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Go Home "It Takes Balls To Execute An Innocent Man"

JONATHAN CHAIT AUGUST 3, 2011

"It Takes Balls To Execute An Innocent Man"

BY JONATHAN CHAIT

Alexander Burns and Maggie Haberman have a story for Politico about Rick Perry's limitations as a general election candidate. It's a really excellent piece on its own terms, but at the same time, it's a bit of a parody of a Politico story in that it takes a vital moral question, drains it of all its moral significance, and presents it in purely electoral terms. The thesis of the piece is that Perry appeals to very conservative white southerners, but not to anybody else, making him a questionable choice to head the Republican ticket. The piece bears out that thesis pretty well. In the middle it includes a glancing reference to one episode of Perry's gubernatorial tenure:

Perry would also have to answer for parts of his record that have either never been fully scrutinized in Texas, or that might be far more problematic before a national audience.

Veterans of Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison’s unsuccessful 2010 primary challenge to Perry recalled being stunned at the way attacks bounced off the governor in a strongly conservative state gripped by tea party fever. Multiple former Hutchison advisers recalled asking a focus group about the charge that Perry may have presided over the execution of an innocent man – Cameron Todd Willingham – and got this response from a primary voter: “It takes balls to execute an innocent man.”

The Willingham case is just one episode in Perry’s gubernatorial tenure that could be revived against him in the very different context of a national race, potentially compromising him in a general election.

If you're not familiar with this episode, David Grann wrote about in for the New Yorker in 2009 in what may be the single greatest piece of journalism I have ever read in my life. (I am biased, as David is a friend and former colleague.) The upshot is that Perry is essentially an accessory to murder. He executed an innocent man, displaying zero interest in the man's innocence. When a commission subsequently investigated the episode, Perry fired its members.

It is telling that the political culture that has nurtured Perry is so morally demented that demonstrating that he blithely executed an innocent man is not a political liability. This probably does have some electoral ramifications worth exploring. But I also couldn't read that piece without imagining a Politico story about Hitler. ("Opposition researchers are combing through Mein Kampf, which could become grist for devastating attack ads, especially in the crucial Florida primary.")

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16 comments

I watched the latest remake of the Alamo this past weekend, and I can assure readers that there are no innocent Mexicans. It's as if the most outrageous myths about American history are amplified ten times when it comes to Texas and Texans.

- rayward

August 3, 2011 at 3:21pm

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The Hitler comment is worth noting. People elect all kinds of heinous candidates when unemployment is really high for a long time and there is a pervasive lack of faith in the establishment. We got a small taste of that in 2010. Imagine if the election of 2012 takes place in the midst of a double-dip recession?

- propjoe

August 3, 2011 at 3:35pm

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- Did you lift that from a Perry bumper sticker?

- michaelg

August 3, 2011 at 3:35pm

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The David Grann piece was incredibly good. I ran off copies of it for several friends. Don't sell yourself short, though, Jonathan. Your journalistic pieces are as good as David Grann's. In the category of intellectual journalism, your demolition jobs on Ayn Rand and Naomi Klein are stunning in their comprehensiveness, understanding and eloquence.

- liberalref

August 3, 2011 at 3:57pm

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Ray, Cameron Todd Willingham was a white, Anglo Texan -- or, in the parlance of the 1830's Texas and the Battle of the Alamo, a "Texian". Whatever they think of Mexicans, all good Texans would agree that Texians like Willingham are innocent until proven guilty.

- wildboy

August 3, 2011 at 4:01pm

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Pontius Pilate had balls.

- brokensq

August 3, 2011 at 4:05pm

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libref: don't forget Chait's book review of Amity Shlaes's The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression. That was a pleasure to read and a great counterpoint to the inane references to it made by Republicans in government.

- propjoe

August 3, 2011 at 4:06pm

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What nonsense, wild. I am certain that in reddest parts of Texas, such as eastern Texas, there are many starboard intransigents who think - with Antonin Scalia - that an innocent man could never be executed. I too worry about rightist extremism in the context of a poor economy. But I remind you that slabs of the left have been concerned about incipient fascism since Sinclair Lewis' It Can't Happen Here was published in 1935.

