingham doesn't get used to convict 0:13:22.960 --> 0:13:28.280 another innocent person. And so, to start off, Barry, if 0:13:28.320 --> 0:13:31.920 some of the clues used an arson investigation or indeed 0:13:32.000 --> 0:13:35.880 junk science, how did Cameron Todd Willingham get convicted in 0:13:35.920 --> 0:13:36.600 the first place? 0:13:37.480 --> 0:13:41.360 What the fire scientists, the arson investigators in Willingham, what 0:13:41.440 --> 0:13:44.040 they did in that case. They would go to the 0:13:44.080 --> 0:13:46.640 scene of a fire and they would look at all 0:13:46.760 --> 0:13:51.880 these visual cues. And if they saw what was called alligatoring, 0:13:52.240 --> 0:13:55.760 which was like the scales of an alligator on wood. 0:13:56.360 --> 0:13:59.959 If they saw what was known as craze glass, that's 0:14:00.000 --> 0:14:03.520 it's like a spider type cracking of the glass. If 0:14:03.520 --> 0:14:07.559 they saw spawling of concrete that's like little chips coming 0:14:07.600 --> 0:14:11.040 off the concrete at the scene of the fire, if 0:14:11.040 --> 0:14:15.920 they saw scouring on the floor, poor patterns, they immediately 0:14:15.960 --> 0:14:22.080 assumed that all of these visual cues meant that somebody 0:14:22.200 --> 0:14:27.320 had spread accelerant around the house and lit it and 0:14:27.440 --> 0:14:30.760 that was the cause of the fire. And they literally 0:14:30.800 --> 0:14:33.800 said to the jury, we look at the fire, the 0:14:33.840 --> 0:14:37.480 fire talks to us. The fire doesn't lie. That's very 0:14:37.520 --> 0:14:41.480 powerful to a jury. So what happened, Josh, is that 0:14:41.680 --> 0:14:46.560 when we at the Innocence Project saw what happened in 0:14:46.640 --> 0:14:50.400 the Willingham case, we had just been involved in setting 0:14:50.440 --> 0:14:54.280 up what's known as the Texas Forensic Science Commission. They 0:14:54.320 --> 0:14:57.840 reviewed all the crime scene evidence in the Willingham case 0:14:58.360 --> 0:15:02.480 and they said was clear and that is this is 0:15:02.600 --> 0:15:07.120 junk science. This had been discredited by National Fire Protection 0:15:07.240 --> 0:15:13.880 nine twenty one, ten years ago. The science was completely flawed, unreliable, ridiculous. 0:15:14.560 --> 0:15:17.440 So even after all of that, the state of Texas 0:15:17.480 --> 0:15:21.880 still refused to free Cameron Todd Willingham. And to show 0:15:22.000 --> 0:15:24.840 just how flawed this evidence was, there was a man 0:15:24.960 --> 0:15:29.040 named Ernest Willis who was convicted of a similar crime 0:15:29.600 --> 0:15:33.360 with similar evidence than was used in the Willingham case. 0:15:34.000 --> 0:15:37.560 But while Cameron Todd Willingham was put to death in 0:15:37.600 --> 0:15:42.160 two thousand and four. Willis was declared innocent that very 0:15:42.200 --> 0:15:44.880 same year. So how is that possible, Barry, that one 0:15:44.960 --> 0:15:49.240 man Willingham is executed based on this junk science, while 0:15:49.280 --> 0:15:53.000 another man, Willis, whose case was very similar, gets to 0:15:53.040 --> 0:15:53.520 go free. 0:15:54.480 --> 0:15:59.040 Ernest Willis went to trial, he had a completely incompetent 0:15:59.120 --> 0:16:03.080 lawyer who was sparred for all kinds of reasons. Willis 0:16:03.200 --> 0:16:07.920 was so upset by the fire that killed family members 0:16:08.360 --> 0:16:13.840 that he was literally on psychotropic medication in the witness chair. Right. 