Last month, The New Yorker ran a devastating article about the 2004 execution of Cameron Todd Willingham in Texas. The article is long, but well worth the read -- unless you're okay with people being put to death for crimes they didn't commit.

Near the conclusion of the article was this:

In 2005, Texas established a government commission to investigate allegations of error and misconduct by forensic scientists. The first cases that are being reviewed by the commission are those of Willingham and Willis. In mid-August, the noted fire scientist Craig Beyler, who was hired by the commission, completed his investigation. In a scathing report, he concluded that investigators in the Willingham case had no scientific basis for claiming that the fire was arson, ignored evidence that contradicted their theory, had no comprehension of flashover and fire dynamics, relied on discredited folklore, and failed to eliminate potential accidental or alternative causes of the fire. He said that Vasquez’s approach seemed to deny “rational reasoning” and was more “characteristic of mystics or psychics.” What’s more, Beyler determined that the investigation violated, as he put it to me, “not only the standards of today but even of the time period.” The commission is reviewing his findings, and plans to release its own report next year. Some legal scholars believe that the commission may narrowly assess the reliability of the scientific evidence. There is a chance, however, that Texas could become the first state to acknowledge officially that, since the advent of the modern judicial system, it had carried out the “execution of a legally and factually innocent person.”

But that's not going to happen because Gov. Rick Perry, who had refused to grant Willingham a stay on the day he was executed, saying his decision "was based on the facts of the case," has:

... swept three appointees from their jobs just two days before they were set to critically examine a flawed arson investigation that contributed to the execution of a Corsicana man. The hearing of the Texas Forensic Science Commission, scheduled for Friday in Irving, was abruptly canceled by the new chairman the governor chose, Williamson County District Attorney John Bradley. He is considered one of the most conservative, hard-line prosecutors in Texas. [...] The governor has questioned Beyler's findings and argued that there is other evidence of Willingham's guilt. And Perry told The Associated Press on Wednesday that the terms of the dismissed board members were expiring that and replacing them "was pretty standard business as usual."

The other evidence of Willignham's guilt was an alleged jailhouse confession -- with the informant, who when recently asked about his testimony, wondered if the statute of limitations on perjury had passed.

Business as usual.