The saga of Hank Skinner's fight for DNA testing, and for his life, reads like a Russian novel. Yesterday's chapter concluded with a stay of execution by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. The Texas high court agreed to decide whether a new state DNA law applies to Skinner's case -- or if he should be executed without the tests.
The stay is temporary. This war is far from over.
So how did we get to this point? Why has it taken more than a decade with still no outcome in sight?
The public controversy started, of all places, on Nancy Grace in June of 2000, and its resolution has been thwarted by four Texas Republican District Attorneys.
Sporting a white Stetson and cowboy boots, Texas D.A. John Mann gazed into a TV camera and firmly declared that Hank Skinner should die for the murders of three people in the Panhandle town where Mann was the law.
Nine hundred miles away, in the Chicago studios of Court TV, I challenged Mann's version of the evidence. While I didn't know whether Skinner was innocent or guilty, he deserved DNA tests that could determine the truth, I contended.
Until that point, host Nancy Grace, an ex-prosecutor and victim's rights advocate, had sided with Mann. Now Grace wanted to know why he had not tested all the crime scene evidence.
Mann tried to change the subject.
"Answer her question," I insisted. After Mann continued to scramble, I got louder: "You're not answering her question!"
Grace jumped in, calling DNA testing "reasonable." When I offered to pay for the tests "if Texas is too cheap to do them," she laughingly replied: "Be careful. He might just take you up on it."
Back in my office on that warm summer day in 2000, I found an email from Mann. It read, in part: "I'm testing everything on my dime... just to prove you and Nancy Grace wrong."
Fine with me. I didn't care about the reason. After my journalism students had poked gaping holes in Mann's case against Skinner -- the recantation of his star witness and compelling evidence against an alternative suspect -- I wanted to learn the truth.
Years later, I discovered that Mann had not, in fact, tested all the evidence, as he had promised. As I reported yesterday, he instead had cherry picked the evidence he thought would seal Skinner's fate and sent it to a lab with close ties to law enforcement. Surprisingly, the results only further challenged Skinner's guilt.
Enter Richard "Rick" Roach, a 50-year-old bombastic lawyer from Pampa, the Gray Co. seat. Roach, a Republican, narrowly defeated Mann, a fellow Republican, and soon after taking office discovered the troubling lab reports in his Inbox. Still believing Skinner guilty, but questioning whether he had the authority to order more tests to be certain, Roach declared a moratorium on testing without a court order.
When no court order was forthcoming, however, Roach began to have doubts -- about the way the Skinner case had been handled, and more generally about capital punishment, according to a former law enforcement official. Indeed, Roach declined to seek the death penalty in two death-eligible cases. He also graciously showed Skinner's lawyers the crime scene items, which had been preserved in a musty evidence locker outside of town.
But Roach was distracted by bigger problems than the Skinner case. While he zealously prosecuted drug crimes in the Panhandle, where homemade pharmaceuticals had become more plentiful than Texas crude, the D.A. had developed a habit of his own. Injecting methamphetamine. Sometimes in the D.A.'s office. Once right in front of his secretary -- who, unfortunately for Roach, doubled as an informant for the FBI.
In 2005, as Roach was picking a jury, he was led away in handcuffs by federal agents. He was prosecuted for firearms and drug possession, convicted, and is presently serving an 18-year sentence.
Roach was replaced by his top aide, Lynn Switzer, who was appointed D.A. by Gov. Rick Perry and later elected to the office she holds today. Switzer is best known for losing a death penalty case that virtually bankrupted Gray Co. -- and for a U.S. Supreme Court decision that bears her name: Skinner v. Switzer.
Earlier this year, the Court ruled that Henry Watkins Skinner was entitled to sue District Attorney Switzer to get access to the DNA evidence in his case. That lawsuit is pending before a federal magistrate in Amarillo, put on hold until the Texas courts decide whether to order the tests under the state's new DNA law. It's a law the Texas D.A.s do not want to enforce.