0:16:14.080 --> 0:16:18.120 He was lucky because his lawyer was so incompetent, and 0:16:18.400 --> 0:16:21.640 on his death penalty appeal he got a patent lawyer 0:16:21.720 --> 0:16:25.520 from LEITHA Ben Watkins in New York who dove into 0:16:25.600 --> 0:16:29.280 the case and was able to get the federal courts 0:16:29.840 --> 0:16:33.600 to vacate that conviction. And when the conviction was remanded 0:16:33.640 --> 0:16:37.960 on exactly the same evidence, just like the Willingham case, 0:16:38.640 --> 0:16:43.720 Willis was not only exonerated. There was a prosecutor in 0:16:43.800 --> 0:16:46.600 Pakos County, Texas took one look at this and said, 0:16:46.640 --> 0:16:49.960 oh my god, this was an accidental fire. This was 0:16:50.040 --> 0:16:54.160 not an arson murder. And he not only dismissed the 0:16:54.200 --> 0:16:59.120 case against Ernest Willis. Ernest Willis was compensated as actually 0:16:59.240 --> 0:17:02.840 innocent by the State of Texas, while within the same 0:17:02.960 --> 0:17:06.240 time period, Cameron Todd Willingham was executed. 0:17:06.760 --> 0:17:09.359 It's just really hard to hear this stuff right because 0:17:09.480 --> 0:17:13.919 right away this indicates some sort of double standard, or 0:17:13.960 --> 0:17:17.080 at least some confusion within the justice system about what 0:17:17.280 --> 0:17:20.000 arson evidence really means and how much it can be trusted. 0:17:20.760 --> 0:17:24.400 And to be clear, by two thousand and four, there 0:17:24.400 --> 0:17:27.400 shouldn't have been any confusion about this type of evidence 0:17:27.480 --> 0:17:31.520 because in the early nineties there were two incidents that 0:17:31.600 --> 0:17:34.919 I'm going to ask you about that really proved that 0:17:35.200 --> 0:17:38.040 the kind of arson evidence used in the Cameron Todd 0:17:38.040 --> 0:17:42.399 Willingham case was bogus. The first was the Lime Street 0:17:42.440 --> 0:17:44.840 case in nineteen ninety, which was the case of Gerald 0:17:44.880 --> 0:17:49.000 Wayne Lewis. Mister Lewis was accused of killing his pregnant wife, 0:17:49.520 --> 0:17:53.560 his sister, and his sister's four children by arson. Now 0:17:53.680 --> 0:17:56.679 Gerald always maintained his innocence, but it was actually a 0:17:56.720 --> 0:18:01.919 prosecution expert named John Lentini who was the moving force 0:18:02.400 --> 0:18:03.880 improving gerald innocence. 0:18:04.640 --> 0:18:09.000 John Lentini was an arson investigator and he went along 0:18:09.040 --> 0:18:14.280 with a colleague of his, John Dehan, to investigate an 0:18:14.320 --> 0:18:19.360 allegation of arson at a home on Lime Street in Jacksonville, Florida. 0:18:20.400 --> 0:18:23.720 And they examined the crime scene, and they were all ready, 0:18:23.760 --> 0:18:27.439 by their own admission, to make a recommendation that it 0:18:27.520 --> 0:18:32.280 was an intentional arson. But they realized that right next 0:18:32.280 --> 0:18:35.800 to the house that burned down was another house that 0:18:35.960 --> 0:18:39.360 was abandoned, but it was the same construction. So they 0:18:39.520 --> 0:18:45.560 rebuilt the house right next door to be identical to 0:18:45.760 --> 0:18:49.960 the Lime Street house that burned down, and then they 0:18:50.520 --> 0:18:54.080 basically put a cigarette on a couch. They began the 0:18:54.119 --> 0:18:57.720 fire in a way that would be completely accidental. The 0:18:57.760 --> 0:19:01.320 whole place burned down, and they saw all the clues, 0:19:01.480 --> 0:19:07.000 all the visual clues from the craze glass, alligatoring, burning 0:19:07.520 --> 0:19:12.920 under furniture, a completely compartmentalized fire. They saw all these cues, 0:19:13.800 --> 0:19:17.119 and they knew that it was an accidental fire, not 0:19:17.200 --> 0:19:21.560 a deliberate one, and so that began to change everything. 