STORY:"Texas inmate defies death as evidence of innocence mounts," by David Protess, published by the Huffington Post on September 11, 2013. (David Protess is President of the Chicago Innocence Project.)
GIST: "Hank Skinner is in the final round of a fight against two heavyweights. One is the Texas lawmen who want him executed. The other is an often-fatal ailment that saps his strength and leaves him in constant pain. The odds makers give him little chance. Death, after all, is undefeated. But Skinner, 51, is not about to throw in the towel. He is sustained by the love of his wife, Sandrine, and his daughter, Natalie. And, he is buoyed by the latest findings in his case, which support his steadfast contention for two decades -- that he is an innocent man........In a landmark decision the next year, the court ruled that Skinner was entitled under federal civil rights law to have access to the biological evidence in his case. It seemed the truth would finally be known. But the Texas Attorney General stubbornly refused to produce the evidence. By this time, Hank Skinner had been on death row for 16 years. The A.G. relented only after a public tongue-lashing by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals in 2012. At that point, the reason for the twelve years of stonewalling became apparent. The jacket found next to Twila's body? The single most important piece of physical evidence in the case? It had vanished. Poof! "Somehow or another...no one's ever been able to find that thing," shrugged the lawman in charge of storing evidence. But the hairs in Twila's hand had been preserved, and last month the results came back. They were a revelation. Three of the hairs genetically ruled out Skinner. More significant, they were microscopically different from the three victims' hair -- but belonged to the maternal side of their family. Since Robert Donnell was Twila's mother's brother, the hairs were genetically consistent with his DNA. Will Skinner's lawyers ask a judge to exhume Donnell's body? Perhaps, though the next logical step is a hearing on the new DNA tests, which the Texas A.G. still says point to Skinner's guilt. (In a statement, a spokesman for the A.G. said the three hairs must have come from the victims, even though a state lab ruled out this possibility.)..........Today, Skinner is back on death row, where he soon learned of another tragedy. This time, it involved a prisoner whose case he has followed closely for a decade. His wife broke the news that Anthony McKinney had recently died, alone in an Illinois prison cell, before powerful evidence of his innocence could be heard. Skinner was shaken. "Another one gone," he sighed. And he has read everything about Texas inmate Timothy Cole, who was posthumously exonerated after DNA evidence proved his innocence -- a decade after he died of a heart attack while behind bars. Since Skinner landed on death row, Texas has executed 414 prisoners, many of whom he knew. Like these men and women, Skinner realizes he will not cheat death. But he still intends to defeat his mortal adversary, the Texas lawmen, and recover from his near-fatal illness. Dare he dream about life after exoneration? The pain stands in the way.But Skinner clings fervently to every prisoner's cherished hope. He wants to die free."
The entire story can be found at:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-protess/will-texas-inmate-defy-de_b_3894466.html
Hank Skinner Wikipedia entry: "On November 14, 2012, the Texas Attorney General's office released an advisory to the Gray County state district court that convicted Skinner advising the court that the DNA testing further implicated Skinner in the Busby family murders. Among the findings: Skinner's blood was found in numerous places in the back bedroom where Busby's two sons were murdered. Skinner's DNA was also found on the handle of a bloody knife, but along with DNA from one of the sons and an "unknown contributor". Skinner's attorney, Rob Owen, has requested additional DNA testing to identify DNA from an "unknown contributor" on the knife and in the back bedroom. Additionally, the state lost a jacket Skinner claims belonged to Robert Donnell – who Skinner claims is the real killer. On August 29, 2013, A private Virginia laboratory published the results of tests conducted on four hairs found in the hand of the slain woman, Twila Busby -- and three of them show a family link with the three victims, but do not belong to them, with only one of them belonging to Skinner. These results, according to Rob Owen, could incriminate Robert Donnell, a deceased maternal uncle who had threatened Twila Busby shortly before the murders. These findings have not yet been assessed by judicial authorities.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hank_Skinner
PUBLISHER'S NOTE:
Dear Reader. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog. We are following this case.
I have added a search box for content in this blog which now encompasses several thousand posts. The search box is located near the bottom of the screen just above the list of links. I am confident that this powerful search tool provided by "Blogger" will help our readers and myself get more out of the site.
The Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. The Star has a "topic" section which focuses on recent stories related to Dr. Charles Smith. It can be found at:
http://www.thestar.com/topic/
Information on "The Charles Smith Blog Award"- and its nomination process - can be found at:
http://smithforensic.blogspot.
Please send any comments or information on other cases and issues of interest to the readers of this blog to: hlevy15@gmail.com
