Is Texas about to Execute an Innocent Man?

[The Straight Story]

Is Texas about to Execute an Innocent Man?


Henry Watkins “Hank” Skinner is scheduled to be executed on March 24 in Texas for the New Year’s Eve 1993 murders of his girlfriend and her two grown sons. But Northwestern University Journalism School’s Medill Innocence Project contends there are enough holes in the Skinner case to ask for a postponement of his execution until DNA tests can be run on blood and other evidence collected at the scene of the crimes.

Skinner was in the Pampa, Texas, house where Twila Busby and her children were found bludgeoned and stabbed to death. Skinner contends he was unconscious at the time of the murders after consuming vodka and codeine. His conviction rested largely on the facts that he was present at the crime scene, had small spots of blood from two of the three victims on his shirt, and his neighbor and ex-girlfriend, Andrea Reed, testified that he admitted his guilt to her.

Reed recanted her testimony in 1997, later telling the Medill Innocence Project she was pressured by police and prosecutors into fingering Skinner for the murders. Furthermore, DNA evidence lifted from the crime scene—including blood off the murder weapons, skin taken from under Busby’s fingernails and a rape test kit—have never been tested by a forensics laboratory.

Supporters of Skinner urge that a lab examine the DNA evidence before it’s too late. But Texas officials have refused to do so.

Chromosomal Laboratories in Phoenix, Arizona, has even offered to analyze the DNA for free.

http://www.allgov.com/Controversies/ViewNews/Is_Texas_about_to_Execute_an_Innocent_Man_100322

[Xenotime]

1. We need to stop Texas from doing this.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

2. Maybe they're especially giddy to execute this guy because of the surname? -nt

[sharp_stick]

3. Fucking Texas

I am convinced that Texas has executed several innocent men. The worst thing about it is that there is next to nobody in that State that seems to give a shit.

I know some great people in Texas but that State is a backward ass shithole, we should give it back to Mexico.

[Tesha]

4. 'Wouldn't be the first time. :-( (NT)

[HopeHoops]

5. Wouldn't be the first time - or the last.

[RaleighNCDUer]

6. Again?

do they ever execute anyone who is NOT innocent?

[patrice]

7. If people can stop HC for others on the grounds of Concientious Objection to Abortion, why can't we

make Concientious Objection to our tax dollars going to Capital Punishment?

[struggle4progress]

8. "... Earlier this week, a new scientific report by one of the leading experts in the field of

toxicology revealed that Skinner's incapacity at the time of the murders was more severe than originally believed. Dr. Harold Kalant, an M.D. and Ph.D., reviewed the tests of Skinner's blood levels and concluded that a moderate drinker with that much alcohol and codeine would "almost certainly be comatose, and in some cases be near death or even dead." Even a heavier drinker like Skinner "would not be able to assess correctly where he was...would be very confused and badly impaired, and would have difficulty standing or walking in a coordinated manner."

This latest finding is consistent with Andrea Reed's observation of Skinner when he entered her home after the murders: "He was falling into the walls and stuff. He was staggering, falling into stuff," she said in the taped interview.

Other residents of Pampa told the student-journalists in videotaped interviews that the more likely perpetrator was Robert Donnell, Twila's uncle. Donnell had been “hitting on” his niece at a New Year’s Eve party shortly before the slayings. Rebuffing his advances, she left the party frightened, her uncle following behind, according to the witnesses. (A close friend of Twila’s said she confided to being raped by her uncle in the past.)

The day after the crime, another witness claimed to have seen Donnell scrubbing the interior of his pick-up truck, removing the rubber floorboards and replacing the carpeting. Perhaps most telling, a windbreaker just like the one the uncle often wore was found at the scene – directly next to his niece’s body. The jacket was covered with human hairs and sweat ..."

Will Texas Soon Execute Another Innocent Man? Our Reporting Challenges Verdict As Clock Ticks
http://www.medillinnocenceproject.org/skinner

[JohnyCanuck]

9. kick n/t

[deedee77]

10. A lot of people I know want the DNA test done

not doing it is just laziness. A mans life is at stake, every avenue that could prove innocence should be taken.

[branders seine]

11. usually. pretty much guaranteed at any given moment.