"Death date is set," is the report in the Martinsville Bulletin. It's written by Amanda Buck.
A new execution date has been set for a former Henry County man who is on death row in Texas.
Henry Watkins “Hank” Skinner, 49, was sentenced to the death penalty in 1995 for the murder of his girlfriend and her two adult sons in their home in Pampa, Texas. According to the website of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, Skinner is set to be executed Nov. 9 for those crimes.
This is not the first execution date for Skinner, who attended Fieldale-Collinsville High School. He was less than an hour away from execution in March 2010 when the U.S. Supreme Court halted the sentence and agreed to hear a matter in Skinner’s case.
In March of this year, the justices ruled that Skinner had the right to sue a Texas district attorney under a federal civil rights law for refusing to allow him access to evidence for DNA testing.
And:
According to one of Skinner’s attorneys, Washington, D.C.-based Douglas Robinson, the civil case still is pending in federal court in the Northern District of Texas Amarillo Division. Robinson said Switzer has asked the court to dismiss the case on different grounds, but the court has not yet ruled on that request.
Robinson said he believes the new execution date is “an effort to put pressure on the federal court to act quickly.”
Earlier coverage of Hank Skinner's case begins at the link
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