0:19:22.200 --> 0:19:26.800 So again, this is very ironic and rare because Lentini's 0:19:26.840 --> 0:19:30.480 a fire investigator that's working for the prosecution, and he's 0:19:30.520 --> 0:19:34.000 actually trying to prove that this Lime Streek case was 0:19:34.040 --> 0:19:37.640 in fact arson and that Gerald Wayne Lewis had actually 0:19:37.680 --> 0:19:42.879 done it. But he realizes that there was some serious 0:19:42.920 --> 0:19:48.160 issues with his assumptions because this accidental fire actually resembled 0:19:48.200 --> 0:19:52.040 an arson, and it resembled it in very critical ways. 0:19:52.920 --> 0:19:56.240 And what was most shocking to me about this was 0:19:56.280 --> 0:20:02.159 that Lentini saw puddlestains and trailmar that looked identical to 0:20:02.240 --> 0:20:05.600 what he had been taught and so many other investigators 0:20:05.640 --> 0:20:09.439 had been taught, or the telltale signs of someone dripping 0:20:09.600 --> 0:20:14.320 gasoline or another accelerant throughout a house. But that definitely 0:20:14.359 --> 0:20:17.000 was not the case here. And they knew that because 0:20:17.040 --> 0:20:20.760 they set the fire themselves with a cigarette exactly. 0:20:21.160 --> 0:20:23.399 And they'd say, well, that really can't happen unless it's 0:20:23.440 --> 0:20:26.760 an intentionally set fire. But it turns out with this 0:20:26.840 --> 0:20:31.080 phenomenon of flashover, which is you get this hot combustible 0:20:31.240 --> 0:20:35.760 object in a small space, ordinarily a room, right, and 0:20:35.800 --> 0:20:40.840 then it begins to cause this huge burst of heat 0:20:40.880 --> 0:20:45.119 and fire in that room and the whole place becomes engulfed. 0:20:45.880 --> 0:20:54.360 So that's what creates the intense heat that arson investigators 0:20:54.600 --> 0:20:59.879 had hypothesized must come from the deliberate use of accelerants. 0:21:00.480 --> 0:21:04.600 It turns out that it could all happen in a 0:21:04.680 --> 0:21:06.240 completely accidental fire. 0:21:16.320 --> 0:21:22.120 So Linini the investigator, realizes that accidental fires can look 0:21:22.400 --> 0:21:26.840 just like arson, and he does something that is actually 0:21:26.920 --> 0:21:30.640 quite remarkable. But it shouldn't be, because whether you're working 0:21:30.680 --> 0:21:34.240 for the prosecution or the defense, when the science tells 0:21:34.280 --> 0:21:38.080 you something, you should not have a bias in its application. 0:21:38.720 --> 0:21:38.920 Right. 0:21:39.040 --> 0:21:42.080 He doesn't say, Oh, this is just some weird coincidence. 0:21:42.119 --> 0:21:45.520 I'm going to keep working for prosecutors to convict people 0:21:45.560 --> 0:21:49.440 in arson cases based on this evidence that I now 0:21:49.520 --> 0:21:54.960 know is clearly faulty, it's wrong. Instead, he's pretty shocked, 0:21:55.920 --> 0:21:58.920 appalled by what he sees, and he feels like he's 0:21:58.960 --> 0:22:02.560 been misled by this evidence for years. Right, And he 0:22:02.680 --> 0:22:07.360 gets an opportunity to examine a bunch more accidental fires 0:22:07.400 --> 0:22:09.760 to make sure that his findings in the Lime Street 0:22:09.800 --> 0:22:12.680 case were consistent with other accidental fires. 0:22:13.160 --> 0:22:16.639 I don't know if people remember, but these homes on 0:22:16.920 --> 0:22:19.879 in the hills in Oakland, California, began to burn down, 0:22:20.720 --> 0:22:24.000 you know, in what was plainly a series of accidental fires. 