Texas Death Row Inmate Hank Skinner set to die next week wins reprieve

A man set to die next week for a triple slaying in the Texas Panhandle has had his execution date put off for a month.

47-year-old Henry Watkins Skinner (pictured) faced lethal injection Feb. 24 for the 1993 New Year's Eve killings of 40-year-old Twyla Jean Busby and her 2 grown sons at their trailer home in Pampa.

A state district judge in Gray County reset Skinner's date Tuesday to March 24 to resolve what lawyers said was a legal technicality with the original death warrant.

Skinner has maintained his innocence and is trying to get new DNA testing on crime scene evidence he says could exonerate him. Courts have refused his request over the years and he has taken the issue to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Read more about Mr. Skinner's case on this blog.

Actions for Hank Skinner:

Sign and send this online petition/email to the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles.

Write, call, fax or email your own letter to the Board of Pardons and Paroles and Texas Governor Rick Perry. Urge them to stay the execution to allow testing of DNA. In the subject line of your emails or in any letters to the Board of Pardons and Paroles, write "Attention Case of Hank Skinner #999143".

Hank Skinner is scheduled to be executed in Texas on March 24 for three murders he maintains he didn't commit. Several key pieces of biological evidence from the crime scene have not been tested. DNA testing could prove Skinner's innocence or confirm his guilt, but prosecutors are opposing Skinner's appeals and seeking to execute him.

Source: AP, Feb. 17, 2010