"Justice is about getting it right," is the editorial in today's Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
Maybe now there can be more certainty about who killed Twila Busby and her sons, Elwin Caler and Randy Busby, in their Pampa home on New Year's Eve 1993.
After years of being rebuffed in the courts, Henry W. "Hank" Skinner recently won a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that will allow him to try to get crime-scene evidence put through DNA testing.
If that testing yields conclusive results, it could shine light on whether Skinner was wrongly convicted, as he argues, or whether blood, hair and fingernail scrapings point to him as the killer.
And:
Skinner's case has drawn national attention for several reasons.
It tests the scope of the 2001 Texas law giving inmates limited access to DNA testing after they've been convicted.
And his appeals gained traction after students of Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism investigated his innocence claims and discovered, among other things, that a witness recanted her story, saying she'd been pressured by the prosecution. Skinner has said Busby's uncle was a likelier suspect, but he has since died.
Though courts have upheld Skinner's conviction and he was denied a clemency bid, the fact that not all available evidence was DNA tested raises doubts that analysis now could set to rest.
The justice system ultimately is about finding out the truth, to the extent that's possible, so perpetrators can be punished and victims can find closure. Finality shouldn't be just about getting it over -- but about getting it right.
Earlier coverage of Hank Skinner's case begins at the link. The Supreme Court opinion in Skinner v. Switzer is in Adobe .pdf format.
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