\u201cFire doesn\u2019t destroy evidence,\u201d one of the arson experts testifies in court. \u201cFire creates <\/i>evidence.\u201d That it does. But what if the evidence it creates is misinterpreted by the people who are entrusted to understand it? What if the experts are clouded by confirmation biases, hampered by outdated investigative methods, and complicit in a judicial system that disproportionally targets the poor? And what if \u2014 as a direct result of those other what ifs<\/i> \u2014 an innocent man was executed for murdering his own children? In Texas, which executes more than five times as many people as any other state, those aren\u2019t exactly hypothetical questions.<\/p>\n
A clumsy prison drama that\u2019s baked into a compelling argument against the death penalty, Ed Zwick\u2019s \u201cTrial by Fire<\/a>\u201d dramatizes the tragic story of Cameron Todd Willingham, who was wrongly convicted of burning his house down with his three young daughters inside on December 23, 1991. It was just two days before Christmas, a quirk of the schedule that made the accusations seem all the more sinister \u2014 a throwaway detail made it that much easier for the prosecution to paint Willingham as an evil soul whose pentagram tattoo indicated an allegiance to the devil.<\/p>\n