Hank Skinner Ruling Has Wider Implications

[sonias]

Texas Observer 3/7/11
Hank Skinner Ruling Has Wider Implications

The U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling this morning in the Hank Skinner case isn’t really about Hank Skinner.

The High Court’s decision, by a 6-3 majority, will allow Skinner to petition a federal court for DNA testing on evidence in his case. Skinner, who sits on Texas death row and came within hours of execution last year, hopes DNA testing will confirm his claims that he didn’t commit the gruesome 1993 triple homicide for which he was convicted.

But the ruling has much wider implications. It opens a new avenue for many inmates to obtain post-conviction DNA testing of evidence in their cases.

The legal issue before the Supreme Court had little to do with the details of Skinner’s innocence claims. Rather, it was about legal process.

Until now, Texas inmates who wanted access to DNA evidence had to file a writ of habeas corpus. In siding with Skinner, the justices ruled that prisoners can also use federal civil rights claims to obtain evidence for DNA testing.

Another stunning victory for future justice in Texas and against the Texas legal system. :bounce:

Like the article says - it's not about Hank Skinner it's about basic civil rights in obtaining evidence for the accused!

:kick:

[sonias]

1. U.S. Supreme Court Keeps Hank Skinner Alive, Again

http://www.texastribune.org/texas-dept-criminal-justice/hank-skinner/us-supreme-court-keeps-hank-skinner-alive-again/">Texas Tribune 3/7/11

U.S. Supreme Court Keeps Hank Skinner Alive, Again

The U.S. Supreme Court has given Texas death row inmate Hank Skinner another chance at getting DNA testing done on evidence he says could prove he did not kill his live-in girlfriend and her two sons in 1993. And the case could open the door for other inmates who seek DNA evidence testing to bolster their innocence claims.

In a 6-3 opinion released today, the justices reversed the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals' denial of Skinner's federal civil rights claim requesting DNA testing. The case will now go back to a federal district court in Amarillo, which will decide whether Skinner can get access to the evidence for testing. Rob Owen, Skinner's attorney and director of the University of Texas School of Law's Capital Punishment Clinic, said they were "relieved and pleased" with the high court's decision.

Skinner was convicted in 1995 of murdering his live-in girlfriend, Twila Busby, and her two mentally disabled sons, Randy Busby and Elwin Caler, in their small Pampa home. Busby was strangled and bludgeoned to death; the young men were stabbed. Skinner doesn’t deny he was in the house that New Year’s Eve in 1993 but maintains that he was too incapacitated from a mixture of vodka and codeine to carry out the attacks.

Since 2000, Skinner has asked the state to release evidence that was not examined at trial for DNA testing, including a rape kit, biological material from Twila's fingernails, sweat from a man’s jacket resembling one that another potential suspect often wore, a bloody towel and knives. Those items weren’t tested at Skinner's original trial because his attorney at the time worried the results might be incriminating. Texas courts have repeatedly denied Skinner’s requests for testing in the years since, saying that he had his chance in 1995 and contending that more tests wouldn’t prove that he wasn’t the murderer.

:kick:

[sonias]

2. Justices Allow Inmates To Sue for DNA Testing

New York Times 3/7/11

Justices Allow Inmates To Sue for DNA Testing
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Monday made it easier for inmates to sue for access to DNA evidence that could prove their innocence.

The legal issue in the case was tightly focused and quite preliminary: Was Hank Skinner, a death row inmate in Texas, entitled to sue a prosecutor there under a federal civil rights law for refusing to allow testing of DNA evidence? By a 6-to-3 vote, the court said yes, rejecting a line of lower-court decisions that had said the only proper procedural route for such challenges was a petition for habeas corpus.

In her opinion for the majority, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg emphasized the narrowness of the ruling. Allowing Mr. Skinner to sue, she said, was not the same thing as saying he should win his suit.

Justice Ginsburg added that a 2009 decision, District Attorney’s Office v. Osborne, had severely limited the kinds of claims prisoners seeking DNA evidence can make. The Osborne decision, she wrote, “left slim room for the prisoner to show that the governing state law denies him procedural due process.”

:kick:

[TBF]

3. Good news - there are attorneys here in TX who have worked very hard on this

over the years. Even those who ultimately support capital punishment often feel that the process has been unfair to lower income/minorities. Here is one group I've heard of that works on these issues: http://www.texasfairdefenseproject.org/info/personnel/staff.php

[sonias]

7. Yes we know - tireless heroes

As well as the national group - The innocence Project. Senator Rodney Ellis is on their board as well.

http://www.innocenceproject.org/

Lots of good people working on the broken, horrible criminal justice system in Texas

:applause::applause::applause:

[efhmc]

4. If not already there, please post on gd or other area. Thanks.

[efhmc]

5. Seems to be there.

[Melissa G]

6. #5 n/t

[sonias]

8. Win for death penalty advocates

AAS Editorial 3/8/11
Win for death penalty advocates

The U.S. Supreme Court, in a 6-3 decision Monday, provided a significant victory for death penalty supporters by ruling in favor of a condemned Texas man battling for post-conviction testing of DNA evidence gathered at a grisly, triple-slaying crime scene in Pampa.

At the heart of this case is the fundamental question — indeed, the only question — that permeates every death penalty case and every execution: Are we sure we've got the right person?

Death penalty advocates, and we are not among those, should live with the perpetual fear of conclusive post-execution evidence that raises serious questions about guilt.

(snip)
The cleverest of death penalty advocates note these exonerations in defending the ultimate punishment. The system, they say, has a way of protecting against wrongful executions.

Maybe. But that is all the more reason why Skinner is entitled to make his case in court as to why he is entitled to DNA testing, which his then-lawyer opted against at trial. The Supreme Court decision was a victory for justice.

:shrug: I'm confused about this editorial. Really :wtf: are the trying to say here? I agree that it's not an order to conduct the DNA testing of the evidence just the opportunity for his lawsuit to go forward, but the editors surely muck things up with the headline, as well as most of the editorial. Jeez!