“The whole world knows I’m innocent.”
--Louis C. Taylor
In what way does overturning an apparent wrongful conviction after an individual has served some 42 years in prison, without allowing the one so convicted to seek corrective redress, an act of justice?
That is a question which many who have been following the case of 59-year-old Louis Cuen Taylor for years, and which others just learning about it, are asking after his recent release from the Arizona State Prison system. Taylor’s freedom came with the condition that he plead “no contest” to charges that he set fire to the historic Pioneer Hotel in Tucson, Arizona, on December 19, 1970. The blaze took the lives of 28 people (the number was first reported as 29 until investigators realized they had counted one victim twice).
Initial reports regarding Taylor’s whereabouts on that night place him at the scene helping others escape. Later reports characterize him as staring at the fire while it burned and responding incoherently when questioned by police (without the presence of a lawyer or parent). In response to the statement that he had several boxes of matches in his possession when first taken into custody, Taylor stated at a Tucson press conference on April 3, “The police gave me those matches and cigarettes too. I was a smoker.”
The one thing nearly every observer––whether prosecutor or defender–– of Taylor’s case agrees on at this point is that by today’s investigation standards and arson science, it would be impossible to convict him in a new trial. In addition, given the key witness Cy Holmes’ presumptuous statement that a black man around 18 years old had likely started the fire, based on nothing more than a stroll through the hotel more than a week later, it is difficult to rule out the element of racial bias in Taylor’s case.
Everybody on the Same Analytical Page
While prosecutors have maintained that the “no contest” plea does not exonerate Taylor, neither have they been able to identify any kind of conclusive proof of his supposed guilt. Investigations by television’s 60 Minutes reporters in 2002 and 2013 along with those conducted by the Arizona Justice Project strongly indicate the fire may not have resulted from arson at all. Moreover, the December 21, 1970 editions of both the Ellensburg Daily Record and the Lodi News-Sentinel noted that The Pioneer Hotel, built in 1929, had been exempt from an ordinance requiring the installation of a fire warning system. As a result, battalion Fire Chief Robert Slagel stated the following:
“It is my opinion that if there had been adequate sprinkler systems and an alarm system, no one would have lost his life.”
The result instead was Taylor’s now oft repeated quote: “This is a tale of two tragedies, the [28] souls who died and me being convicted.”
Little has been said in regard to this case about the absence of something as crucial as a fire warning system in a major public facility. Is it possible the rush to convict 16-year-old Taylor, and the failed attempt to execute him, was to draw attention away from that fact and from those responsible for making that specific decision? There had been, after all, a number of fires in the area prior to the Pioneer Hotel tragedy and the installation of a state of the art fire warning system would seem to have been a given rather than a point of debate.
Similarly, in light of the developments that eventually led to Taylor’s release, many presumed the state of Arizona would have been eager to compensate him in some significant manner instead of blocking his ability to receive any such reparation. In a news release from the Innocence Project, which advocates for the release of convicted individuals whose innocence may be proved by DNA testing or other modern scientific methods, Co-Director Barry Scheck said, “This is a deeply troubling move by the County Attorney’s office, which should be seeking to investigate what went wrong in the case rather than forcing Mr. Taylor into a plea that precludes the opportunity to obtain civil liability against law enforcement.”
NEXT: Justice remains elusive in case of newly-freed Louis C. Taylor (part 2)
by Aberjhani
author of The River of Winged Dreams
and co-author of Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance
More on Louis C. Taylor, Justice in America, and Anti-racism
- Advances in Science of Fire Free a Convict after 42 Years
- Question Marks Over Conviction after Man is Released after 42 Years
- Arizona Justice Project on Facebook
- Innocence Project on YouTube
- Savannah Talks Troy Anthony Davis First Anniversary of the Execution
- Trayvon Martin, Robert Lee, and Millions of Tears Fallen Part 1
- Trayvon Martin, Robert Lee, and Millions of Tears Fallen Part 2
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