Rick Perry’s Depraved Indifference: Has the Governor finally gone too far?

To constitute depraved indifference, the defendant's conduct must be "so wanton, so deficient in a moral sense of concern, so lacking in regard for the life or lives of others, and so blameworthy as to warrant the same criminal liability as that which the law imposes upon a person who intentionally causes a crime."

Depraved indifference is what many of the state’s most conservative constituents, some of them still Republicans and many of them who have since “gone independent,” would have liked to see the Governor criminally charged with.  Texans of all political hues have learned to despise this Governor for conspiring with the big wigs at TxDOT, various road contractors and developers, and the Spanish toll road consortium, CINTRA, to take our land for the Trans-Texas Corridor (TTC).  In fact, if Perry’s land takings for the TTC had gone forward fully (some of it is still planned) it would have resulted in the largest land seizure in the history of the United States—and created a massive scar across Texas. 

You gotta hand it to Rick Perry.  He never ceases to one-up his own depravity.  That is why not many in Texas were ‘shocked’ as Barry Scheck of the Innocence Project put it, when Rick Perry decided to boldly in plain view cover up what we all who are following this latest scar on Texas, in our heart-of-hearts, know to be true.  An innocent man, Cameron Todd Willingham of Corsicana, was put to death in 2004 in Texas.  The evidence of his innocence was in Rick Perry’s hands before the execution with well enough time to delay if not stop it.  The Governor chose to ignore the truth.

The Governor has proven his own culpability and now everybody’s talking about it, from ABC’s Nightline to practically every newspaper in the state.  The Governor used (or more accurately, abused) his power to cancel a hearing on the sham science used in the arson investigation of the Willingham case.  This was to be presented last week before the Texas Forensic Science Commission.  Rick Perry fired his own appointed chair of the Commission and refused to re-appoint two others.  All three supported bringing out the facts in this hearing.  Perry’s new appointee quickly canceled the hearing.

A reporter today wrote that no Texans will care about Rick Perry’s depravity in this case, I gather because Texans love the death penalty.  What might be more detrimental to the Governor’s reelection chances, this reporter speculated, is his rudeness and tackiness towards Kay Bailey Hutchison who is a “lady.” Perhaps.  But I like to think that Texans do care about such things as innocence and guilt, not to mention the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.  Private property rights and the right to life are intertwined in the minds of most Texans I know.  Rick Perry is not anything like them.

Here’s all the evidence you need to understand what’s going on here:

This is a long, very disturbing and detailed account of the entire Willingham case.  Don’t let the fact that it was in the New Yorker allow Rick Perry to manipulate you: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/09/07/090907fa_fact_grann

 Or, if you’re in a hurry, this gives you the background quickly: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cameron_Todd_Willingham

 This will show you that the Governor knew the truth about Willingham’s innocence before the execution:http://www.innocenceproject.org/docs/Willingham_foia.pdf?phpMyAdmin=52c4ab7ea46t7da4197

The Governor’s explanation of his actions are here in the Dallas Morning News: http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/politics/state/stories/091809dnmetperrycorsicana.19263f09c.html