Texas death row inmate Hank Skinner insists on innocence as he weathers legal downturn in his case

Henry "Hank" Skinner: "My life is
on the line for a crime I didn't do."

LIVINGSTON - Every morning, convicted triple killer Henry Skinner awakes about 4 a.m. as breakfast is served at Texas' death row, deep within the concertina wire-girded Polunksy Unit 10 miles west of this East Texas hamlet. Around him are the furnishings of his 6-by-10-foot steel and concrete cell - a sink, toilet and bunk. For 22 hours a day, this austere place is Skinner's home.

It is here that Skinner, a onetime Pampa paralegal sentenced to die for one of the bloodiest killings in recent Texas Panhandle history, awaits his fate.

"My life is on the line for a crime I didn't do," Skinner, 52, said this week. "As far as the state is concerned, I'm expendable trash."

Skinner's case garnered international attention as he battled for more than a decade to obtain DNA testing of vaginal swabs, a bloody knife and dozens of other pieces of previously unexamined crime scene evidence. Twice Skinner's imminent execution was postponed to allow his lawyers to argue for the testing, which finally began in 2012.

Now, with mid-July's ruling by Pampa state District Judge Steven Emmert that the test results probably would not have altered the Skinner jury's guilty verdict, the killer's life again hangs in the balance.

Skinner was convicted of the 1993 New Year's Eve murders of his live-in lover, Twila Busby, and her two adult sons, Randy Busby and Elwin "Scooter" Caler. Twila Busby was strangled and bludgeoned with an ax handle; the men, stabbed.

Skinner repeated assertions that the killer was Twila Busby's uncle, Robert Donnell, "a mean drunk," who had sexually accosted her during a New Year's Eve party at a nearby residence. Six weeks before the killings, Skinner and Busby's sons arrived at the family home to find Donnell assaulting his niece, he said.

Suspicion first was cast on Donnell by Northwestern University journalism students who traveled to Texas in 2000 to investigate leads in the case. They encountered a witness who had seen the man cleaning his pickup with uncharacteristic fervor just days after the killings.

Donnell later was killed in an auto accident.

Skinner's legal team believes a blood-spattered windbreaker found at the crime scene may have belonged to Donnell. The jacket was lost while in the custody of Gray County authorities, and was not available for DNA testing.

None of Skinner's explanations gained traction with jurors or later appellate court judges.

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Source: Houston Chroncile, Allan Turner, July 27, 2014

Alabama Set To Carry Out Execution This Week

Alabama is preparing to execute Jeremy Williams, who pled guilty to the 2021 rape and murder of five-year-old Kamarie Holland. The execution is scheduled for Thursday (August 13) at the Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore, Alabama. Williams, who is 41, requested the death penalty and waived his right to appeal, making this the first execution in Alabama this year.

Alabama executes Jeremy Williams

Tennessee and Oklahoma have put inmates to death within 30 minutes of each other, and Alabama followed suit hours later as U.S. states executed three men in one day. Tennessee and Oklahoma put inmates to death within 30 minutes of each other Thursday, and Alabama followed suit hours later as U.S. states executed three men by lethal injection in one day for the first time since 2010. The Tennessee man was executed for killing a maid at a motel in 1985, and the Oklahoma man for killing his girlfriend in 2003. In Alabama, a man was put to death Thursday evening for killing a 5-year-old girl he had paid her mother to abuse.

Tennessee | The doctor who helps put prisoners to death

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Tennessee executes Darrell Hines

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Oklahoma executes Carlos Cuesta-Rodriguez

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Tennessee set to execute Anthony Darrell Hines

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Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine issues three death penalty reprieves

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Arizona prosecutors seek death penalty a second time for 2 inmates

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Iran’s War on Women: Executions, Floggings, and the Politics of Fear

The Iranian regime is increasingly using death sentences, corporal punishment, and judicial persecution against women—not only to silence dissent but also to intimidate a society demanding change. The Iranian regime has long viewed women as central to the country’s struggle for freedom—and therefore as central targets of repression. The nationwide uprising of 2022 fundamentally altered the political landscape, demonstrating that Iranian women were no longer merely participants in protest movements but among their principal organizers and symbols. Since then, the authorities have steadily intensified their campaign against women, expanding the use of executions, imprisonment, corporal punishment, and judicial intimidation.

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