I honestly don’t understand what Gov. Perry is up to. He couldn’t do more to bring attention to the Willingham controversy than with his own actions in the case. Here, the recently deposed chairman of the commission investigating Willingham’s conviction and execution reports that he was pressured by attorneys from the governor’s office to focus less on the Willingham matter:

Just months before the controversial removal of three members of a state commission investigating the forensics that led to a Texas man’s 2004 execution, top aides to Gov. Rick Perry tried to pressure the chairman of the panel over the direction of the inquiry, the chairman has told the Tribune.

Samuel Bassett, whom Perry replaced on the Texas Forensic Science Commission two weeks ago, said he twice was called to meetings with Perry’s top attorneys. At one of those meetings, Bassett said he was told they were unhappy with the course of the commission’s investigation.

“I was surprised that they were involving themselves in the commission’s decision-making,” Bassett said. “I did feel some pressure from them, yes. There’s no question about that.”

[...]

According to Bassett, the governor’s attorneys questioned the cost of the inquiry and asked why a fire scientist from Texas could not be hired to examine the case instead of the expert from Maryland that the panel ultimately settled on.

Following the meeting, a staffer from the general counsel’s office began to attend the commission’s meetings, Bassett said.

[...]

…Bassett said, [Perry General Counsel David] Cabrales told him in February that the Willingham investigation was not the kind of work the legislature intended for the commission.

“I politely said that I’m not sure I agree with that but that I’m certainly willing to go back and look at the statute,” Bassett said. A week later, he sent Cabrales and Wiley a letter with a copy of the law creating the commission.

Wiley also questioned the cost of the investigation and, according to Bassett, called the pay to Beyler a waste of state money. Bassett said he defended Beyler as an independent expert. He said he also responded that the commission had unanimously voted to hire Beyler.

Gov. Perry has also removed another member of the commission:

Texas Gov. Rick Perry has removed a fourth member of a state commission charged with investigating claims that an innocent man may have been executed, his office said.

The Texas governor has now replaced all of the four members that, under law, he is allowed to appoint to the commission. The remaining five members are appointed by the state’s lieutenant governor and attorney general.

[...]

Commissioner Alan Levy was replaced by John Bradley, a district attorney who was also named commission chairman. Aliece Watts was replaced by Norma Farley, chief forensic pathologist for Hidalgo and Cameron counties. Perry said at the time the replacements were “pretty normal protocol.”

In a statement Thursday, Perry’s office said he had appointed attorney Lance Evans of Fort Worth to replace former commission chairman Samuel Bassett of Austin, and that Randall Frost of Boerne, chief medical examiner for Bexar County, would replace commissioner Sridhar Natarajan.

“If you’ve got a whole new investigation going forward, it makes a lot more sense to put the new people in now and let them start the full process, rather than bring people in there for a short period of time and then replace them,” Perry said two weeks ago. “I think it makes a whole lot more sense to make a change now than to make a change later.”

I suppose Perry thinks that by stalling and muddling the investigation, he can avoid the commission making an official finding that Willingham’s conviction was based on junk science. But that conclusion is already evident thanks to fire investigator Craig Beyler’s report, so I don’t know how these moves do anything but bring more attention to the case. Which is just fine by me, of course.