Advances in forensics, commonly used for years now involving DNA evidence, are now expanding into the area of arson. This scientific development could give certain criminals convicted of starting fires new grounds to challenge their sentences.

 

In one case, Michael Webb, a death row prisoner in Ohio found guilty of burning down his house in 1990, and in the process killing his family in order to collect the insurance, is appealing his conviction on grounds that new scientific evidence can prove the fire started in a different part of the home, which if true could indicate someone else was the arsonist.

 

In another case in California, George Souliotes, a Modesto landlord convicted of killing three tenants by setting fire to their rental home in 1997, is awaiting the results of an appeal partially based on the testimony of fire scientists who say that the fire patterns and forensic evidence used 15 years ago have since been discounted and that the fire could have been electrical.

 

Among the arson assumptions that are no longer accepted are that if a fire was particularly hot it must be because gasoline of some other accelerant was used; and that a V-shaped pattern on a wall was proof of arson.

-David Wallechinsky, Noel Brinkerhoff

Ohio Parole Board Rejects Mercy for Condemned Killer Who Says New Arson Science Could Free Him (by Andrew Welsh-Huggins, Associated Press)