 Texas Execution Chamber
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Henry Watkins “Hank” Skinner was supposed to be executed tomorrow, but last Tuesday a Gray County, Texas, District Court judge pushed the date back one month, to March 24. Skinner has been on Death Row in Texas since 1993, awaiting execution for the murder of his girlfriend and her two sons. He has maintained his innocence since his arrest, and investigators from the Northwestern University Journalism School’s Medill Innocence Project have shot numerous holes in the prosecution’s case. But Texas officials refuse to conduct a simple DNA test that could point to the condemned man’s innocence or cement his guilt.
Skinner’s scheduled lethal injection comes shortly after Texas Gov. Rick Perry has removed sympathetic panelists from the state forensic committee’s investigation into the case of Cameron Todd Willingham and replaced them with panelists critics say are stymieing the investigation. Willingham was executed in 2003 for murdering his three daughters by setting fire to his house. Nine arson experts and an investigation published in the New Yorker last year have since made a strong case that Willingham was innocent of the crime.
Prosecutors do not like to be proven wrong.
Thanks Cináedh.
A society as sanitary as the USA has difficulty with basic human waste disposal issues as execution. Too much noise and anger. Too much rhetoric and spin. Too much abuse of compassion. Too much manipulation of rhetoric. Too much correctness. Too much silent anguish. Tried and convicted. Flipped off his family. Execute him. Put his head on a pole. Put it on YouTube. Get it over with.
Let me see if I have the gist of the pro-death penalty anti-DNA testing crowd’s argument:
KILL ‘EM ALL AND LET GOD SORT ‘EM OUT!!! IMMEDIATELY!!!
That about it?
Notice no one is asking what would be tested for DNA or how it would potentially exonerate Skinner…
The items to be tested would not prove someone else murdered Twila and her disabled sons, it might at best prove that at some point in time, her uncle (the alleged “real killer”) had been in her home. A poorly-cleaned home, in which the presence of the uncle’s hair, or Skinner’s hair, means nothing.
Rabbit trails and red herrings. Last minute claims of innocence. Horse hockey.
The line is better that 10 guilty persons escape than one innocent suffer.
@Uncle Patso
The guy was convicted by a jury and received a fair trial in our legal system. All of this is just second guessing.
These second guessings occur with just about every inmate that is about to be executed, plead to the emotion and gloss over any strong facts that pointed to the accused of being guilty.
Generally, it isn’t that easy to get a death sentence in a murder trial, even in Texas, and the level of doubt in the mind of the jury has to be very low for it to occur.
@Greg Allen
“Ultimately, I see capital punishment as an offense to civilized society. Obviously, others don’t agree with me.”
I don’t see much of a difference between a death sentence and life in prison, personally.
Life in prison is the same a death sentence, just with a longer wait for natural causes.
It doesn’t matter to me whether or not there is a death penalty, as I view life in prison as the same thing with a longer waiting period, but I am against second guessing the results of criminal jury trials on hazy and thin evidence by armchair quarterbacks.
You, me, everyone in this thread, those budding law student wannabees at Northwestern all have far less information and facts than the people that actually served in the jury.
#36 I don’t see much of a difference between a death sentence and life in prison, personally.
Uh dude… try un-executing someone once they find out he was really innocent.
You obviously haven’t read some of the stories of the unjustly condemned men. Incompetent defense lawyers, dishonest police and DAs, etc.
#36 “You, me, everyone in this thread, those budding law student wannabees at Northwestern all have far less information and facts than the people that actually served in the jury.”
There is a court record which contains information presented in the trial. The people from Northwestern ARE law students(and professors), maybe you mean ‘lawyer wanabees’? With a DNA test everyone would have more information than the jury had.
Any system needs auditing to make sure it is operating properly. That’s all appeals are.
The political dimension is interesting. I see a standard left-right rhetorical split in the references in this thread. What gets me is that conservatives, who are supposedly distrustful of overwhelming government power, are generally supportive of capital punishment. Killing a person intentionally is just about the purest power the state has.
So taxation, health care, and public education are suspiciously “pink.” On the other hand taking a man’s life should proceed without annoying questions that just gum up the process. ???
I’m not against capital punishment. I just feel that since this is the ultimate deprivation it ought to have a ton of strings attached.
Read the court docs and see if you think this fine man is innocent:
http://cca.courts.state.tx.us/OPINIONS/HTMLOPINIONINFO.ASP?OPINIONID=18770
The wonderful highlights:
* Defense team strategy in court was to NOT obtain DNA testing. I wonder why?
* “Appellant was found by police at Andrea Reed’s house, located three-and-a-half to four blocks away, at around 3:00 a.m. When the police found him, appellant was standing in a closet and wearing clothing that was heavily stained in blood on both the front and back.” Ok, the guy is soaked in the victims blood and is 3-4 blocks away from the scene.
* “He did not know how he entered her trailer, but when she saw him, he took his shirt off and laid it on a chair. Appellant had a bleeding cut in his right hand. He heated up sewing needles and attempted to bend them to sew up his hand, and then he asked her to sew it, and she agreed.” Ok, he was injured during the killings.
* “uring their conversation, Andrea attempted to leave the room and call the police, but appellant stopped her and threatened to kill her. ” Ok, call the police and I’ll kill you … wonderful …
* “He claimed that a Mexican came to the door and pulled a knife, that Twila was in bed with her ex-husband with whom appellant got into a fist-fight” … Ok, a crazy made-up story involving a Mexican.
