Will new evidence of Texas executing an innocent man alter modern death penalty debates?

As detailed in this new New York Times editorial, headlined “Questions About an Execution,” more folks are coming to the view that Texas executed an innocent man in 2004.  The editorial provides the basic facts and notes the standard abolitionist “innocence” argument that now seems stronger:

People should have no illusions about the brutal injustice of the death penalty after all of the exonerations in recent years from DNA evidence, but the case of Cameron Todd Willingham is still shocking.

Mr. Willingham was executed for setting a fire that killed his 2-year-old daughter and 1-year-old twins, but a fire expert hired by the State of Texas has issued a report casting enormous doubt on whether the fire was arson at all. The Willingham investigation, which is continuing, is further evidence that the criminal justice system is far too flawed to justify imposing a death penalty.

After the fire, investigators decided, based in large part on burn patterns on the house’s floors, that it was intentionally set. Prosecutors charged Mr. Willingham, who escaped from the burning home, with capital murder. Mr. Willingham protested his innocence until the day the state killed him by lethal injection in 2004.

The following year, Texas created the Forensic Science Commission to investigate charges of scientific mistakes or misconduct, and the panel began looking into the Willingham case. It commissioned Craig Beyler, a nationally recognized fire expert, to examine evidence….

The report concluded that a “finding of arson could not be sustained.” The Forensic Science Commission is now asking the state fire marshal’s office for its response. It anticipates issuing a final report next year.

The commission is to be commended for conducting this inquiry, but it is outrageous that Texas is conducting its careful, highly skilled investigation after Mr. Willingham has been executed, rather than before.

And, this week’s New Yorker has a this long detailed article on the Willingham case in which David Grann documents all the reasons why it should now be a lot easier for opponents of the death penalty to assert that at least one innocent person has been executed in the modern capital punishment era.

With nearly 1200 execution over the last three decades, I have long consider the claim that only guilty persons have been executed harder to believe than the claim that at least one innocent person has been wrongfully put to death.  But now it seems that abolitionists have a name and a face to associate with the sensible statistical assertion that even a careful death penalty system is bound to sometimes execute an innocent man.  Of course, even acknowledging Willingham’s innocence, proponents of the death penalty can still assert that it seems we still get it right more than 99.9% of the time.  But will that be good enough as the modern death penalty debate goes forward?