Radley Balko posted, "Hank Skinner Scheduled for Execution Tomorrow," yesterday afternoon at his Hit & Run blog at Reason.
As noted earlier today, tonight I'll be moderating a panel that will discuss the case of Cameron Todd Willingham, the Texas man executed in 2006 who critics say was innocent.
Coincidentally, unless the U.S. Supreme Court or Texas Gov. Rick Perry intervene, Texas will execute Henry "Hank" Skinner tomorrow. The Medill Innocence Project has raised serious questions about Skinner's guilt. In Skinner's case, there is untested crime scene DNA evidence that could either confirm his guilt, strongly suggest his innocence, or call his guilt enough into doubt to merit halting his execution. For eight years, prosecutors have refused to allow the evidence to be tested, and have to this point been backed by both Texas and federal appeals courts.
I wrote about Skinner's case last month.
At CounterPunch, Dave Lindorff posts, "Texas Set to Execute Another Possibly Innocent Man."
The bloody-minded, death-obsessed state of Texas, which has already demonstrably executed at least one innocent man, Cameron Todd Willingham (who was falsely accused and ultimately killed by the state for the alleged arson “murder” of his two little children when in fact they’d died because of a fire caused by an electrical fault), may be about to execute yet another innocent man.
This time it’s Hank Skinner, 47, a man who has spent 16 years on the state’s busy death row protesting his innocence in the 1993 New Year’s Eve murder of his girlfriend, Twila Busby, and her two sons, aged 20 and 22.
The thing about Skinner’s case is it would be relatively easy to prove whether or not he was really the killer of the three. There are two bloody knives that have never been tested for Skinner’s DNA--or for the DNA of Twila’s uncle, the man who had reportedly made several unwanted sexual advances at her earlier that evening, leading her to leave a party early, and who Skinner claims is the real killer. Nor was semen that was found on Twila Busby, who was raped, or skin found under her fingernails, ever DNA tested to see who they belonged to.
And:
To take action on this outrageous case, and call on Gov. Perry to grant Skinner’s reasonable request to have the evidence in his case DNA tested, go here to write to Gov. Perry.
Liliana Segura posts, "With DNA Still Untested, Texas Prisoner Hank Skinner Scheduled to Die Tonight," at AlterNet.
Skinner sits on death row for the 1993 murder of his girlfriend, Twila Jean Busby, and her two adult sons, who were stabbed to death on New Years Eve. Subsequent investigations into his case, however, have revealed alarming evidence that Skinner could be innocent of the crime. (Read about the case in detail here.)“In more than twenty years of investigating and researching possible wrongful convictions, I have rarely seen a case this circumstantial and shaky in which the prisoner was actually guilty,” says Medill Innocence Project Director David Protess.
Many Texans share his alarm.
“The state’s determination to execute Hank Skinner tomorrow should make even death-penalty supporters go pale,” the Dallas Morning News wrote in an editorial yesterday.
And:
Unfortunately, as we have seen again and again and again and again, Rick Perry has never let concerns over innocence get in the way of a good execution. With 212 executions under his belt, killing Hank Skinner tonight will be business as usual.
At True/Slant, Steve Weinberg posts, "Will the state of Texas execute an innocent man?"
The Skinner case from Texas is omnipresent in news coverage this week. Will the state of Texas execute a Death Row inmate who has proclaimed his innocence, and who has persuaded lots of smart people that a wrongful conviction occurred? Or will Texas uphold the standard of finality woven in to the fabric of the criminal justice system? Finality proclaims that after a jury and judge have spoken, it’s time to close the case and move on to so many others needing attention.
Learning about any criminal prosecution in depth usually takes months or years for a conscientious journalist. The files proliferate, and the information is often contradictory. I lack that huge amount of time to study the Skinner conviction before his Wednesday execution–a dying date for sure unless the United States Supreme Court intervenes.
I (and others who study the causes of wrongful convictions) can offer Texas officials simple advice, however, if they want to halt the death penalty machinery and commission an in-depth review of the Skinner conviction.
Earlier coverage begins with the preceding post. More on the panel that Radley Balko moderated last night is here.
Comments