I would heartily suggest grave caution in having high confidence in conclusions based on media accounts. In this case, the forensic arson investigation was badly flawed. I don’t know the other evidence well enough to speak, though I know as a loyal Bayesian, I could make an estimate of guilt. Still, I’d have very low confidence in that estimate, and it could be easily changed (as by reading the entire trial transcript.)
It’s very difficult to see these assertions without at least a nod to Roger Keith Coleman’s case. That case received a great deal of post-execution publicity, significantly more than Willingham and with roughly equal implications of factual innocence.
I would heartily suggest grave caution in having high confidence in conclusions based on media accounts. In this case, the forensic arson investigation was badly flawed. I don’t know the other evidence well enough to speak, though I know as a loyal Bayesian, I could make an estimate of guilt. Still, I’d have very low confidence in that estimate, and it could be easily changed (as by reading the entire trial transcript.)
It’s very difficult to see these assertions without at least a nod to Roger Keith Coleman’s case. That case received a great deal of post-execution publicity, significantly more than Willingham and with roughly equal implications of factual innocence.