Saturday, October 29, 2011

HANK SKINNER; DAVID PROTESS SAYS THE MESSAGE TO THE CONDEMNDED MAN COMING OUT OF TEXAS IS CLEAR: "EXECUTION FIRST, DNA LATER".


"Knowledgeable sources in Texas tell me that Skinner's chances will plummet if he loses before the lower court judges. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals rarely sides with criminal defendants (Skinner already has lost there three times), and the U.S. Supreme Court has returned Skinner's case to the lower courts.

That would leave it up to Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who was lustily cheered by Republicans for his state's breath-taking pace of executions. But even if Perry intervenes simply to prevent Skinner's death from becoming a campaign issue, the most he can do under Texas law at this point is grant a 30-day reprieve."

DAVID PROTESS: THE HUFFINGTON POST; David Protess is President of the Chicago Innocence Project;

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BACKGROUND: Hank Skinner faces execution 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......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; 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." Texas Tribune;

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"Among the many gripes about journalism -- and the one that's certainly justified -- is that reporters are horrible at following up the stories they cover. The public learns about interesting events and people, then... poof. What happened to them?", the Huffington Press story by David Protess published on October 25, 2011 under the heading, "Keeping you posted: Is texas about to kill an innocent man? Also the subpoena that keeps on giving," begins.

"This failing is partly due to the nature of news. Hit refresh every few minutes and something new is hot, while something else fades into obscurity," the story continues.

"But it's also caused by an over-reliance on official sources. Unless the authorities are spouting off, even provocative subjects will often vanish from reporters' radar screens. Case in point: Can you remember the last news story you read about Casey Anthony?

When my editor at HuffPost invited me to write about criminal justice issues (a decision he surely regrets), I swore I'd post frequent updates. Yet, there's always been a reason to delay. I am guilty as charged -- until today, when I will make up for the rain-outs with a double-header. First, I'll catch you up on a Texas death penalty case that most mainstream journalists have missed, and next, on the continuing public controversy over the subpoena of my journalism students' notes and emails. Let's save for another day the question of why the classwork of college kids is more newsworthy than a condemned man's fight for freedom.


"Texas to Condemned Man: Execution First, DNA Later"

On October 4th, I wrote about the latest outrage in the case of Hank Skinner, a resident of Texas' Death Row. Although Skinner recently won his case before the U.S. Supreme Court and in the Texas legislature -- giving him two opportunities to ask for DNA tests that could prove his innocence -- he still faces imminent death by lethal injection. That's because a Texas judge, indifferent to Skinner's requests to scientifically scrutinize untested crime scene evidence, has set his execution date for November 9th -- two weeks from today.

Believing this wouldn't really happen, even in Texas, I expressed my optimism to one of Skinner's lawyers at a recent benefit for the Southern Center for Human Rights. The lawyer assured me that Texas was dead serious. He had asked the Texas judge for a stay of execution but, having heard nothing, was heading to Amarillo to argue the DNA motion in federal court. If the federal magistrate defers to the state courts, he will be back in the Panhandle to ask a judge to apply the Texas statute that mandates DNA testing in cases like Skinner's. Unfortunately, that would be the same judge who signed Skinner's latest death warrant. So goes the ping-pong life of a death penalty lawyer.

Knowledgeable sources in Texas tell me that Skinner's chances will plummet if he loses before the lower court judges. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals rarely sides with criminal defendants (Skinner already has lost there three times), and the U.S. Supreme Court has returned Skinner's case to the lower courts.

That would leave it up to Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who was lustily cheered by Republicans for his state's breath-taking pace of executions. But even if Perry intervenes simply to prevent Skinner's death from becoming a campaign issue, the most he can do under Texas law at this point is grant a 30-day reprieve.

Sensing the urgency, Skinner's wife, Sandrine, a French national, has booked a flight from Paris so she can be near her husband in what could be his final days. Skinner's daughter, Natalie, will be joining them from Virginia, the state where her father was raised.

They have posted a petition imploring the local district attorney to release the evidence for testing. Since the cost of the tests will be borne by the defense, there is no compelling reason to let the evidence sit in storage. Not when a man's life hangs in the balance.

PUBLISHER'S NOTE: 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/charlessmith

Information on "The Charles Smith Blog Award"- and its nomination process - can be found at:

http://smithforensic.blogspot.com/2011/05/charles-smith-blog-award-nominations.html

Harold Levy: Publisher; The Charles Smith Blog; hlevy15@gmail.com;