"Hearing to Look at DNA Evidence in Skinner Case," is by Brandi Grissom for the Texas Tribune.
Lawyers for death row inmate Hank Skinner will tell a Gray County district court judge on Monday that had a 1995 jury seen the results of more than 100 DNA tests conducted since his conviction, it would not have sentenced their client to die.
Across the courtroom, state prosecutors will argue that the same DNA tests confirm Skinner’s guilt in the 1993 New Year’s Eve slaying of Twila Busby, his live-in girlfriend, and her two sons.
After more than a decade of fighting over DNA testing and nearly two years of analysis of two-decade-old biological material, evidence that Skinner says should prove his innocence will be the focus of court proceedings. Skinner, 51, has maintained that he was too inebriated from a mixture of vodka and codeine on the night of the crime to stab, strangle and beat the victims to death.
Prosecutors from the Texas attorney general’s office agreed in 2012 to allow DNA testing in the case after years of fighting the requests. From 2012 to 2013, Texas Department of Public Safety laboratories conducted 188 DNA tests on 40 pieces of evidence, including fingernail clippings, a knife used in the murders, doorknobs, clothing and furniture. More than half of the tests, though, produced no usable results. One DPS analyst reported that many items had been stored haphazardly during the 18 years between the crime and testing and showed damage from rodents or insects.
AP coverage is, "Death row inmate hopes DNA will exonerate him," via the Longview News-Journal.
Forensic and DNA experts began testifying Monday at a hearing that could lead to the exoneration of a death row inmate convicted in the 1993 slaying of three people in the Texas Panhandle.
Attorneys for the state of Texas say in court documents that DNA present at the crime scene confirms that 52-year-old Hank Skinner is guilty. Defense attorneys contend more sophisticated DNA test results collected by an independent lab present doubts about Skinner’s guilt “too weighty” to allow his execution.
Each side will submit written arguments after the hearing. The judge will later release his findings.
"Defense rests in Skinner hearing," by Jim McBride in the Amarillo Globe-News.
The defense rested its case Monday in Hank Skinner’s evidentiary hearing after a judge ruled a key witness could not testify.
District Judge Steven Emmert ruled that the defense could not offer testimony from a neighbor of a relative of one of the victims of the 1993 triple homicide for which Skinner was found guilty and sentenced to die.
Robert Owen, one of Skinner’s attorneys, said the neighbor was prepared to testify that she frequently saw Robert Donnell wearing a windbreaker that was found next to the body of Twila Busby, Skinner’s ex-girlfriend.
The defense contends that Donnell, Busby’s uncle, killed her and her two sons on New Year’s Eve 1993 in Pampa.
Emmert ruled that the neighbor could not testify because her testimony exceeded the scope of the hearing that was established by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals.
"Expert witness for Skinner defense claims evidence degraded over time while stored in plastic bags," is by Dennis Palmitier and Timothy P. Howsare for the Pampa News.
Defense attorneys representing Hank Skinner, the death-row inmate convicted for murdering Twila Busby and her two sons in 1993, said during an evidentiary hearing Monday morning that had all DNA evidence from the crime scene been properly stored and tested, their client might have been acquitted.
Skinner, now in his early 50s, has been on death row in Texas longer than any other inmate. He also is the inmate who has cost taxpayers the most money. The combined costs of his incarceration and legal proceedings has exceeded more than $2 million.
In testimony Monday morning, an expert witness for the defense said that evidence from the crime scene was stored in plastic bags. Julie Heinig, PhD, testified that samples in plastic bags can break down over time and create contamination, such as mold. She concluded that samples in the Skinner case degraded since 1994 and questioned the validity of the DNA tests performed by the Department of Safety Crime Lab in Lubbock in 2012.
Earlier coverage of Hank Skinner's case begins at the link.
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