* “hree bloody handprints matching appellant’s were found in the house: one in the sons’ bedroom and two on doorknobs leading out the back door. ” Ok, so we have his bloodstained handprints everywhere.
* “Given this evidence and the other evidence detailed above, the presence of a third party’s DNA at the crime scene would not constitute affirmative evidence of innocence.”
In other words, the DNA of whatever these items are, even if not the convicted man’s DNA, doesn’t have anything to do with the total body of evidence surrounding his conviction.
My whole point is that the anti-death-penalty crowd ignores facts and information and choose only to see what they want to see and that such propaganda and yellow journalism by such parties is so partial as to not be trustworthy as a general rule.
Andrea Reed recanted her testimony after the trial.
The defense lawyer was a disgraced former DA who had previously prosecuted the defendant(Maybe he didn’t like the guy).
There were other blood stained clothes, not belonging to the defendant, found at the scene.presumably the clothes themselves didn’t participate, so there was a mystery person at the scene
Some think the defendant would have been physically incapable of butchering a group of people because he was zonked out of his mind. Not entirely unreasonable, I was unable to function after having my wisdom teeth out and taking meds. I wasn’t even drunk at the time.
But it wasn’t too large of a mystery because there was a known violent friend who the extra bloody clothes probably belonged to. He had squabbled with the victims and was seen scrubbing his car the next day.
The other clothes, some random articles, and a few knives were never DNA tested. That is the crux of the argument.
There is a probability that the defendant did it, but there are too many stinky loose ends. If Texas wants to execute lots of people they ought to run a pristine process.
Most serious disputes in all areas of law make it past the local yokels to appeals processes. That is a good thing. It’s the sign of a well functioning system.
Since it IS Texas I must include: If only we had counted all the votes in Florida or listened to weapons inspectors in Iraq just think about how much trouble could have been averted. A few hundred thousand deaths is a statistic, but one needless death is a tragedy.
“The defense lawyer was a disgraced former DA who had previously prosecuted the defendant”
Ok, so this Skinner guy has a criminal past … even more wonderful.
Interesting how this “the uncle did it” defense didn’t develop until after the uncle died.
I call bullshit.
One does not need to be a wonderful person to be innocent of specific allegations.
This is my read on it: All (including cops, defense attorney, and judge) of the involved were hillbillies. Some people got killed during a drunken/drugged blowout. One guy, covered in blood, survived. Ignoring that another person was probably present the police focused on that man and charged him. An indirect witness was located, although she later claimed to have lied. A local judge drafted a guy who already thought the defendant was scum to represent said defendant. A weak defense was mounted, but it was already a foregone conclusion.
This is a chain made of weak links. The defendant might certainly have done the crime. I’ll be charitable and say the chance over 50%.
In this circumstance somebody suggests looking at the ignored evidence that point to another person present at the time of the killings. Looking at that evidence is in no way unreasonable.
There is a small range of outcomes here. The status quo outcome is that Texas doesn’t do the test, kills the guy, and the state looks both bloodthirsty and unsure of itself. The exceptional outcome is that they do the test and it comes back that the other suspected perp was there at the time of the murders; enough doubt is introduced that the sentence is reduced to life in prison.
This guy is never going to walk out of jail, but Texas will look like a bunch of pussies if they don’t do the test.
If the process is good you can trust the results. Here the process was whack in multiple aspects.
There is a place, IMO, for capital punishment. An unreliable witness, the keystone cops, and a hangin’ judge make the process seem amateurish and tawdry.
“This guy is never going to walk out of jail”
This is true, so what’s the point. He was convicted and used his appeals.
Death penalty or no, he won’t be leaving jail.
So all of this posturing is pointless, one way or another he will die in jail.
“This is my read on it: All(including cops, defense attorney, and judge) of the involved were hillbillies. Some people got killed during a drunken/drugged blowout.”
With 17 years of nothing to do, it gives someone plenty of time to concoct what “really happened”.
“and the state looks both bloodthirsty”
“unreliable witness, the keystone cops, and a hangin’ judge”
Those are assumptions. You don’t know. This is why I label such talk as propoganda, because it can’t be credibly believed.
It isn’t based on special knowledge of the situation, you are painting your thoughts and biases onto situation.
Out there somewhere are actual good people who are wrongly convicted who would contribute something of value to society … instead, there is cause celebre focusing on this guy.
#43 HMeyers,
All Texas needs to do to demonstrate it is doing the right thing (if you belive in capital punishment) is perform the test and show that the guy is really guilty. If the test comes back negative, Texas still looks good as they didn’t kill an innocent.
I’ve lived in Texas myself (stationed in San Angelo, I guess some would say a military base isn’t really “living” in any location) and know there are both good and bad in Texas, but somehow Texas became the right wing’s poster child. (I’d live in Austin, but is is not a typical Texan city anyway.)
Do the damn test and then everyone will shut up about it.
No, doing the damn tests will not shut anyone up. If it matches skinner he can say he lived there and he was bleeding.
And none of the testing will make the DNA and blood spatter evidence proving that he bludgeoned Twila and stabbed Elwin magically go away.
The evidence was tested and it came back to Skinner. He murdered Twila. At least be consistent and don’t ignore the DNA and blood spatter evidence they do have. Then explain how any further testing will make it go away. Nobody ever does. You can’t.