We’re all familiar with the Todd Willingham case and the possibility that he was an innocent man, but there’s another inmate scheduled for execution this week in which similar questions about innocence have been raised.
The seven-member Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles today unanimously rejected death-row inmate Hank Skinner‘s request for a reprieve from his execution, which is scheduled for Wednesday.
Skinner says he did not commit the three murders he was convicted of in 1995. For more than a decade, he has asked the courts to allow DNA testing on a slew of evidence from the crime scene that Skinner says could prove he did not kill his girlfriend and her two adult sons in the small Panhandle town of Pampa in 1993. The courts, though, have repeatedly denied his requests, arguing that Skinner should have had the evidence tested during his original trial.
With the board’s decision today, Skinner’s last hopes for testing on that evidence before he dies are Gov. Rick Perry and the U.S. Supreme Court. Skinner’s attorneys have asked Perry to grant a one-time, 30-day reprieve to allow the testing. Perry has granted such a reprieve only twice before, and spokeswoman Allison Castle said today he had not made a decision yet about Skinner. The attorneys have also asked the Supreme Court to issue a stay and order testing on the DNA.
An Arizona-based lab has offered to do the testing for free and within 30 days.
Follow the links above for a nice two-part story that gives the background on Skinner’s case. Basically, he may or may not be innocent, but the DNA testing, which wasn’t done at the time by his defense team, could prove it one way or the other. Whether he gets that chance before he’s put to death is the question.
I of course don’t see the harm in waiting 30 days to be sure about something as final as this, but that’s all on the Governor. I am curious about one thing: What if anything could stop that lab, or anyone else, from performing that test posthumously? Obviously, they have access to Skinner’s DNA. Do the rules change about getting their hands on and doing stuff with the case evidence after Skinner’s death? I’m sure someone can enlighten me, but I would presume that they would be able to get at it eventually, and if so we’ll get an answer one way or another. Given that, you have to wonder about the political calculation Rick Perry is making right now. We’ll know what he thinks soon enough.