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FOIFT
51 Posts |
 Posted - 10/13/2009 : 09:54:03
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Perry stays secret on many things, including forensics files
06:35 AM CDT on Tuesday, October 13, 2009
By CHRISTY HOPPE / The Dallas Morning News
choppe@dallasnews.com
AUSTIN – Gov. Rick Perry's refusal to release documents he reviewed in the hours before the Cameron Todd Willingham execution is the latest fight he's waged over records kept in his office.
Many believe he is the most secretive modern-day governor Texas has seen.
Perry has fought to keep his itinerary of upcoming meetings and appearances from public review. No e-mail he has written has been made public because he only uses a personal e-mail account, which he says is not used for state business. His executive staff keeps a schedule that destroys most of the e-mails it generates every seven days.
In the latest example, Perry has denied access to files he reviewed in July 2004 that convinced him that Willingham was justly convicted.
Recent governors have served four or five years, and the memos of their general counsel became public through archives. Perry has served for 10 years and is keeping his lawyer's memos over that decade closed.
"Those memos are provided by the governor's general counsel to the governor under attorney-client privilege," press secretary Allison Castle said.
She said she objected to any characterization of the governor as secretive, saying, "The governor continues to promote transparency at all levels of government."
He has worked to place state spending and budgets online and released his tax returns. But when it comes to his prospective travel, meetings and even whether he is out-of-state, he has won attorney general backing that allows him to withhold his schedule.
"Security is different in a post-9/11 world. Security is paramount," Castle said.
Nevertheless, his fight to tightly hold information is contrasted to the White House, which routinely announces the president's appearances and meetings, along with his travel schedule weeks in advance.
"From what we have seen, this governor seems to be much more inclined to make decisions and conduct business in the dark than in the light of day compared to previous governors," said Keith Elkins, executive director of the Freedom of Information Foundation of Texas, which fights for open government.
"I don't know why he feels it's absolutely necessary to keep from the public, for example, what his travel schedules are. Other governors did not have the need to do that," he said.
Elkins said that Perry's latest decision to withhold memos that helped form his opinion on an execution carried out five years ago is a telling example.
"Texas leads the nation in the number of executions. I think everyone would want to know that the decisions to execute someone are being based on the best information possible," he said.
"It is an irreversible decision, and to simply throw up the stone walls and say, 'I'm not releasing information on what I'm basing my decisions on,' I don't see how that's in the best interest of any taxpayer," Elkins said.
Perry's office records show that two hours before the execution he received a report from explosives and fire expert Gerald Hurst that pointedly questioned whether arson was involved in the fire that killed Willingham's three small children.
While his office has declined to release the files, Perry last month told The Dallas Morning News that the records showed "clear and compelling, overwhelming evidence that he was in fact the murderer of his children."
Castle said the facts of the case, along with a decade of court appeals, and the decision by the attorney general's office and the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that the Hurst report was "simply an opinion" about the fire affected the governor's decision to allow the execution to go forward.
The Willingham case has drawn national interest and is becoming a political thorn for Perry. GOP rival Kay Bailey Hutchison's campaign on Monday accused him of trying "to cover up a critical investigation."
On Monday, John Whitmire, chairman of the Senate Criminal Justice Committee, also said he would call a hearing, tentatively set for Nov. 10, to look into the Texas Forensic Science Commission and its direction on the Willingham investigation.
Willingham was convicted of the 1991 Corsicana fire that killed his children. But the main evidence, that it was an intentionally set fire, has been reviewed by numerous arson experts who say the science used to show that it was an accelerant-fed fire has largely been debunked over the past 17 years.
The findings prompted the Forensic Commission to hire its own, independent expert, Craig Beyler, whose report released in August raised the same alarming concerns regarding the Willingham fire.
Two days before the commission was to hear from Beyler, Perry removed four of his appointees and named a new chairman, who cancelled the meeting.
Former chairman Sam Bassett told reporters that Perry's then-general counsel David Cabrales met with him and expressed concern about the Willingham investigation.
