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Man walks off death row: 'I'm not bitter' HUNTSVILLE, Texas - After 17 years as a condemned man, Ernest Willis walked off death row Wednesday afternoon, slightly dazed but free. Free not only of locks and bars and armed guards, but amazingly free of bitterness after being imprisoned for a crime authorities now say he didn't commit. "I knew it would come eventually," said Mr. Willis, 59, who was sentenced to death in 1987 after prosecutors convinced a jury that he set a fire that killed two women in the West Texas town of Iraan. "It's been too long a coming." In 2000, The Dallas Morning News examined 461 capital cases, finding nearly one in four condemned inmates had been represented at trial or on appeal by court-appointed attorneys who have been disciplined at some point in their careers. Ernest Willis' case was a part of that research. Mr. Willis said he was at a loss for words, but "I'm not bitter. I think what goes around comes around. The people that knew I was innocent to start with, they'll get theirs. Everything comes home." Waiting for him outside the prison unit was the woman he married by proxy four years ago to the day but had never touched. They embraced and shared their first kiss before he turned to reporters and said, "This is what kept me going." When Mr. Willis, a disabled oilfield worker, entered prison, he was perceived as a killer with "cold fish eyes" responsible for the deaths of Gail Jo Allison, 25, and Elizabeth "Betsy" Belue, 26. Today he is regarded as a victim of overzealous prosecutors and an ineffective defense team - someone lucky to have escaped the ultimate wrath of the Texas criminal justice system. "He's a big teddy bear," said James Blank, a New York intellectual property attorney who is on the team of lawyers representing Mr. Willis. "I think that's been everybody's impression who's ever interacted with him. "I don't think he's bitter at all," said Mr. Blank, who said he was disappointed to have missed Mr. Willis' release but was journeying to Texas to celebrate with him. "It amazes me that he isn't. He's just not that type of person." Mr. Willis was convicted of setting the deadly fire solely on the basis of circumstantial evidence. The case - chronicled by The Dallas Morning News in 2000 - worked its way through the system for years. That year, the state district judge who presided over the case recommended Mr. Willis receive a new trial because of ineffective assistance of counsel and the fact that the state gave him anti-psychotic medication for back pain, which prevented him from working with his attorney. One of Mr. Willis' attorneys, who surrendered his law license several years later after being sentenced to probation on a cocaine charge, apparently expended little effort on his behalf. His two attorneys spent a total of three hours with Mr. Willis before his trial, according to the earlier News report. They did not consult him at all before the punishment phase and called no character witnesses to testify on his behalf. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals rejected those claims, however, as well as the recommendation for a new trial. But in July of this year, a federal judge overturned Mr. Willis' conviction, saying prosecutors concealed evidence, including a psychological report that he was not dangerous. The judge also determined that the drugs had made Mr. Willis unable to help his attorney. After the federal court ruling, Ori White, the Pecos County district attorney since 1997, conducted his own investigation and decided to drop the charges. "The decision as far as I was concerned was very easy," Mr. White said. New scientific information in arson analysis convinced him that the fire was accidental. "I am totally convinced he did not commit the crime." Had Mr. Willis been executed, "that would have been a terrible miscarriage of justice," Mr. White said. "The fact is, he did not get executed, and I thank God for that." Mr. Willis was sitting in a cubicle behind a plastic window Wednesday, talking on a phone with his wife on the other side, when word came that he was being released immediately. "It really didn't sink in until I walked out that door," he said. Mr. Willis wiped away an occasional tear and had to fight to control his emotions while talking with reporters. Mr. Willis met his wife, Verilyn, through her brother Ricky McGinn, who was executed in 2000 for the rape-slaying of his 12-year-old stepdaughter. "He took [my] brother in like a daddy," Mrs. Willis said. "They became best friends." Mrs. Willis said Mr. Willis "had already been proven innocent four years ago when I met him," but she wasn't sure he would ever be set free. "We were wishing, but wishing was about as far as it went," Mrs. Willis said. The marriage was not the only good that came out of his incarceration. "It does make a better person out of you," he said. "Even the real coldhearted guys that come down there, you know. Everyone has a little spot in their heart." Mr. Willis said he wants "a good clean life. I mean being in a place like that makes you a better person all the way around. I used to drink and carouse and stuff like that. But I'll never touch another drop." Mr. Willis, who had no prior record, was given $100, 10 days of medication, and the plaid shirt, green pants and white running shoes he had on. He said he felt people would give him a second chance. "I believe so, because I was proven innocent," he said. "If I'd have gotten out on a technicality, that would have been a whole lot different, but I walked out an innocent man." Mrs. Willis, who lives in Mississippi, said the couple would not live in the Lone Star State. "We're not going to stay in Texas, and we're not going to live in Mississippi," she said. "I have two houses, and as soon as they sell, we're gone." Jim Marcus, an attorney with the Texas Defender Service, said Mr. Willis was lucky. "The question is not how could this happen, but how often does this happen?" he said. "Not everybody is fortunate like Ernest Willis was to have the quality legal representation [on appeal]. And it makes you wonder about those cases ... where the attorneys are conducting no independent investigation at all." Death penalty supporters said the case shows the system works. "It's a black eye against the system," said Dudley Sharp, a victims' rights advocate, but "it also recognizes that the district attorney in this case would do the right thing. All systems make mistakes. It's a real tragedy for Mr. Willis and his family, and I'm glad the district attorney did the right thing." Mr. Willis' family members, many of whom live outside Texas, kept the phone lines busy Wednesday calling one another. "I am so happy he is getting out," said Jean Pitner, a cousin who lives in Cyril, Okla. "I was scared to death they were going to kill him." Ms. Pitner said Mr. Willis' mother, who lived in New Mexico before passing away several years ago, never stopped believing in her son's innocence. "She will never know he got out," Ms. Pitner said. "But she always knew he was innocent. We all did. If we could have afforded a good lawyer, this would have never happened." Bernice Willis, Mr. Willis' sister-in-law, said she and her husband, who live in Odessa, visited Mr. Willis in prison over the years. She called him a "good guy" who endured years of setbacks in his case. "It has been sheer torture on the whole family," she said. "It was like the whole family was sentenced to 17 years."
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