47-year-old Hank Skinner is supposed to be dead.
Skinner says he calmly ate what he thought would be his last meal last Wednesday, having come to terms with the fact he was being sentenced to death for a crime he says he hadn't committed. "I wasn't scared to die, I was scared of the chemicals."
Skinner says he enjoyed his meal that other inmates had prepared. "I had 3 pieces of popeye style fried chicken, 2 double bacon cheeseburgers, 2 catfish filets, a large order of fries, ranch dressing, tartar sauce, a bowl full of shredded cheese, 3 boiled eggs and bowl of bacon bits and a milkshake," said Skinner.
He says he called all his friends and family and saved one last call for his attorney, Robert Owens, who told him he had pretty good timing. "He said this is not official yet but we just got word from the U.S. Supreme Court that they granted you a stay."
Skinner says it came as a shock. "I just kind of slid down the wall and dropped the phone."
Skinner still has a long way to go. The Supreme Court will meet in private quarters within the next month or so to decide whether Skinner can ask the state to have DNA, never before tested in the case, processed.
If that fails, he can still ask the Governor for a 30-day stay. "I hope they agree to hear this case so we can get this evidence tested and I can get out of here," says Skinner.
Skinner was sentenced to death in 1995 when a jury found him guilty of killing his then live-in girlfriend Twila Busby and her 2 mentally disabled sons on New Years Eve 1993 in the panhandle town of Pampa.
According to toxicology tests, Skinner had taken a near lethal mixture of alcohol, Xanax and codeine. Skinner says he and Busby began drinking early and he was too inebriated to go to a New Year's Eve party, so a friend picked her up.
He says Busby's real killer, her uncle Robert Donnell, was at the party. Skinner says Donnell and Busby had an incestuous relationship despite Busby's relenting and believed he was upset with Busby over her relationship with him and followed her back to the house where he raped, strangled and beat her over the head more than a dozen times with an axe handle.
Skinner says DNA from things like Busby's rape kit, the knives, a bloody towel and a windbreaker found near the body were never tested. "I never touched any of it."
Skinner says Donnell is dead now and could never account for and was never asked to account for his whereabouts that night. He said he was framed and if the state would just conduct the DNA tests he would be clear. "You know, they offered me three life sentences? I turned them down. I wasn't going to plea to something I didn't do."
He says Texas is 'blood thirsty' and said the Texas legal system is shoddy, particularly in the state's small towns. "District attorneys make their reputations on these death penalty cases, so when it becomes a political football its convict at all costs whatever you gotta do to 'get 'er done.'"
The Innocence Project tells CBS 11 that 252 nationwide have been exonerated with DNA testing since 1989. 40 of them have been from Texas, 20 of those come from Dallas County where Dallas County District Attorney Craig Watkins has launched the Texas Innocence Project.
Skinner says DNA testing is crucial in these cases and believes as many as 10 % of the men he's met on death row could be innocent. He says he holds out hope the Supreme Court and the state will do the right thing and fix the errors that led to his conviction. "I am locked in a box, I can't do anything about it, I can't do nothing but sit and wait."
Source: CBS News, April 1, 2010
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