Castle confirmed that Monday but said that it was routine for the governor's counsel to meet with board members and that Cabrales was not trying to quell the inquiry. She said that Cabrales did ask if the Willingham inquest was within the scope of the commission's duties but that he was "just trying to stay abreast of the issues."
Castle said that the decision to maintain the general counsel's memos in the Willingham case is not unique and that attorney-client privilege extends to all of the governor's reviews in executions.
Elkins said such a stance speaks to why the public sometimes doubts its leadership. "Trust me is never a good answer when it comes to transparency in government," he said.
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FOIFT
51 Posts |
Posted - 10/19/2009 : 11:16:40
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Perry backs arson ruling
Governor describes executed man as 'monster' and tries to take attention off case.
By Jason Embry and W. Gardner Selby
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Thursday, October 15, 2009
After two weeks of national scrutiny of his role in the state's 2004 execution of Cameron Todd Willingham, Gov. Rick Perry spoke Wednesday about the case, describing Willingham as a "monster" and noting that the courts repeatedly upheld a jury's verdict that Willingham set fire to his house to kill his three young daughters.
Perry's comments sought to shift the debate away from his role in shaking up the leadership of a state commission examining the case and back onto solid ground for political candidates in Texas, which executes more prisoners than any other state and where polls consistently show strong support for the death penalty.
Shortly after Gov. Rick Perry's meeting with the Texas Association of Realtors on Wednesday, he spoke to the media about the state's 2004 execution of Cameron Todd Willingham.
"Go and really look at the facts of this case, not what some biased group of individuals are putting out and feeding you," Perry told reporters after a speech to a Realtors' group in Austin. "Go look at the facts, and you will find that this was an incredibly bad man who murdered his kids, and the record will stand the scrutiny."
Several studies have found major flaws in the arson investigation that led to Willingham's conviction, which has raised the specter of whether Texas executed an innocent man on Perry's watch.
While the attention on the Willingham case has put Perry on the defense in recent weeks, his leading GOP challenger, U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas, also supports the death penalty and has tread carefully when she talks about the Willingham case.
While criticizing the way Perry has handled the post-execution review of the Willingham prosecution, she has stressed her support for the death penalty.
"I think the majority of Texans believe the death penalty is an appropriate punishment for the crimes that are the state law for the death penalty. I think everyone of the people who believe in the death penalty would want to know we are using DNA evidence and the best technology in all the fields to determine if a person is rightfully convicted," Hutchison told the Associated Press in Houston on Wednesday.
Her campaign also argued this week that Perry's actions are "giving liberals an argument to discredit the death penalty."
Wharton businesswoman Debra Medina, who is also seeking the Republican nomination for governor, said this week that the death penalty should be used in some cases, but she too criticized Perry's approach to the Willingham investigation.
"This constant changing of the guard when he doesn't like the findings is more evidence that the governor behaves more and more like a tyrant" when people don't agree with him, Medina said.
Questions have swirled around Willingham's execution for years.
The Texas Forensic Science Commission hired fire scientist Craig Beyler to look into the case, and in August, Beyler said the arson investigation that contributed to Willingham's conviction was based on faulty science. He was scheduled to present his findings to the commission on Oct. 2, but that meeting was canceled when Perry replaced three members of the nine-member panel, including its chairman. Later, he replaced a fourth.
The new chairman, Williamson County District Attorney John Bradley, said he needed more time to study up on the case. Some of Perry's adversaries said the governor was trying to deflect attention from the Willingham case until after the Republican primary in March.
But the commission shakeup hasn't deflected anything. Instead, it has brought national attention to the previously obscure panel and Perry's decision to replace four of its members. Perry has noted that their terms were up and said it was proper to make a change.
Last week, Perry advocated a wait-and-see attitude on the commission's work. But he took a much more aggressive stance Wednesday as he tried to turn attention away from the arson investigation and toward Willingham's behavior. He also stressed that numerous courts had considered Willingham's case.
