"THE SUPREME COURT CAN HIDE FROM A CASE BY REFUSING TO TAKE IT. ELECTED JUDGES, PARTICULARLY IN TEXAS, MUST DELIVER CONVICTIONS. FEDERAL JUDGES NAMED TO THE FEDERAL BENCH BECAUSE THEY ARE PALS WITH A SENATOR OVERLOOK DEEPLY FLAWED TRIALS. AND BY THE TIME DOW COMES INTO A CASE, THE LAW WILL SOMETIMES NOT PERMIT HIM TO HELP HIS CLIENT. AS HE EXPLAINS: “PROSECUTORS AND JUDGES KOWTOW TO FAMILY MEMBERS OF MURDER VICTIMS WHO DEMAND AN EYE FOR AN EYE, AND THE LONELY LAWYER DECLAIMING ABOUT PROPER PROCEDURES IS A SHOUTING LUNATIC IN THE ASYLUM.”
FROM DAHLIA LITHWICK'S REVIEW OF "AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN EXECUTION BY DAVID DOW;
(Dahlia Lithwick is a senior editor at Slate.)
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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......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 March 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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PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I could not help but think about the State of Texas' lust to kill Hank Skinner without bothering to test DNA evidence that could possibly show he is innocent as I read the following passage from Dahlia Lithwick's February 11, 2010, New York Times review of David Dow's "The Autobiography of an Execution" published by "Twelve." Publishers." Dow, a former death penalty supporter, is a professor of law at the University of Houston Law Center a defense attorney and founder and a director of the Texas Innocence Network. "Twelve's mission statement indicates that: "Twelve was established in August 2005 with the objective of publishing no more than one book per month. We strive to publish the singular book, by authors who have a unique perspective and compelling authority."
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"Still, David Dow is in Texas, drowning in the death penalty. As he explains: “I understand the death penalty supporters. I used to be one. I can relate to the retributive impulse. I know people I want to kill.” But he devotes his life to fighting for his clients — many of whom he dislikes enormously, and all but seven of whom he believes to be guilty — because he’s certain that what Justice Harry A. Blackmun called the American “machinery of death” is broken. Cops fudge the truth. They coerce false testimony. Court-appointed lawyers sleep through trials. They miss deadlines. They fail to put on exculpatory evidence. Juries believe every word uttered by “expert” witnesses who opine on defendants they have never met. Jurors evade responsibility by hiding behind the other jurors. Judges evade responsibility by hiding behind jury verdicts, and appeals courts hide behind the trial courts. The Supreme Court can hide from a case by refusing to take it. Elected judges, particularly in Texas, must deliver convictions. Federal judges named to the federal bench because they are pals with a senator overlook deeply flawed trials. And by the time Dow comes into a case, the law will sometimes not permit him to help his client. As he explains: “Prosecutors and judges kowtow to family members of murder victims who demand an eye for an eye, and the lonely lawyer declaiming about proper procedures is a shouting lunatic in the asylum.”
Lithwick's review can be found at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/14/books/review/Lithwick-t.html
Harold Levy...hlevy15@gmail.com
