On Tuesday, April 2, 2013, Louis Taylor is expected to plead no contest to the 1970 fire in the Pioneer Hotel in Tuscon, Arizona that resulted in the death of 29 people. In exchange, after 42 years, Mr. Taylor will be released from prison. Attorneys argued in October of last year, "When the facts and opinions expressed by the investigators in 1970 are analyzed using current fire investigation science and technology, this fire would not be classified as incendiary."
To obtain Mr. Taylor's original conviction, the state offered as evidence two points of origin for the fire - an indication the fire wasn't accidental. Additionally, fire investigator Cyrillis W. Holmes Jr. relied on 'depth of char' to determine the fire was arson, not accident. While Mr. Holmes testified at trial that he believed an accelerant was used, lab tests failed to support this theory. In an all too familiar twist, prosecutors did not disclose to the defense the 6 lab tests all of which yielded a negative result for accelerant.
Marshall Smyth, a Tucson mechanical engineer and former insurance-company investigator, worked with Cyrillis Holmes in investigating the fire. He now states that he and Holmes "were like members of 'a black magic society' that in those days relied on untested assumptions about what indicated arson." Knowledge of how fires behave has advanced tremendously in the past 40 years. Mr. Smyth readily admits "I'm very sure that neither Cy Holmes nor I should have or could have said that it was arson at the time that we did. . . If that fire were to occur again today, there's no way, there's no way anyone could prove it was arson."
Cy Holmes does not agree. In October of 2006, the Arizona Daily Star reported, "today's advancements in fire science would not have changed [Holmes] conclusions at the Pioneer Hotel because he used scientific techniques long before they became accepted by the rest of the industry. 'As far as I'm concerned, the facts today are the same as they were then,' he said."
Mr. Holmes was deposed on the Taylor case in late 2012. He testified that after a walk through 10 days after the fire, he told the city council his initial conclusions. "I had indicated that I felt that the culprit was probably black. And that he was probably eighteen." Note: Mr. Taylor, a 16 year old African American male, was arrested hours after the fire.
When asked how he could determine the race of the arsonist, Mr. Holmes explained in his 2012 testimony, "Blacks at that point, um, their background, was the use of fire for beneficial purposes. In other words, they were used to clearing lands and um, doing clean up work and things like that. And fire was a tool. So it was just a tool for them. In other words, you’re comfortable with it. And if they get mad at somebody, the first thing they do is use something they’re comfortable with. Fire was one of them."
Scientific technique used long before his colleagues? Science?
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