"Willingham was a monster," Perry said. "This was a guy who murdered his three children, who tried to beat his wife into an abortion so that he wouldn't have those kids. Person after person has stood up and testified to facts of this case."
According to witness statements filed in the capital murder case, investigators talked to three women who said that Todd Willingham had beaten his wife.
Two of them also said he'd beaten her in attempts to cause her to lose her pregnancies.
But the Associated Press reported Wednesday that Willingham's wife, Stacy, testified for him during the punishment phase of his trial and denied that he ever hurt her.
Repeatedly Wednesday, Perry sought to minimize the significance of the report that Beyler conducted for the Forensic Science Commission.
But Beyler's report mirrored two similar reviews by nationally recognized fire scientists that concluded that the arson ruling in the Willingham fire was based on bad science or mistaken assumptions.
The Beyler report listed more than a dozen instances of improper analysis and mistaken conclusions provided by two fire officials during Willingham's capital murder trial.
Most damaging was testimony that burn patterns on the home's floors proved that an accelerant was used to start three different fast-burning fires that doomed the children — a conclusion not supported by the facts or by fundamental scientific analysis, Beyler wrote.
"The investigators had poor understandings of fire science," wrote Beyler, who is chairman of the International Association for Fire Safety Science and author of several books about fire investigation.
Barry Scheck, co-director of the Innocence Project, said Wednesday that Perry was ignoring the facts of the case.
"It's very troubling that Gov. Perry is claiming to analyze the scientific evidence in this case himself rather than relying on the renowned, independent expert that his own commission hired," Scheck said. "Literally all of the evidence that was used to convict Willingham has been disproven — all of it."
Patricia Willingham Cox of Ardmore, Okla., who has long said her cousin, Todd Willingham, wasn't guilty of arson, said she was disturbed by Perry's "monster" characterization.
"What we're hearing is some desperation from the governor," Cox said. "Of course he's got to defend it. We're looking at a governor who's at a crucial time with his re-election coming up."
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FOIFT
51 Posts |
Posted - 10/19/2009 : 11:30:52
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Perry keeps Willingham memo a secret
Governor’s office has a record of using attorney-client privilege
By R.G. RATCLIFFE
AUSTIN BUREAU
Oct. 19, 2009, 9:00AM
AUSTIN – Embroiled in a national controversy over whether he allowed the execution of an innocent man, Gov. Rick Perry adamantly has refused to release an advisory memo from his general counsel about granting a 30-day reprieve for Cameron Todd Willingham.
“That information has been privileged information back when Ann Richards was the governor and George Bush was the governor, and I suggest it will be privileged information after I am the governor,” Perry told reporters last week.
Perry's office has a demonstrated record of applying the attorney-client privilege to him.
When a national news organization in 2003 asked the state archives for the execution memoranda written for former Gov. George W. Bush, there was no objection from Perry's office to the public having the information. Because of Perry's silence, Attorney General Greg Abbott ordered the documents' release.
But when the Houston Chronicle and other news organizations sought similar memos written for Perry by his general counsel, the governor's office has fought it repeatedly and obtained rulings from Abbott that the information does not have to be made public.
It is part of a pattern, a shroud of secrecy that has descended on the governor's office since Perry took over as governor from Bush.
“Taxpayers are being shortchanged when it comes to the public record for this governor,” said Keith Elkins, executive director of the Freedom of Information Foundation of Texas. “That's not what transparency is all about.”
28,000 pages released
Perry spokeswoman Allison Castle said she disagrees with any assessment of Perry as secretive. She said the governor's office has released more than 28,000 pages of documents under the 586 public information requests it has received this year.
Castle said Perry also releases personal information and details his office expenses.
“The governor's gone above and beyond by releasing personal tax returns,” Castle said.
However, there are a number of examples where Bush's administration was more forthcoming than Perry's.
Bush released lists of overnight guests at the Governor's Mansion, often showing high-dollar donors staying at the official residence. Perry obtained a ruling from Abbott that it does not have to be public. Now, the list is not even maintained.
Perry has fought to keep secret the documents showing how he produces a proposed budget for the Legislature.
