By KERA News & Wire Services
Dallas, TX – The execution of a Texas man for the fire deaths of his three small children is coming under renewed scrutiny as a state panel hears from arson scientists who have studied evidence that sent Cameron Todd Willingham to the death chamber seven years ago.
The Texas Forensic Science Commission began hearing Friday from a panel of experts amid insistence from the Innocence Project, a New York-based legal organization specializing in wrongful conviction cases, that Willingham was convicted with faulty evidence and was innocent when he was put to death in 2004.
Commission Chairman John Bradley said no decision would be made Friday.
Prosecutors in Corsicana, about 60 miles south of Dallas, have insisted they properly convicted and executed a man guilty of setting the 1991 blaze that killed his three young daughters.
I-30 just west of Dallas reopens after fiery wreck
A fiery accident just west of downtown Dallas closed Interstate 30 for hours and left at least four people hurt.
Police were diverting traffic after the wreck just before 2 a.m. Friday on eastbound I-30 involving a gasoline tanker truck and at least one car. Westbound I-30 reopened just before daybreak.
Police say the victims appear to have non-life threatening injuries.
Dallas Fire-Rescue spokesman Jason Evans says fuel spilled into a nearby creek. Hazardous materials experts were at the scene.
Police are investigating why the truck apparently struck the median.
Texas Department of Transportation spokesman Mike Shannon says the damaged roadway will be examined.
Judge delays fraud trial for financier Stanford
A judge has delayed the trial of former Texas billionaire and financier R. Allen Stanford, who is accused of bilking investors out of $7 billion in a Ponzi scheme.
U.S. District Judge David Hittner determined that Stanford is not mentally competent to go forward with his case. The financier's trial had been set to begin Jan. 24.
The judge agreed yesterday to delay the start of the trial until Stanford can be treated for medical problems affecting his competency. The judge did not say how long the delay could last.
Hittner ruled after a daylong hearing during which three psychiatrists testified that Stanford is not competent because of medical issues including a brain injury he suffered during a jail fight in September 2009.