Let's recap. Texas attempts to kill Skinner without DNA testing that could prove his innocence or guilt. A TV talk show host shames the D.A. into partially testing the evidence. He doesn't like the results and halts further testing. The D.A. is ousted by a drug-addicted prosecutor who waits for court-ordered tests, but is first busted by the feds. The highest court in the land hands a defeat to the addict's protege, who still presses for Skinner's execution -- and almost succeeds.
The cast of characters would not be complete without mentioning Harold Comer, the Republican D.A. who preceded Mann, Roach and Switzer. D.A. Comer was run out of office and temporarily lost his law license for mishandling seized drug assets.
Comer's first lucrative gig as a reinvented defense lawyer: representing an indigent Hank Skinner in the trial of his life. Comer was appointed Skinner's lawyer, at taxpayer's expense, by the judge who would dispatch Skinner to death row.
It was Comer who decided not to have the crime scene evidence fully tested before Skinner's trial.
If the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals rules against Hank Skinner, and he is executed, there will be no shortage of blame to go around. But it shouldn't be directed solely at the quartet of Republican D.A.s who thwarted justice. The real culprit is Texas' machinery of death.
behind bars.in Skinner's case we have an opportunity for certainty.I strongly urge the district attorney to test all untexted evidence.
As you know, my main gripe is your not informing your readers why the state is fighting the DNA testing, when you know why they are.
I am for testing, if there is a chance for it to be determinative, but not if it just being asked for to game the system, just as the statute stipulates:
(A) the person would not have been convicted if exculpatory results had been obtained through DNA testing; and
(B) the request for the proposed DNA testing is not made to unreasonably delay the execution of sentence or administration of justice.
As you know, the state believes they are following the law. They don't believe Skinner can meet the burden in (A) and the believe that (B) matches Skinner.
For you to tell your readers that the state is not following the law is, well, not very forthcoming.
The appeal is based upon two different perspectives, Skinner's and the state's. That is why the TCCA granted the stay and will hear the issues. Standard.
What Skinner did was to refuse additional pre trial testing, because he knew it might hurt his case, the only reason for such denial.
Now, Skinner wants to go back, gaming the system, complaining "I didn't get to test the additional DNA (because I refused to, pre trial)."
If legislators voted for the law, knowing that was an option under the law, shame on them. I doubt they did.
Legislative law, too often, has unintended consequences.
Stay tuned.
You can contort the facts all you want to fit your pro-death penalty views (which you expressed in several other posts below, and which I deeply respect), but there are some facts you can't change.
1. The sponsor of the bill you refer to above, Texas State Sen. Rodney Ellis, said it was specifically designed for case like Skinner's. Even Gov. Perry, in an interview with ABC News in Houston, said he supported the tests in Skinner's case.
2. The Court of Criminal Appeals, which you referenced above, concluded the following in its opinion on Monday: "Because the DNA statute has changed, and because some of those changes were BECAUSE OF THIS CASE, we find that it would be prudent for this Court to take time to fully review the changes in the statute as they pertain to this case." (boldface added)
3. As I reported in both blogs this week, the post-conviction testing done by the State DID PRODUCE EXCULPATORY RESULTS. Moreover, significant items of evidence have never been tested. If DNA tests on the windbreaker proved it was Twila's uncle's, for example, it WILL make a difference in the outcome of the case.
Once again, please try to distinguish between opinion and fact. We can honestly disagree about opinion, but facts are facts.
There are two statements by Skinner, both deemed admissable (I thought one was not admitted), both of which are confessions, reviewed below.
It doesn't matter what Ellis said. What matters is if the law will apply to Skinner, as the facts dictate. I think they will, but that is just my opinion. The TCCA may disagree.
As we both know, legislators mis-write law all the time, resulting in unintended consequences, based upon improperly worded law.
I am not sure what you mean, re the windbreaker. Are you saying the wondbreaker was the uncles or the DNA on the windbreaker may be the uncle, or both.
The only objection I have to testing is the same as the states, that a clearly guilty Skinner is simply trying to game the system.
Skinner's claim is that he is being denied testing, when it was he tha t refused testing, pre trial, the only reason for which is that he knew it would harm him.
He simply wants a do-over to delay, which has been successful. Horrible precedent to just fold and alow testing, based upon a gaming of the system.
