"HE IS ASKING FOR DNA TESTING OF EVIDENCE THAT WAS FOUND AT THE CRIME SCENE BUT NEVER TESTED. HE CLAIMS THESE TESTS WOULD ESTABLISH THAT SOMEONE ELSE COMMITTED THE CRIME FOR WHICH HE IS SLATED TO BE PUT TO DEATH. THE STATE, OF COURSE, IS OPPOSING THE TESTS. BUT, WHY? THE COST OF ALLOWING THE TESTING WOULD BE A FEW EXTRA MONTHS FOR A MAN WHO HAS ALREADY BEEN ON DEATH ROW FOR ALMOST 15 YEARS. THE BENEFIT WOULD BE GUARANTEEING THAT THE STATE DOES NOT EXECUTE SOMEONE WHO IS ACTUALLY INNOCENT. DON’T THE BENEFITS OUTWEIGH THE COSTS IN THIS CASE? IS IT EVEN CLOSE?"
EDITORIAL: AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL USA WEB LOG:
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BACKGROUND: The editor of the Texas Tribune says in a note that "Hank Skinner is set to be executed for a 1993 murder he's always maintained he didn't commit. He wants the state to test whether his DNA matches evidence found at the crime scene, but prosecutors say the time to contest his conviction has come and gone. Now he has less than a month to change their minds. We told the story of the murders and his conviction and sentencing in the first part of this story." Reporter Brandi Grissom, author of the Tribune series on Hank Skinner, writes: "I interviewed Henry "Hank" Watkins Skinner, 47, at the Polunsky Unit of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice — death row — on January 20, 2010. Skinner was convicted in 1995 of murdering his girlfriends and her two sons; the state has scheduled his execution for February 24. Skinner has always maintained that he's innocent and for 15 years has asked the state to release DNA evidence that he says will prove he was not the killer."
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"Henry “Hank” Skinner is scheduled for execution in Texas on February 24," the editorial, headed "Finality V. Fairness" begins on the Amnesty International web log "Human Rights Now."
"A two-part review of the case was recently published by the Texas Tribune," it continues.
"He is asking for DNA testing of evidence that was found at the crime scene but never tested. He claims these tests would establish that someone else committed the crime for which he is slated to be put to death. The state, of course, is opposing the tests.
But, why? The cost of allowing the testing would be a few extra months for a man who has already been on death row for almost 15 years. The benefit would be guaranteeing that the state does not execute someone who is actually innocent. Don’t the benefits outweigh the costs in this case? Is it even close?
Sadly, this is the classic “Finality v. Fairness” battle that death penalty cases so often come down to. And the importance of “finality” has been inflated out of all proportion. While “finality” is necessary to ensure that justice is done, the state is also charged with ensuring “fairness” (and accuracy) in its pursuit of that justice.
(It should be noted that long prison sentences usually provide far more real ”finality” than death sentences, which are frequently overturned, sometimes re-instated, and mostly never carried out.)
Yet too often in death penalty cases the state (and the courts) seem to care only about “finality”. Appeals with valid claims are rejected on technical grounds, and reasonable requests to test new evidence are aggressively resisted. Even proof of actual innocence is no bar to the “finality” of an execution (though, depending on how the Troy Davis case turns out, that may change). The result of all this, inevitably, is the execution, or near-execution, of the innocent and the undeserving. The state of Texas should balance its enthusiasm for finality with a genuine commitment to fairness, and let all the evidence in Hank Skinner’s case be tested."
The editorial can be found at:
http://blog.amnestyusa.org/deathpenalty/finality-v-fairness/
Harold Levy...hlevy15@gmail.com;
