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| Henry "Hank" Skinner |
Hank Skinner has been pleading with the state since 2001 — to no avail — to test DNA evidence he believes will prove his innocence. On Wednesday, he is scheduled to walk into the execution chamber in Huntsville to face the ultimate punishment for three murders that he maintains he did not commit.
“I have never had a case where we had to fight 10 years to get DNA tests,” said Nina Morrison, senior staff attorney at the Innocence Project, who has worked on hundreds of cases. “This kind of protracted litigation is extremely rare these days.”
As the Texas Legislature has expanded access to post-conviction DNA testing — since the original law was passed in 2001, legislators have loosened restrictions to DNA testing three more times — Mr. Skinner has filed new appeals. Each time, he has been rebuffed. Now, for the fourth time, he is on the verge of execution. He is awaiting a court decision on whether the most recent law, passed earlier this year, will be applied to him.
The 2001 law spelled out conditions under which inmates could get access to testing and established rules requiring law enforcement to preserve DNA evidence. Opponents, including some prosecutors and prison officials, worried that it would cause a flood of inmates to file requests. To address that concern, lawmakers adopted strict standards that required inmates to demonstrate not only that the results of DNA tests would prove their innocence but also would have prevented their being prosecuted.
Source: The New York Times, November 5, 2011
Texas Gov. Rick Perry urged to stay execution, allow for DNA testing
More than 120,000 people have signed an online petition calling for Texas Gov. Rick Perry to halt the execution of convicted murderer Hank Skinner to allow for the testing of DNA evidence that Skinner says could exonerate him.
Many of those who signed the petition on Change.org -- more than 85,000 -- added their names Thursday after a Texas judge ruled against the DNA testing.
"We urge you to uphold the very standards you are promoting as part of a very much needed criminal justice reform and we ask you to demand the withdrawal of the execution warrant and that DNA testing be granted to Mr. Skinner in the best possible time," the petition says. "We trust you to do the right thing for justice and for the truth in Texas, before it is too late."
"While Texas Gov. Rick Perry is on the campaign trail, Hank Skinner awaits execution on Nov. 9 for a crime he says he didn't commit -- a crime where evidence has gone untested for DNA for more than a decade," Gilles Denizot, who launched the petition, told the New York Daily News.
"This is a mockery of justice," Denizot said.
In addition to the Change.org petition, a group of current and former Texas lawmakers, judges, police officers and even former governor Mark White sent Perry a letter last month urging him to suspend the execution pending the DNA test results.
Source: Los Angeles Times, November 4, 2011
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Nov 05, 2011
William Sessions, the former Director of the FBI, and Mark White, former Governor of Texas, called on Texas to delay the November 9 execution of Hank Skinner and allow access to untested DNA evidence. Skinner, who has...
Texas man on death row has 'no illusions': wife
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| Sandrine and Hank Skinner Polunsky Unit, Texas |
Texas death row inmate Hank Skinner, set to be executed Wednesday, has "no illusions" about his fate despite pending appeals, his French wife said Saturday.
Anti-death penalty activist Sandrine Ageorges, who met and married Skinner while he was on death row in the 1990s, said her husband is "handling the situation quite well despite everything."
"He has no illusions about an overly politicized system to expect that the truth will carry the day," she told AFP in an email.
Ageorges said she is "realistic, and thus worried," adding that "the political dimension is taking over and that does not reassure me at all."
Skinner's fate depends in part on Texas Governor Rick Perry, who is running for president while boasting of his support for capital punishment.
Texas courts have denied requests by Skinner's lawyers for DNA tests he claims would exonerate him.
Skinner was convicted of bludgeoning his girlfriend to death and fatally stabbing 2 of her children.
Barring a reprieve, his execution has been set for November 9.
Skinner has not denied being present in the home at the time of the killings but he has insisted that DNA collected at the site could clear him as a suspect in the 1993 crimes.
Texas has refused to carry out the tests on evidence found at the home ever since a jury convicted him in 1995. Skinner's attorneys are asking an appeals court to reconsider the request.
Skinner has maintained his innocence since the beginning. He has also enjoyed the support for 10 years of Northwestern University journalism professor David Protess, who has rerun the investigation with his students as part of the school's "innocence project."
Source: Agence France-Presse, November 6, 2011
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