Casting doubt on arson-murder cases

Jeff Gammage has an article in The Philadelphia Inquirer about arson:

When Daniel Dougherty (photo) heard the news, he had one question for his lawyers:
When do I get out?
They couldn't give him an answer. But now, after fourteen years in prison for the arson murder of his two young sons, a crime he swears he did not commit, he's to get a new trial. The state Supreme Court denied a Commonwealth appeal and let stand a lower court's order for a retrial.
"We're looking forward to the day when we pick him up at the gates and bring him home," defense lawyer Shannon Farmer said.
Tasha Jamerson, spokeswoman for Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams, said: "We are still investigating our legal options. No decision has been made yet on this case."
The old case holds fresh national implications, a prime example of the evolving fire science that has freed some inmates and brought the guilt of others into question. Today, scientists dismiss many of what once had been considered classic signs of arson, fueling a debate over how the justice system should handle convictions based on now-discarded beliefs.
Dougherty, 54, was arrested fourteen years after the 1985 Oxford Circle fire that killed three-year-old John and four-year-old Daniel Jr.
At the 2000 trial, key prosecution testimony came from John Quinn, who, at the time of the blaze was an assistant city fire marshal. He said the fire started in three places, a typical indicator of arson: a loveseat, a sofa, and a spot beneath a dining-room table. He ruled out accidental causes such as a gas leak or careless smoking.
Dougherty's lawyer, Thomas Ciccone, now deceased, never rebutted that testimony by calling an expert to describe the advances in fire study between 1985 and 2000.
Earlier this year, after hearing Dougherty's appeal, a three-judge panel of the state Superior Court ordered a new trial. It said Ciccone's failure to challenge the state's scientific conclusions so skewed the proceedings that "no reliable adjudication of guilt or innocence took place."
The District Attorney's Office sought reconsideration by the full Superior Court. When that request was denied, prosecutors appealed to the state Supreme Court. In a two-sentence ruling last week, the high court denied that petition, clearing the way for a new trial.
"We are absolutely elated," said defense cocounsel David Fryman. He and Farmer, who have represented Dougherty for more than a decade, gave him the news in a phone call to Greene prison in Waynesburg, Pennsylvania. "He's obviously very happy," Fryman said, "but also frustrated, bitter, and angry, and wants to get out of jail."
Marissa Boyers Bluestine, legal director of the Pennsylvania Innocence Project, said a retrial was overdue. "We know the information given to his jury was wrong," she said. "The science has changed so much, no one will give that testimony now."
Dougherty's case draws comparisons to that of Cameron Todd Willingham, executed in Texas in 2004 for killing his three daughters by setting the family home ablaze. Five years later, an expert hired by the Texas Forensic Science Commission called the arson finding doubtful.
In August of 2014, in Pennsylvania, a Federal judge threw out the arson-murder conviction of a man who has served two dozen years for killing his daughter. Han Tak Lee, now 79, maintains his innocence in the 1989 Pocono Mountains fire that killed Ji Yun Lee, 20.
US District Judge William Nealon vacated the conviction and life sentence, ordering that Lee be freed if a new trial is not held within a hundred and twenty days. Lee is out on bail.
Dougherty's death sentence was converted to life in 2012 by an agreement between prosecutors and defense counsel over the ineffectiveness of his lawyer.
Dougherty was convicted of setting the fire in the house where he lived with his sons, his girlfriend, and her eight-year-old son. Prosecutors said he sought to hurt two women: his girlfriend, Kathleen Schuler, with whom he shared the Carver Street rowhouse, and the boys' mother, Kathleen Dippel, from whom he was separated. He wanted to destroy the house of one and the children of the other, prosecutors said.
Over the last twenty years, scientific studies have deflated what once were considered solid indicators of arson. For instance, burn patterns on a floor were once viewed as evidence of an accelerant. Investigators now know those marks are common when a room is engulfed, even in an accidental fire.
Dougherty has always insisted he was asleep on the living-room couch, his children in their second-floor bedroom, when he awoke to see the curtains on fire and ran outside. He tried to reach the boys, but was forced back by heavy smoke and flames. Now, his lawyers say, two experts are prepared to testify that the prosecution finding of arson can no longer be supported. "We're hopeful the Commonwealth will do what in our mind is the right thing," Fryman said, "which is to recognize the consensus among the fire-science community."

Rico says that's a long time to sit, waiting for justice...