True enough, facts are facts.
You write: "If 'only' 10 percent are innocent?!
Based upon the evidence it is under 1% - possibly as low as 0.27% - still too high, but no one has ever believed that any human system is without error.
Possibly, with US's death row, based upon the evidence, we may be looking at a conviction error rate of around 0.4%, They were released.
Please review:
"The Innocent and the Shammed", Joshua Marquis, Published in New York Times, 1/26/2006
http://coastda.blogspot.com/2006/01/innocent-and-shammed-nyt-oped.html
"The Myth Of Innocence", Joshua Marquis,published in the Journal of Criminal Law & Criminology - 3/31/2005, Northwestern University School of Law, Chicago, Illinois
http://joshmarquis.blogspot.com/2005/03/myth-of-innocence.html
"Counting the Guilty", Joshua Marquis, 3/26/2008
http://coastda.blogspot.com/2008/03/counting-guilty.html
The 130 (now 138) death row "innocents" scam
http://homicidesurvivors.com/2009/03/04/fact-checking-issues-on-innocence-and-the-death-penalty.aspx
"[A] point off the scoreboard" is another good analogy. We should demand instant replay.
If he is guilty then i guess they proceed but if he is found not guilty with the DNA then thats awhole new ball game isnt it?Whats it going to hurt to do the test? It is a life after all and yes you can argue the cost but i believe they had an offer from nancy grace that she would pay for it herself? So it would cost them nothing but alittle time?
Thank You
The additonal DNA tests may determine nothing or something of value.
Are you unaware that Skinner refused additional DNA testing because he was implicated by multiple DNA tests and blood spatter evidence which that tied him to the crime scene and he didn't want more DNA to hurt his case?
Are you unaware that the only reason for such denial of additional DNA testing is that Skinner knew additional DNA evidence would harm him even more?
Are you unaware that death penalty opponents are saying that the untested DNA will prove Skinner innocent, meaning that Skinner decided it was better to face a death sentence than to face freedom, the only "logic" for Skinner's refusal of the additional DNA testing, when he "knew" it would prove his innocence?
You are absolutely right in saying that additional DNA tests may determine nothing or something of value. We won't know unless the tests are done.
I don't belong to any groups that support or oppose the death penalty, and I am not aware of what they're saying. We won't know if they're right unless the tests are done.
Readers who are following this string should know that Skinner's lawyer, the former District Attorney who had prosecuted Skinner before being appointed by the court to represent him in the death penalty case, was the one who advised not doing the tests. We won't know what those tests would have revealed unless the tests are done.
I Agree as i stated above. It would seem to be the logical thing to do
Have a Great Day
As for jurors, they only know what they are told at trial. Six of the Skinner jurors, upon learning about the DNA evidence, told my students they wanted a stay until the tests could be conducted. The foreman of the jury spoke out strongly about this in a letter to the Dallas Morning News on Friday. When jurors learn the facts, they often decide wisely.
The innocence movement, and the abolitionist movement, have already been described as the great civil rights battles of the 21st century.
What? No immunity for these "job-related" activities? Roach should have been a prosecutor in Illinois.
P.S. Unfortunate name.
Here's the kicker: Roach was the most reasonable of the quartet of D.A.'s.
Skinner had his trial. The evidence showed that he was guilty. This sideshow is just an attempt to keep a convicted murderer alive a bit longer and run up the bills on his execution, nothing more than that.
When a murder victim dies with a handful of someone else's hair, the hair should be tested as a matter of justice.
There is a thing called "color", perhaps you heard of it.
Way to go Texas Justice! No wonder so many folks supported Bonnie and Clyde during their short-lived lives.
There are a few things which those DA's knew, which, I suspect, the readers do not.
Most of us would like to see all the evidence, inclusive of:
Skinner's confession, that he had a fight with Twila and one of her sons that night, the night he was, fictionally, too incapacitated by alcohol and codeine, a claim fully contradicted by that confession and by
Skinner's attempt to plead guilty for a reduced sentence, which was refused;
As well as the additional things he did, when "comatose";
Skinner's travels to his ex girlfriend's house, sewing up his wounded hand, himself, hiding in the closet, not calling the police, covered in blood spatter, consistent with being the murderer and inconsistent with him being passed out during the slaughter of those 3 innocents - and Skinner was mad when he woke up, found that Twila had left for a party and taken his vodka, leaving him with no alcohol in their house.
