A few weeks ago, I posted a "Nightline" segment featuring an interview with John Jackson, the prosecutor in the death penalty case of Cameron Todd Willingham. Willingham, who was almost certainly innocent, was nonetheless found guilty and executed by the state of Texas in 2004. The basis for the conviction was evidence given by arson investigators that was subsequently shown to be entirely unscientific.
For any interested in witnessing the willfully slipshod and malevolent manner in which the state of Texas applies the death penalty, "Nightline" has done a follow-up segment to David Grann's New Yorker piece on the wrongful execution of Cameron Todd Willingham. The segment (in two clips, below) contains a variety of outrageous revelations, but perhaps none more shocking than this exchange between correspondent Terry Moran and John Jackson, the prosecutor in the case, who has since become a Texas judge:
