Prosecutors in Texas are refusing to hand over key evidence gathered at a murder scene for DNA testing, even though lawyers for a man scheduled to be executed believe it might prove his innocence.
With days to go before Hank Skinner is due to die by lethal injection, his lawyers are battling to persuade the federal and state courts to intervene to delay the execution and force prosecutors to hand over the materials for testing. The legal fight over the items has already lasted a decade.
Skinner, 49, was put on death row in 1995 for murdering his girlfriend Twila Busby and her two adult sons. He has consistently maintained his innocence, saying that he was virtually unconscious on the night of the murders, having consumed a mixture of vodka and codeine.
SUPREME COURT
The dispute over the untested items has already reached the top of the US judicial system once. In March last year, the US Supreme Court ordered Skinner’s death to be delayed when he was 35 minutes away from being executed.
Then in March this year, the same panel ruled that Skinner had the right to sue through the lower courts for the items to be released for DNA testing.
Despite that ruling and a new law that took effect in Texas on Sept. 1 designed to make DNA testing more readily available in serious criminal cases, the chief prosecutor in Texas, Greg Abbott, proceeded to push for a new execution date. It was duly set for Wednesday next week.
Last week, 17 top Texan legal figures and politicians — including a former governor, judges, former prosecutors, senior police officers and state senators — sent a joint letter to Abbott and Texas Governor Rick Perry, who is running to be the Republican presidential candidate. Skinner’s death would be the 237th execution under Perry’s governorship.
INDIFFERENCE
The letter accused the state of showing “official indifference to the possibility of error” in the case and criticized its “stubborn refusal to test all the evidence.”
One of the signatories, Sam Millsap, said prosecutors were under a duty to see justice done and should be leading the fight to encourage DNA testing, rather than resisting it.
“I have no idea whether Skinner committed these murders, but that’s why I want these items to be DNA tested so that we can be certain,” he said.
DITCH TACTICS: Kenyan officers were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch suspected to have been deliberately dug by Haitian gang members A Kenyan policeman deployed in Haiti has gone missing after violent gangs attacked a group of officers on a rescue mission, a UN-backed multinational security mission said in a statement yesterday. The Kenyan officers on Tuesday were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch “suspected to have been deliberately dug by gangs,” the statement said, adding that “specialized teams have been deployed” to search for the missing officer. Local media outlets in Haiti reported that the officer had been killed and videos of a lifeless man clothed in Kenyan uniform were shared on social media. Gang violence has left
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including
RSS