Perry's office has interpreted a records retention policy as allowing destruction of e-mails weekly.
When the Chronicle sought to find out when Perry's staff learned of accusations of child sexual abuse in the Texas Youth Commission were not being pursued by prosecutors, there was no record. But an e-mail retained by the TYC showed Perry's aides knew of the inaction 16 months before anything was done about it.
Bush put out his daily schedules in advance. The public only found out that Perry had gone scuba diving in the Bahamas with policy advocates and major donors because someone spotted them at a marina.
Castle said Perry's schedules are available as historic documents and that the news media is notified of his public meetings in advance. She said the governor's advance schedule is kept secret for security reasons.
173 rulings sought
Perry's office has sought rulings from Abbott's office 173 times against releasing records, and he twice sued Abbott when he didn't like a ruling that records should be made public. Both lawsuits later were dropped.
The most recent brush is over releasing copies of a clemency memo written for Perry prior to the 2004 execution of Willingham for the murder of his three daughters in a Corsicana house fire. Shortly before the execution, Perry's office received a forensics report that the fire could not be proved to be arson.
Perry this past week called Willingham a “monster” and said there was ample other evidence that he set the fire that killed his children. Hutchison's campaign suggested Perry's critique of Willingham seemed designed to turn attention away from questions surrounding Perry's actions in the case.
The governor sparked a firestorm in the case recently when he replaced the chairman and two of the members of the Texas Forensic Science Commission. The commission has been studying the Willingham case to see if arson investigations can be improved, but it had taken on the appearance of a probe into whether Willingham had been wrongfully convicted.
Arson expert Craig Beyler has written a report for the commission stating that the original arson investigation was faulty. He said because of the intensity of the fire in Willingham's house no one could prove whether arson did or did not occur.
Beyler last week called on the new members of the commission to resign and said Perry should reappoint the old members so the investigation can go forward.
Williamson County District Attorney John Bradley, the new chairman, said Beyler has harmed his credibility as an unbiased forensic scientist by putting himself into the controversy. Bradley said he does not know when the commission will meet again. |
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Raevki
1 Posts |
Posted - 10/22/2009 : 00:25:32
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| This article was too long for me to read, but the governor should definitely release the execution review papers. Freedom!!!! |
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Freedom_for_all
3 Posts |
Posted - 10/22/2009 : 00:27:57
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| Well apparently Governor Perry felt the same about his own documents. Hopefully we can get some people in office who are willing to read documents! |
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Hedeiringer
1 Posts |
Posted - 10/22/2009 : 00:29:01
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| That is t3h suxx0r |
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FOIFT
51 Posts |
Posted - 10/27/2009 : 07:16:36
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Rick Perry's Chief of Staff Writes Dishonest Letter-to-Editor Regarding release of Todd Willingham Execution
Saturday, October 17th, 2009
The Chief of Staff of Governor Rick Perry, Ray Sullivan, has a letter-to-the-editor in today's Longview News-Journal criticizing the paper's Wednesday editorial in which the paper criticized Perry for refusing to release all the documents in the Todd Willingham case that would show whether and to what extent the Governor considered the information given to them by Willingham's lawyer on the day of the execution.
Sullivan says the News-Journal is "just plain wrong", but actually Sullivan is just plain wrong, and he knows he is wrong, so he must be wrong on purpose, which is also called being dishonest. Sullivan says the Governor has "repeatedly made Mr. Hurst's four-page opinion public", but Sullivan knows that the criticism of the governor in the editorial is not about Hurst's letter, but it is that he has not released the memo or memos from Perry's own staff that were used by the governor in his decision making process regarding whether to stay the Willingham execution and has refused to release any documents that would show whether Hurst's letter was read personally by Perry himself.
The people of Texas expect the governor to be fully engaged in decisions on the day of an execution in order to prevent innocent people from being executed. They also expect that the Governor will not engage in a campaign to cover up and delay a state-funded report submitted to a public agency, such as the Texas Forensic Science Commission. Sullivan knows that Perry continues to refuse to release all the relevant documents and that is why many people are concluding that Perry is hiding something that would reflect poorly on him.
