Texas Justice and Psychology, Continued

by Jonah Lehrer

A few reader emails, in response to my post on the Cameron Todd Willingham case and the Just World Theory:

Beyond the horror of the Willingham case, I think it's important to note another side to this story. Texas Monthly recently ran a profile of Judge Sharon Keller, who is the presiding judge over the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. The CCA hears final appeals for death penalty cases at the state level. Grann mentions Keller in his story and notes that she currently faces ethics charges for refusing to keep the court clerk's office open past 5pm to receive an appeal from another death row prisoner.

As the Texas Monthly profile reveals, Sharon Keller is a model of an individual who believes that the world is just and that all trials are fair. As an appellate judge, she almost always votes on the side of the state, even when there is clear and compelling evidence that a trial was unfair or that key evidence was ignored. She simply doesn't believe that the state ever gets these things wrong. The Roy Crimer case, in which DNA evidence proved a convicted rapist hadn't committed the crime, is the most egregious. It took a pardon from then-Governor Bush to right that wrong.

The sad fact is that because of Keller and others like her who have a strong predisposition to trust authority - even when the facts belie that authority's claims - there's little doubt that Cameron Todd Willingham isn't the only innocent man we've executed.

Another reader sent in this link, which is a letter to the editor in the Corsicana Daily Sun by one of the Willingham prosecutors.