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Hank Skinner
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Lawyers for death row inmate Hank Skinner told a court, in documents filed Friday, that testing on long-sought-after DNA evidence in his case should be enough to forestall his execution. State prosecutors, who also submitted legal arguements on Friday, said the same evidence should convince the judge to confirm the 52-year-old's death sentence.
Jurors in 1995 found Skinner guilty of strangling and bludgeoning to death his live-in girlfriend, Twila Busby, and fatally stabbing her two adult sons, Elwin Caler and Randy Busby.
Last February, state District Judge Stephen Emmert held a two-day hearing in Gray County on the DNA evidence.
Defense attorney Rob Owen said at the DNA hearing and again in the proposed findings of fact submitted to Emmert, that the issue was not whether DNA could prove his client is actually innocent. Instead, Owen wrote, the issue is whether the jury would have convicted Skinner if the DNA results had been available at the time of the trial.
Source: Texas Tribune, June 6, 2014