There was testimony about Skinner threatening to murder Twila, if she did him wrong.
and on and on . . .
But, since you asked:
Skinner refused additional DNA testing because he was implicated by the prior, multiple DNA tests, pre trial, that tied him to the crime scene and the murders and he didn't want more DNA to hurt his case.
The only reason for such refusal is that Skinner knew additional DNA evidence would harm him even more.
Skinner, his defense counsel and other death penalty opponents are saying that the untested DNA will prove Skinner innocent, meaning that Skinner decided, pre trial, that it was better to face a death sentence than to face freedom, the only "logic" for Skinner's refusal of the additional DNA testing, when he "knew" it would prove his innocence. Absurd, of course.
Why not test the additional DNA?
In a successful effort to delay his execution, even more, Skinner files motions to test the DNA material he had previously rejected testing, pre trial.
If Skinner succeeds, this sets a precedent that, within certain cases, which can be managed, just so, the defendant will be able to go back and say, wait a minute, I don't like the outcome of my trial, because of the strategy I chose, I want a do-over, via new trial or appeals, so maybe I can get a better result next time.
A horrible precedent, which the state must fight and which all criminals and defense counsel are drooling over, both for obvious reasons.
I couldn't agree more, Lainey. Whether you believe Skinner innocent or guilty, it is unfathomable that the State almost executed him twice -- once coming within an hour, this week within two days -- without first scientifically determining the truth. If he was serving a life sentence, we'd have the time to sort this out. Thanks for continuing to speak out on these cases!
Thank you again. Can you please tell me how we reach the editors so that your pieces regarding Hank Skinner's case stay on the home page? This is important information as the death penalty is something many Americans are now looking at more closely due to the death of Troy Davis. If we can keep stories like Mr. Skinner's in the headlines, we can keep the dialogue going. I so appreciate that you are writing frequently to keep his story alive. We can't settle in while we wait to see if they test his DNA; we simply can't wait until the last minute any longer as it is truly a matter of life and death. There is no time to spare for Mr. Skinner and others sitting on Death Row. Thank you.
I agree, always remember Troy Davis murdered Officer MacPhail
Troy Davis & The Innocent Frauds of the anti death penalty lobby
The Troy Davis campaign, like many before it (1), is a simple, blatant fraud, easily uncovered by fact checking (1).
Davis' guilt is overwhelming, as were his due process protections.
The 2010 federal court innocence hearing found:
" . . . Mr. Davis is not innocent: the evidence produced at the hearing on the merits of Mr. Davis's claim of actual innocence and a complete review of the record in this case does not require the reversal of the jury's judgment that Troy Anthony Davis murdered (Officer MacPhail)" (2)
"Ultimately, while Mr. Davis's new evidence casts some additional, minimal doubt on his conviction, it is largely smoke and mirrors." (2)
"The vast majority of the evidence at trial remains intact, and the new evidence is largely not credible or lacking in probative value." (2)
No surprise.
1) a) "Troy Davis: Worldwide anti death penalty deceptions, rightly, failed",
http://homicidesurvivors.com/2011/09/25/troy-davis-worldwide-anti-death-penalty-deceptions-rightly-failed.aspx
b) "Troy Davis fairly convicted, not 'railroaded' "
http://savannahnow.com/column/2011-10-06/column-spencer-lawton-troy-davis-fairly-convicted-not-railroaded
2) "Innocence Hearing", ordered by the US Supreme Court, US DISTRICT COURT, in the SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF GEORGIA, SAVANNAH DIV.,RE TROY ANTHONY DAVIS, CASE NO. CV409-130
http://multimedia.savannahnow.com/media/pdfs/DavisRuling082410.pdf
The story is so unimaginable - it reads like the yet-to-be-announced Emmy award winner for 'Best Dramatic Mini Series.'
You will be astounded by what you have not been told.