Fire Investigation 05
Fire Investigation 05 : (2) A More Cautious Approach: One thing that NFPA 921 has accomplished is to make it easier to distinguish between credible investigative results and those based on hunches and feelings or discredited mythology. The Guide provides the investigator with the tools to do his job, but demands that he be able to justify his conclusions with data, sound science, and clear reasoning. This is a good result. Some recent high-profile criminal arson cases have attracted the attention of the public and the media and have resulted in some interesting studies regarding the prevalence of arson in the United States. In 2012 Texas began a review of arson convictions. Jeff Blackburn, founder of and chief counsel for the Innocence Project of Texas (a legal advocacy organization assisting in the review) states, "What we're going after, more than anything else, is a pervasive prosecuting practice, not some isolated mistake that happened in the past". Louis C. Taylor was released in 2013 through a plea agreement after serving 42 years. Dave Mann of the Texas Observer became interested in the study of errors in fire investigation as a result of the cases of Ernest Ray Willis (who was exonerated after 17 years on death row) and Cameron Todd Willingham (who was executed after 12). He published a study that included a count of total fires in Texas versus the number of fires determined to be arson. Those results demonstrate a more than 60% drop in the number of fires determined to be arson between 1997 and 2007. After reviewing the data from Texas, Jack Nicas, a reporter for the Boston Globe performed the same exercise in Massachusetts, with even more startling results. Between 1984 and 2008, the percentage of fires determined to be arson in Massachusetts dropped from over 20% to less than 2%, despite a net increase in the total number of fires
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