- liberalref

August 3, 2011 at 4:10pm

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Is it bad that I'm not at all surprised about this execution of an innocent man story, even though this is the first I've ever heard of it? To me, it just sounds like an architypical day for a Tea Party Fascist. The guy was probably poor, which would make him a parasite, which means he's probably part black anyway, so no real loss, right?

- GSpinks

August 3, 2011 at 4:35pm

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I lived in Texas during the death of what used to be a strong Democratic Party there. Ann Richards, God rest her soul, was the governor and state government was stocked with several progressives; Jim Hightower comes to mind as he was ag commisioner. I used to pick on the natives that Richards was dragging the state into the 20th century (this was around 1991). The insane right-wing propaganda started invading when I left in 1993; it's just pitiful what has happened since I left. To think that Shrub was a compassionate and decent man when compared to Perry says how much Tejas has de-evolved. The progressive Texas Democratic Party of LBJ and Ann Richards is just a dusty memory. Perry is more paraody of the worst of conservatives instead of a real person but pathetically he's real. He's downright evil as far as I'm concerned and a cold blooded murderer that deserves the highest punishment Texas gives out.

- tmmats

August 3, 2011 at 5:00pm

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This was just "a primary voter," right? Not a known activist, not a party leader, just some guy. And you people wonder why wingers can get away with dog whistles and outright lies when campaigning? Anytime I'm tempted to think that some congress member or other is particularly outrageous or demented I have to remember: think about the people who elected them. They're not all deceived. They know exactly what they're voting for.

- cspencef

August 3, 2011 at 5:06pm

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I almost agree about the NYer piece - unbelievably well done, though, personally (and I admit, idiosyncratically), my candidate for "best" is William Finnegan's 2-part NYer piece "Playing Doc's Games" from 1991 or so (hey, it's what I like to do!). The Willingham execution is the best argument against capital punishment there is, and Perry's participation makes him personally responsible for a state murder. Not a legacy I would want and one which will follow him to the end of his days (as he might like to put it). The Hutchinson experience you relate is a nice summation of what to me explains a good deal about the rise of "conservatism" - really old-fashioned reactionary populism - in Texas and elsewhere: there is an enormously greater than 40 years ago and fast growing lack of empathy among voters. They increasingly just don't care about simple injustice because, seemingly, they can't feel it when it happens to others.

- chbartle

August 3, 2011 at 5:30pm

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Indeed, it may be the case that Americans are actually on a devolutionary path, becoming increasingly less human as time goes on. On the other hand, maybe it's the increasing attacks by vested interests on justice as an attempt to determine the objective truth as far as possible -- with the assumption of innocence -- as against justice as a kind of celebratory village witch-burning.

- ironyroad

August 3, 2011 at 6:45pm

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Yes, prop, the Amity Shlaes' piece was very fine, too. The best part of that review was that Jonathan C. showed how Shlaes is divided against herself concerning FDR's policies.

- liberalref

August 3, 2011 at 10:50pm

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"Frontline" on PBS did an episode on the Willingham case last year, 'Death by Fire'. It does a fine job of showing how a juror could be convinced of criminal intent from things as inane as metal band posters on a wall or an ill-timed drunken boast. But the program leaves the impression that operating on gut instinct is an institution in Texas, from the arson investigator to the Governor.

- Runciman

August 4, 2011 at 4:23pm

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Most people seem to make up their mind what they believe at a fairly early age. From that time on, most of their mental effort comes from trying to rationalize and justify what they believe to be true, and very little goes into trying to evaluate the truth of any new information that does not fit into or correspond with their "mind set." Even here, at TNR, a bastion of rational thinking and open-minded inquiry, we don't often change our set minds. I know this is true and don't try to change my mind on the issue with silly claims of fact or counterarguments.

- skahn

August 17, 2011 at 12:43pm

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