"IS THE AMERICA YOU BELIEVE IN A COUNTRY IN WHICH JUSTICE MEANS ALLOWING THE KILLING - MACHINE TO HAVE ITS WAY IN SPITE OF CONCERN FOR FAIRNESS AND HUMAN DIGNITY? IS THE AMERICA, WHICH SO MANY SOLDIERS HAVE DIED FIGHTING FOR IN THE PAST CENTURY, A COUNTRY WHICH WILL TAKE THE RISK OF KILLING THE POSSIBLE VICTIM OF A HORRIBLE PERSONAL TRAGEDY WITHOUT HEEDING HIS OFT-REPEATED PLEAS FOR THE TESTS OVER THE YEARS? HAS AMERICA BECOME A COUNTRY WHICH WOULD RATHER KILL A MAN WHO MAY BE DEMONSTRABLY INNOCENT BECAUSE IT IS NOT WILLING TO TAKE THE RISK OF BEING SHOWN TO BE WRONG?
HAROLD LEVY; PUBLISHER: THE CHARLES SMITH BLOG.
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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 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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PUBLISHER'S NOTE:
Wake up Americans.
Your country is about to take the life of a man who may be innocent - even though there is DNA evidence which will decide the question either way and a qualified laboratory that is willing to do the tests expeditiously.
True, the State of Texas will take Hank Skinner's life, but, to this outsider, Hank Skinner is an American - just like you are.
Is your America a country which will deny scientific tests that could conclusively prove innocence, on the legalistic basis that his lawyer didn't ask for DNA testing back then - and because he has exhausted his legal remedies?
Is the America you believe in a country in which justice means allowing the killing - machine to have its way in spite of concern for fairness and human dignity?
Is the America, which so many soldiers have died fighting for in the past century, a country which will take the risk of killing the possible victim of a horrible personal tragedy without heeding his oft-repeated pleas for the tests over the years?
Has America become a country which would rather kill a man who may be demonstrably innocent because it is not willing to take the risk of being shown to be wrong?
If this is, in fact America, this Canadian outsider has to ask 'what happened to the American dream?' and 'what caused America to fall so far?'
If this is not the America you believe in, I hope that you will raise your voices en masse and urge the Texan authorities, and anyone else with influence, to pause the inexorable death machinery - if only long enough to carry out the tests, wherever they may lead.
I do hope that God will bless America - but not the callous, rigid, irresponsible and patently unjust America that is in such an indecent rush to snuff out Hank Skinner's life.
Harold Levy; Publisher; The Charles Smith Blog.
hlevy15@gmail.com;
