"State Backs DNA Testing for Hank Skinner" is Brandi Grissom's post at the Texas Tribune.
Reversing its decade-long objection to testing that death row inmate Hank Skinner says could prove his innocence, the Texas Attorney General's office today filed an advisory with the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals seeking to test DNA in the case.
"Upon further consideration, the State believes that the interest of justice would best be served by DNA testing the evidence requested by Skinner and by testing additional items identified by the state," lawyers for the state wrote in the advisory.
Skinner, now 50, was convicted in 1995 of the strangulation and beating death of his girlfriend Twila Busby and the stabbing deaths of her two adult sons on New Year’s Eve 1993 in Pampa. Skinner maintains he is innocent and was unconscious on the couch at the time of the killings, intoxicated from a mixture of vodka and codeine.
And:
The advisory comes a month after that hearing before the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, in which the judges on the nine-member panel grilled attorneys for the state about their continued resistance to the testing even after a spate of DNA exonerations in Texas. In Texas, at least 45 inmates have been exonerated based on DNA evidence.
"You really ought to be absolutely sure before you strap a person down and kill him," Judge Michael Keasler said at the May hearing.
State Sen. Rodney Ellis, D-Houston, praised the Texas Attorney General's move on Friday. Legislators last year approved a bill that Ellis wrote amending the state's post-conviction DNA testing law to allow for such analysis in cases like Skinner's. Under the measure, inmates can obtain testing even in instances where they had the chance to test the DNA at trial but did not do so and in cases where the DNA was tested previously but new technology allows for more advanced testing.
The AP filing is, "DNA testing allowed for Texas death row inmate," by Nomaan Merchant. It's via the Austin American-Statesman.
A man condemned for the New Year's Eve slayings of his girlfriend and her two sons will get new DNA testing after the Texas attorney general's office on Friday withdrew its objections.
Hank Skinner was sentenced to death and once came within an hour of execution for the 1993 slayings of Twila Busby and her two grown sons in Pampa, in the Texas Panhandle. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals granted its last stay of execution Nov. 7.
Prosecutors had consistently dismissed Skinner's request for DNA testing as a ploy to delay his execution. They reversed course Friday in a one-paragraph advisory filed with the Court of Criminal Appeals.
"Upon further consideration, the State believes that the interest of justice would best be served in this case by DNA testing the evidence requested by Skinner and by testing additional items identified by the State," prosecutors said.
A spokesman for Attorney General Greg Abbott did not say what led to his office's new stance on testing.
Skinner, 50, has acknowledged being inside the house where Busby and her sons were found. But he insists he couldn't be the killer because he was passed out on a couch from a mix of vodka and cocaine.
"Skinner Will Get DNA Testing," by Jordan Smith for the Austin Chronicle.
The decision comes almost a exactly a month after Solicitor General Jonathan Mitchell argued before the Court of Criminal Appeals that Skinner should be denied the ability to test key evidence – including a bloody windbreaker stained with sweat with two hairs clinging to it that was found near Busby's body. The problem, Mitchell argued in part, was that to allow Skinner access to testing would only incentivize other defendants charged with capital murder to forgo evidence testing at trial in order to further post-conviction appeals. To put it mildly, Mitchell's arguments before the CCA were unpersuasive, and court observers said they believed a CCA ruling in Skinner's favor was more than likely.
But the AG's office has cut that process short by agreeing today that Skinner should be able to submit for DNA analysis the previously untested evidence. "Until now, the State has opposed Skinner's request for DNA testing and argued to affirm the trial court's ruling on appeal," reads the AG's court filing. "Upon further consideration, the State believes that the interest of justice would best be served in this case by DNA testing the evidence requested by Skinner and by testing additional items identified by the State."
The Amarillo Globe-News reports, "Texas AG agrees to test Skinner evidence." It's by Aziza Musa.
Skinner's attorney, Rob Owen, issued this statement:
In response to the filing, the following is a statement from Rob Owen, attorney for Hank Skinner and Visiting Clinical Professor, Northwestern University School of Law:
“For more than ten years, Mr. Skinner has been fighting to have key items of evidence in his case subjected to DNA testing. We are pleased that the State finally appears willing to work with us to make that testing a reality.
“It will be necessary, of course, to work out the details of any such testing with the State, in order to ensure that the evidence is carefully and properly handled, and that every piece of evidence that we have identified as important gets tested.
“In 2000, the State squandered an opportunity to pursue full and fair DNA testing when it excluded Mr. Skinner's legal team from any role in such decisions. Texans expect accuracy in this death penalty case, and the procedures to be employed must ensure their confidence in the outcome. To that end, all determinations about how and by whom the evidence will be handled and tested must be entirely transparent, with both parties involved at every step.
“We look forward to cooperating with the State to achieve this DNA testing as promptly as possible.”
Owen is a Visiting Clinical Professor at Northwestern School of Law, and Co-Director of the Capital Punishment Center at UT Law.
The Texas Attorney General's Advisory filed with the Court of Criminal Appeals is available in Adobe .pdf format.
Earlier coverage of Hank Skinner's case begins at the link.
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