0:22:24.480 --> 0:22:27.840 And after all these homes were burned down, the fire 0:22:27.960 --> 0:22:31.160 scientists went at and examined each and every one of them, 0:22:31.320 --> 0:22:35.280 and they realized, once again, here were plainly accidental fires. 0:22:35.680 --> 0:22:39.760 But all these visual cues that arson experts had been 0:22:39.800 --> 0:22:43.399 relying on demonstrated that it was an accident. It was 0:22:43.480 --> 0:22:47.639 not an intentionally set fire. So take just the craze glass. 0:22:47.720 --> 0:22:51.360 That's a simple thing to understand. You know, you look 0:22:51.400 --> 0:22:53.879 at the glass, it's sort of spider glass, and that 0:22:54.040 --> 0:23:00.000 supposedly an indication of suddenly intense heat that comes from 0:23:01.760 --> 0:23:07.360 an accelerant induced fire. In fact, you found craze glass 0:23:07.560 --> 0:23:12.439 all over in Oakland in the Lime Street fire. Because 0:23:12.520 --> 0:23:16.600 craize glass happens when people come to put out the 0:23:16.640 --> 0:23:20.000 fire and they put cold water on it and the 0:23:20.040 --> 0:23:23.760 glass cracks. That's how you get crazed glass. 0:23:24.320 --> 0:23:28.080 So these arson investigators have been testifying for years and 0:23:28.200 --> 0:23:32.600 years that the reason you see crazed glass and it's 0:23:32.600 --> 0:23:35.040 no pun intent. That it's actually a crazy notion that 0:23:35.080 --> 0:23:37.399 they're testifying to one thing, and it turns out to 0:23:37.440 --> 0:23:41.280 be the exact opposite. All right, So crazed glass was 0:23:41.320 --> 0:23:43.399 caused by the cooling of the glass when they're putting 0:23:43.440 --> 0:23:46.360 the fire out. What were some other things that were wrong. 0:23:46.119 --> 0:23:50.760 About They would say, oh, we're looking at mattress springs 0:23:50.760 --> 0:23:53.320 in a bed or something and they're melted. That can 0:23:53.400 --> 0:23:56.920 only happen if it's an intentionally set fire. But when 0:23:56.960 --> 0:23:59.159 they went to the hills of Oakland and looked at 0:23:59.160 --> 0:24:01.880 these homes, they saw the same thing, and the same 0:24:01.920 --> 0:24:03.320 thing at the Lime Street fire. 0:24:04.119 --> 0:24:07.320 I mean, you would think that would be the end 0:24:07.359 --> 0:24:10.960 of people trying to use this kind of junk science, 0:24:11.040 --> 0:24:13.960 this kind of false evidence, but that isn't the case. 0:24:14.600 --> 0:24:19.080 What is really upsetting is that you see over the 0:24:19.119 --> 0:24:24.719 next few decades, nonetheless, lots of people who were convicted 0:24:25.119 --> 0:24:30.359 because they never did scientific validation in the first place. 0:24:30.600 --> 0:24:34.679 You actually have to conduct experiments, you have to have hypotheses, 0:24:35.040 --> 0:24:38.199 and you have to prove that they're true, instead of 0:24:38.359 --> 0:24:42.400 just having you know, really you know, sort of law 0:24:42.480 --> 0:24:46.159 enforcement people in lab coats, so to speak, or people 0:24:46.240 --> 0:24:50.399 that have expertise by way of quote unquote experience going 0:24:50.440 --> 0:24:55.280 to crime scenes and looking at fire scenes and really 0:24:55.359 --> 0:24:58.960 coming up with their own hypotheses that were never demonstrated 0:24:59.000 --> 0:25:02.080 to be true by science. That's what's so shocking about 0:25:02.080 --> 0:25:06.000 this whole area. In other words, if you believe all 0:25:06.119 --> 0:25:12.199 these different visual cues demonstrate that an accelerant has been used, 0:25:12.440 --> 0:25:15.040 you should do experiments to prove the point. 