Louis Taylor
Today, 59-year-old Louis Taylor will enter an Arizona courtroom and plead no contest to setting an arson fire in the Pioneer Hotel in Tucson that killed 29 people. That plea will let him walk away. The reason for the strange plea is that prosecutors don’t think they have enough evidence to convict him and Taylor’s defense team doesn’t want him to go through the rigors of a prolonged and expensive trial that will keep him behind bars for years.
After all, Taylor has already served 40 years in prison for the crime that probably wasn’t a crime after all.
The fire took place in 1970. Louis Taylor, a black teen who was neither a hotel guest nor employee, was found inside the building at the time of the blaze with a book of matches. The fire inspector thought it was arson and the police vigorously interrogated the suspect in a manner he characterized as “very tough” – interpret that however you will. Later, two jailhouse snitches said Taylor confessed to setting the fire. One of them later recanted, saying they had been coerced. But Taylor was convicted of 28 counts of felony murder and sentenced to life in prison.
It was only an investigation by CBS’s 60 Minutes and intervention by the Arizona Justice Project that got the case reopened.
When John Douglas and I looked at this case, it seemed like an eerie “greatest hits” compilation from our current book, Law & Disorder.
The fire investigation reminded us of the arson trial of Cameron Todd Willingham in Corsicana, Texas. Willingham was convicted, sentenced to death and executed for setting the fire that killed his two little girls. He swore at his execution that he was innocent, a fact that the leading world experts in modern fire science had already declared was true. The fire was accidental; there was no crime at all. Governor Rick Perry refused to stay the sentence despite the recommendation of his forensic science review board.
The jailhouse snitches recall the West Memphis Three trial in Arkansas, during which a drug-addled juvenile facility inmate testified that defendant Jason Baldwin had admitting killing three eight-year-old boys. A woman already in trouble with the police testified that defendant Damien Echols had taken her to a satanic orgy. Both later admitted they were lying.
The intense police interviews hearken back to the 1947 “Lipstick Killer” case in Chicago in which the police “interrogated” college student and sometimes burglar William Heirens until he agreed, with his attorneys urging, to plead guilty to three murders. He recanted almost immediately.
And like the Salem Witch trials of 1693, the community perceived a crime and someone had to pay.
By the grim ledger of justice denied, Louis Taylor was “luckier” than Cameron Todd Willingham. He only had 40 years of his life taken from him, while Willingham lost the remainder of his. He was not as lucky as the West Memphis Three – Echols, Baldwin and Jessie Misskelley, Jr. – who only served 18 years for a crime they clearly did not commit. But he was luckier than William Heirens, who died a year ago as the oldest prisoner in the American correctional system.
Junk science. Community outrage. Coercive interrogation. Jailhouse snitches. Overzealous prosecution. Ineffective Counsel. These are all classic elements in erroneous convictions. And there is no excuse for any of them.
And if you don’t believe me, just ask Louis Taylor.
I read Mind Hunter and just finished reading Law and Disorder. Law and Disorder troubles me. Here is why. Officials seem to never be held accountable for gross negligence. I think we all understand that “witch trials” go on. What I wondered, while and after I read the chapters on the West Memphis 3, is this, how can a judge, a prosecutor, a police department, that dude that was the fake PHD, the forensic idiot and other officials get away with the gross negligence it took to convict these kids and others like them? I understand how a Jury can get sucked into believing the BS. I can understand how the people in a community can get dragged down fantasy road. I cannot, however, understand, and/or forgive when professionals do the same. What’s worse is that we actually, as a country, allowed the judge in the case to get elected as a US Congressman. Is there any sense in creating laws that PUNISH officials for what is obvious miscarriage of justice for the sake of political gain? Are witch hunters as guilty as the criminals who ACTUALLY commit the crime? Lives are ruined. Lives are taken. I understand and applaud people that lend their expertise to reverse convictions that are groundless. What I can’t get over is how a guy like Damien Echols has to take the high road, find peace in his life and make a good life for himself, and the officials who punished him get rewarded with positions of high power when it is clear, at least from Mr. Douglas’s perspective, that these officials are DOPES!!!
Just one mans opinion. Don’t judge me harshly for it.
We don’t judge you harshly at all, we applaud you. Very well said on all fronts. And you’ve picked up on one of our pet gripes. Once the dust settles on these clear miscarriages of justice, all of those responsible parties you cite fall back on, “Well, the jury is the trier of fact and its members delivered the verdict.”
This is a cowardly cop-out. If you don’t present good and responsible evidence, the jury can’t make a good and responsible decisions.
Thanks so much for your comments.
vmessina-
I could not agree with you more.