Hank Skinner, a $550 DNA test and the price of Texas justice

Henry "Hank" Skinner

Skinner was convicted of murdering his girlfriend, Twila Busby, and her two adult sons, Randy and Elwin, at a trial in 1995. But from the beginning, Skinner has maintained his innocence, arguing that he was too inebriated from a cocktail of vodka and codeine to have been capable of the crimes. The evidence against him is largely circumstantial and his lawyers argue that Busby's uncle (since deceased) was the real perpetrator.

The Texas court of criminal appeals rejected Skinner's application for DNA testing to be performed on blood taken from the murder scene, saying it prohibits post-conviction testing unless – and this is key – "a reasonable probability exists that DNA tests would prove the prisoner's innocence."

In other words, Skinner needs to basically prove he is innocent before he can have the murder weapon tested, which he says will prove he's innocent. That makes sense, then.

It's true that the DNA evidence was available at the time of his original trial, but a full year before that, Skinner wrote to his attorney asking for it to be tested. His attorney decided against it, fearing that his client's DNA was probably on some of the items simply because he had lived in Busby's home, and that the jurors would place too much weight on that evidence.

In March 2010, Skinner was taken to the death chamber 40 miles away from Livingston in Huntsville, but less than an hour before the execution was due to take place, the US supreme court granted a stay while it considered whether to allow Skinner to request DNA tests. A year on, it agreed he could sue the district attorney to gain access to the evidence. Meanwhile, a new execution date has been set for 9 November.

The fact that the state seems to be trying every trick in the book to stop Skinner – a man who is set to die in a week – from making one last attempt to prove his innocence leaves more than a bad taste. If the state is so sure he's guilty and the death sentence safe, what are they afraid of?

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Source: The Guardian, November 2, 2011

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