"WITHOUT SHAME, THE STATE QUICKLY SECRETED OTHER TEST RESULTS, PARTICULARLY THOSE FOR BLOODY AND BROKEN FINGERNAIL CLIPPINGS AND THOSE FOR A RAPE KIT. THE FINGERNAIL CLIPPINGS ARE ESPECIALLY SIGNIFICANT BECAUSE HANK SKINNER HAD NO FINGERNAIL SCRATCHES ON HIS BODY. NONETHELESS, THE STATE REFUSES TO REVEAL THOSE RESULTS, THE STATUS OF THE TESTING, OR THE PHYSICAL LOCATION OF THE EVIDENCE. INDEED, THE STATE REFUSES TO ACKNOWLEDGE EVEN THE EXISTENCE OF THE EVIDENCE WHICH, PRIOR TO TESTING, WAS WELL-KEPT AND ALLEGEDLY PROBATIVE. THE STATE’S BEHAVIOR IS PARTICULARLY EGREGIOUS SINCE IT ANNOUNCED WITH CONFIDENCE BEFOREHAND THAT THE TESTING WOULD “PUT A FEW MORE NAILS IN THAT MAN’S COFFIN.”........WHAT STANDS ABOUT SKINNER'S CASE IS THE FACT THAT IT FALLS INTO THAT VERY NARROW CATEGORY OF CASES WHERE DNA EXISTS, CAN BE TESTED, AND CAN SERVE ITS PURPOSE OF PROVIDING FAR BETTER PROOF THAN A FACILE THEORY OR WELL-TUNED ARGUMENT. WHEN THE STATE FIGHTS IT, THE DNA STARTS TO EMIT AN UNPLEASANT ODOR THAT PERMEATES THE CONVICTION. WHY FIGHT IT, TEXAS? WHAT ARE YOU AFRAID OF?"
DEFENCE LAWYER SCOTT GREENFIELD;
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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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"When I received an email from the Skeptical Juror Project, imploring me to get behind the efforts to exonerate Hank Skinner," New York defence lawyer Scott Greenfield's post begins, under the heading, "Defending The Skinner Conviction."
"The email informed me that he was factually innocent, but Texas was going to kill him anyway," the post continues.
"I knew nothing about Skinner, having somehow missed Radley Balko's post at Reason about him.
The email told a saga that's both hard to believe and easy to accept. It told the story in detail:
Announcing it would do "whatever it took" to "shut up" those who doubted Mr. Skinner's guilt, the State of Texas submitted fourteen pieces of evidence for post-conviction DNA testing. None on the results inculpated Mr. Skinner. To the contrary, the results either excluded him or were deemed “inconclusive.”
Notably, a hair found clutched in the victim’s hand, a hair declared by the district attorney prior to testing to have been grasped from the murderer as the victim struggled for her life, excluded Hank Skinner as the donor.
Without shame, the State quickly secreted other test results, particularly those for bloody and broken fingernail clippings and those for a rape kit. The fingernail clippings are especially significant because Hank Skinner had no fingernail scratches on his body. Nonetheless, the State refuses to reveal those results, the status of the testing, or the physical location of the evidence. Indeed, the State refuses to acknowledge even the existence of the evidence which, prior to testing, was well-kept and allegedly probative. The State’s behavior is particularly egregious since it announced with confidence beforehand that the testing would “put a few more nails in that man’s coffin.”
And finally, the State refuses to release for testing additional probative DNA evidence, though David Protess of the Medill Innocence Project has offered for more than a decade to fund it. Items which remain untested include a bloody knife and a bloody axe handle (the likely murder weapons), a bloody dish towel (found in a trash bag with a handprint from an unidentified third party), and a foreign windbreaker (contaminated with hairs, blood, and sweat.)
As Radley notes, the system takes pride in its work, and fights hard to make sure a conviction stays that way. After all, it would present a terrible burden if we were forced to second guess every conviction, deal with the open issue, accommodate the demands for testing. If we keep finding out the innocent are being convicted, people will lose faith in the system. That would be a travesty, as faith in the system is paramount. Without faith, we would feel awfully bad about executing people. Some of us, at least.
What stands about Skinner's case is the fact that it falls into that very narrow category of cases where DNA exists, can be tested, and can serve its purpose of providing far better proof than a facile theory or well-tuned argument. When the state fights it, the DNA starts to emit an unpleasant odor that permeates the conviction. Why fight it, Texas? What are you afraid of?
I appreciate a good use of rhetoric as much as the next guy, and the state's "nail in the coffin" language is particularly apropos. It's tough and manly, as one would expect from Texas. But after the chest thumping, the tough guys of Texas have to put up or shut up. Now they just look like a bunch of sissies, afraid of a little DNA.
Not knowing enough about Hank Skinner's case, it's impossible for me to come out and say that he's an innocent man. I haven't a clue. Even with the respect I have for Balko's view, and he's no doubt more familiar with the case having written about it and asserted that Texas is about to execute an innocent man, I hesitate to declare a position.
But I do not hesitate to state that the lawmen behind the Skinner execution are all hat and no cattle. If you want to put a man to death, then allow the defendant to test the DNA. Disclose the full results of whatever testing you've done. As the email concluded:
With a robust and collective condemnation against the practice of executing factually exonerated individuals, the innocence community will help curtail the abuse of our government’s power to take from its citizenry their inalienable right to life.
They're right about that. Just because this is happening in Texas doesn't mean that the rest of the nation doesn't care. Protecting your conviction isn't a good enough reason to put an innocent man to death. Even in Texas. Let's see if there's anything under that big, macho, ten-gallon hat of yours before you push the plunger."
The post can be found at:
http://blog.simplejustice.us/2010/03/08/defending-the-skinner-conviction.aspx?ref=rss
Harold Levy...hlevy15@gmail.com;