Sullivan also says in his letter that "we know full well that Texas newspapers oppose the death penalty, even for the most terrible crimes", which is dishonest too. There are only two major Texas newspapers we know of that have endorsed abolishing the death penalty, so implying that many, most, all or more than two major Texas newspapers oppose the death penalty is exceedingly dishonest.
According to a June 2009 news article in the Statesman, "Sullivan has worked on previous Perry campaigns. He has also been a lobbyist. His clients this year have included Banc Pass Inc., Compass Environmental Inc., Exelon Power Texas, Global Options Inc., HNTB Corp., Redflex Traffic Systems Inc. and Silver Eagle Distributors".
Below is Sullivan's letter-to-the-editor and below that is the editorial he is responding to.
News-Journal editorial off base
In their collective rush to defend a convicted child murderer executed in 2004, many in the Texas press are routinely missing the facts about Gov. Rick Perry and the Cameron Todd Willingham case. The News-Journal's editorial on Wednesday is just the latest example.
Governor Perry routinely makes his official schedules, correspondence and other documents available to the press and public. Our office fully complies with the Public Records Act. In fact, the governor has gone above and beyond by voluntarily releasing personal tax returns, detailed campaign finance data and putting office expenses online.
The News-Journal is just plain wrong about the opinion of Gerald Hurst in the Willingham murder case. Governor Perry's office has repeatedly made Mr. Hurst's four-page opinion public, an opinion considered by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals and the Governor's Office before they upheld the jury verdict in the Willingham case.
We know full well that Texas newspapers oppose the death penalty, even for the most terrible crimes. However, Willingham was convicted by a Texas jury of murdering his three little girls based on the evidence, including a confession.
He was executed only after Texas courts, federal appeals courts and the U.S. Supreme Court reviewed the case and all of the evidence. The case was upheld in every appeal, including nine times by federal courts. Governor Perry is sworn to uphold Texas law, and does so every day.
Ray Sullivan, Austin, Chief of Staff, Office of the Governor
The editorial that Ray Sullivan was responding to was from October 14 and titled, "Governor's secrets: Perry's refusal to release documents the latest example". It is copied in full below.
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Gov. Rick Perry is the state's longest-serving governor, even if he gets defeated next year by U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison — who plans to resign next month or so to take on the governor in the Republican primary. Perry pays lip service to freedom of information and sunshine in government, but the fact remains he is arguably the most secretive governor in modern-day state history. His refusal to release the files he reviewed before the execution of Cameron Todd Willingham is just the latest example in a long line of actions designed to keep the public in the dark about the governor's travels, correspondence and how decisions are made.
As has been reported, Perry replaced four members of the state Forensic Commission two days before it was to hear testimony from an independent arson expert, Craig Beyler, hired by the commission. Beyler believes the Corsicana house fire that killed three of Willingham's children was not intentionally set, and the original investigation was terribly flawed.
Willingham was executed in 2004 for the crimes. He went to the death chamber proclaiming his innocence to the end. By replacing those four members, Perry managed to delay the panel hearing the arson report, probably until after the March primary. After all, it wouldn't help his re-election chances if his commission concluded the state executed an innocent man. Sadly, it is very possible that is exactly what happened.
Now Perry is refusing to release the documents he examined to make his decision that the execution should proceed. Among those documents was a report from another arson expert, Gerald Hurst, who also questioned whether the Corsicana fire was arson.
As Keith Elkins, executive director of the Freedom of Information Foundation of Texas put it in a story Tuesday in the Dallas Morning News:
"Texas leads the nation in the number of executions. I think everyone would want to know that the decisions to execute someone are being based on the best possible information."
A state Senate panel plans to hold hearings in early November to look into the forensic commission and how it intends to proceed in the Willingham investigation. At least that's one committee with which the governor can't interfere. But he would if he could, we suspect. |
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Governor won't release execution review papers
