About a year ago, the notorious Judge Charlie Baird in Austin, Texas was proceeding with a patently illegal "court of inquiry" on the Willingham matter.  As explained in this post, the proceeding was illegal on at least three grounds.  The most important of these was that the Texas Legislature had enacted legislation specifically to prevent judge-shopping in these matters.  The law required Baird, if he thought a court of inquiry was warranted, to refer the case to the presiding judge for assignment.  Yet Baird and the Innocence Project were charging ahead anyway.  When you are on an anti-death-penalty crusade, you see, compliance with the law is optional, as is honesty.

Baird and the Innocence Project probably expected that no one would oppose them.  The DA no longer had a tangible interest in the case, as the judgment was carried out long ago.  They could present half-truths to their hand-picked favorite judge, who would then pronounce Willingham innocent and wrongly executed despite all the nonforensic evidence confirming guilt.

Well, they were wrong, as also explained in the prior post. 

Now, Janet Jacobs reports in the Corsicana Daily Sun, "Lowell Thompson, Navarro County District Attorney, was honored by his peers at the Texas District and County Attorneys Association conference last week in Corpus Christi with the Lone Star Award for his work on the Willingham case."  Congratulations on a recognition well earned.