0:25:15.560 --> 0:25:19.440 Now, Barry, this isn't the case where these investigators were 0:25:19.440 --> 0:25:22.199 out to harm people. This is just how they were trained. 0:25:22.680 --> 0:25:27.479 I have some sympathy for a whole group of people 0:25:28.040 --> 0:25:31.720 who had, many of them just high school graduates who 0:25:31.760 --> 0:25:39.160 were trained in arson investigation, to believe all these different 0:25:39.280 --> 0:25:43.120 visual cues were a sign of the use of an 0:25:43.119 --> 0:25:49.520 accelerant and intentionally set fire that was never empirically demonstrated, 0:25:50.119 --> 0:25:54.320 and yet they were doing it, and that's how they 0:25:54.359 --> 0:25:57.200 made a living. That's true, and they thought that they 0:25:57.200 --> 0:26:01.720 had expertise. It's imagine how horrendous it is to believe, 0:26:02.240 --> 0:26:06.280 as a prosecutor or as a so called you know, 0:26:06.480 --> 0:26:12.240 arson investigator, that you were wrong and you destroyed people's lives. 0:26:12.480 --> 0:26:15.280 People don't get up in the morning and say let's 0:26:15.400 --> 0:26:20.760 do that, right, but it happens, and it's very hard 0:26:20.760 --> 0:26:21.600 to admit to it. 0:26:22.040 --> 0:26:24.000 All right, So why do you think it is that? 0:26:25.000 --> 0:26:27.840 You know, generations of experts have all been proven to 0:26:27.880 --> 0:26:31.439 be wrong. The assumptions they rely on turn out to 0:26:31.440 --> 0:26:35.560 be incorrect, But there's this unwillingness to change. 0:26:35.680 --> 0:26:41.040 Once you have invested yourself in this belief and all 0:26:41.160 --> 0:26:46.560 these very weighty consequences follow. It's very hard to admit 0:26:47.840 --> 0:26:51.520 that you were wrong, even when there's scientific proof that 0:26:51.560 --> 0:26:55.080 you're wrong. John Lintini and John de Haan and all 0:26:55.119 --> 0:26:59.400 these various experts, you know, they started off as regular 0:26:59.800 --> 0:27:04.639 are and investigators that were taught to believe these things. 0:27:04.680 --> 0:27:08.159 But engaging in real science and doing these experiments, they 0:27:08.240 --> 0:27:11.800 realized it was all wrong, and they had an enormous 0:27:11.840 --> 0:27:17.760 amount of trouble persuading the forensic science community to stop, 0:27:18.040 --> 0:27:21.760 and they're still fighting about it even to this day. 0:27:22.880 --> 0:27:26.000 I mean, I think that the Willingham case and all 0:27:26.040 --> 0:27:31.479 these other exonerations have exposed the community to it, and 0:27:31.520 --> 0:27:36.320 you literally can see fewer arson convictions since that happened. 0:27:36.920 --> 0:27:41.840 But Josh, you're absolutely right. It's mystifying. It's so upsetting 0:27:42.280 --> 0:27:45.240 that it is taking so long to change. 0:27:44.920 --> 0:27:49.119 It, and meanwhile, these convictions based on this false arson 0:27:49.840 --> 0:27:54.440 science or there's fire evidence just keep on coming. 0:27:55.040 --> 0:27:59.239 Hantak Lee, whose daughter who suffered from mental illness, was 0:27:59.320 --> 0:28:02.960 found yeah, literally burnt to death, incinerated, you know, in 0:28:03.000 --> 0:28:08.520 a small community in Pennsylvania. He gets convicted of killing 0:28:08.560 --> 0:28:12.359 his daughter intentionally in a fire which did not happen. 0:28:12.960 --> 0:28:16.800