Film questions Texas death penalty arson case

(CNN) -- Throughout "Incendiary," a new award-winning documentary, filmmakers pose a tough question with potentially huge consequences: Was a man wrongfully executed because of outdated arson investigation methods?

The movie surrounds the 2004 Texas execution of Cameron Todd Willingham after his murder conviction in the house fire deaths of his three young children.

Directed by Joe Bailey Jr. and Steve Mims, it goes behind closed doors to visually document how Gov. Rick Perry and the Texas Forensic Science Commission handled the case.

It also examines a broader question: How accurate are criminal arson investigations? The filmmakers say it's a question crucial to the convictions of hundreds if not thousands of prison inmates nationwide. 

Bailey, a 29-year-old law school graduate and first-time filmmaker, told CNN the documentary was inspired by a New Yorker article by David Grann and just took off from there. It starkly illustrates how officials review death penalty cases, Bailey said, and American society's complicated relationship with science.

CNN: In general, do most people know much about how arson investigations are conducted?

BAILEY: I have to assume that most people don't have any idea about arson investigations. I know I sure didn't.

If you have an expert testifying to something, a jury gives a lot of weight to that testimony. That's something you learn in law school.

When techniques improve and when standards change, it really gives you pause and you think, wow how many cases have we conducted with a lesser standard or with a standard that was false?

It's an important principle that we have in our justice system and as a society as a whole that when we make mistakes we correct them, and we use them as instruction for the future.

CNN: Do we know how many convicted people would be affected by changes to arson investigation laws?

BAILEY: In Texas it's estimated at something like -- I don't remember the exact number — it's like 750 cases or so -- and they're not all death row cases, and I don't think there are very many that are death row cases. One good thing to come out of all this is the Texas Forensics Science Commission was able to enter into an agreement with the Texas fire marshal's office so it can pair up with the Innocence Project of Texas to go through all of those cases that they think might have a problem and really scrutinize them.

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Source: CNN, December 8, 2011