Friday March 4th, 2011
The latest news you can use about TX Death Row, where “State Officials” lunacy and idiocy reigns supreme and where the fun never ends!
About a month and a half ago my homeboy and good friend, fellow hillbilly Donald Keith Newberry aka Lizzerd, made himself some playtime “body armor’ outta cardboard, state shaving razors and handles.
Before I explain this, let me explain a little more about the man himself, Lizzerd. For the last year or so Lizzerd has been engaged in a sort of spittin’ contest with “unit officials”, aka Lil’ Tim Lester, Asst. Warden and Good Ol’ boy Joe Smith, Major. Lizzerd has a wild sense of humor and he delights in showing these two state clowns how he can outsmart them and defeat all their efforts to constrain him. Think the road runner vs Wylie coyote or Bo & Luke Duke vs Roscoe P. Coltrain (the Dukes of Hazzard TV show).
Lizzerd likes to take advantage of all their lil’ “heightened security measures” and use ‘em to get loose or otherwise make ‘em look like fools, which ain’t hard, anyway. Then he highsides ‘em about it. Lizzerd holds the record for most gas used in a use of force (UOF). That used to be my record but I laid off doing run-ins due to health and age issues. I’m almost half a century old and I got high blood pressure and other age related health problems I won’t bore you with. Fightin’ five (5) or more swine at once while covered in “chemical agents” is a a youngster’s endeavor or, an idiot’s, whichever comes first. So I’m outta the crash test dummy business for good, I guess. I can do one good one if I need to; I just don’t need to, yet. After I almost died over in Huntsville on their lil’ horizontal cross 03.24.10, I came to see the folly and futility of so much these “TDCJ officials” do and say. Why cater to asswipes like that? Now I just laugh at ‘em. I do a lot of laughing, too!!
Back to Lizzerd. They’ve started getting real frustrated over the way he beats ‘em at every turn. For over a year they’ve had him isolated out on a section by himself. 14 cells going to waste for one man! Your tax dollars at work, folks! They think they’re going to break him. It ain’t worked out that way at all. Lizzerd, like me, prevails, perseveres, outlasts and overcomes all their foolery.
So they’re now down to just beating him up every time they get him in cuffs. In may views it takes a real special kind of coward to beat a man who’s in cuffs and defenseless.
So Lizzerd makes this body armor out of cardboard and embeds lil’ pieces of state razors in everywhere – these are disposable razors, the blades are just a lil’ ribbon of stainless steel an inch and a half long by three eights wide and .14000” thick. Too tiny and flimsy to cut anything but paper, outside the plastic body the come encased in. But they look good, stuck in these lil’ pasteboard arm guards, shin guard and chest protector. They say he drew designs on ‘em and dressed ‘em up – “TX death row” and ‘born to die”, etc. Lizzerd says he got the idea from a porcupine. Already I like hedgehogs and porcupines, cool lil’ creatures.
Lizzerd’s back up plan here is to black out his cell lights and let ‘em run-in on him and watch ‘em pull up short when they run up on him covered in razors. Whoa! WTF?!! It ain’t gonna do nothin’ but it’s a helluva gag. On first blush it looks dangerous as hell. The premise is “hey, don’t nobody touch me, won’t nobody get hurt”, Ha/Ha, Ha/Ha LMAO! So if you insist on calling it a “weapon”, it’s certainly a passive one.
Consider this in context of what the goon squad wears. Five (5) or seven (7) of ‘em: full coverage helmets with gas masks and wire cage face shield; stab proof flak vest with Revlar inserts and high padded neck brace; forearm guards, thigh and shin guards, black racing gloves with the rubberized rib guards, etc. Ever seen a hockey player being the goalie? There you go: Five (5) or seven (7) hockey goalies. Even if you got a pair of steel shanks taped to your hands with string and a bat, you can’t hurt ‘em. No way.
Speaking of this, it’s always interesting to watch these fools’ behavior. After a run-in, they take off their helmets and start whoopin’ and hollerin’, high fivin’ each other, like they really done som’, you know? I tell ‘em “wait a minute, wait a minute. It took seven of you silly fat fxxckers, wearin’ all that contraption, just to run-in on one prisoner standin’ there in his boxer shorts and flip-flops? You sprayed eight (8) cans of gas on this man and despite all this, 3 of you still got your asses whipped and two more almost, yet you feel like you won and really did som’? It takes all y’all and all that gear and all that gas to defeat just one barefoot, boxer wearin’ convict, yet you’re proud of yourselves?!? You oughtta be standin’ behind Mama’s apron still, peepin’ out! Ha/Ha. You oughtta see the look on their faces when I tell them this. Everybody on the section is roaring laughing at these clowns; even the Lieutenant, Captain and camera operator.
So, when they run-in on a blacked-out cell they use a high powered spotlight called a Q-Beam – that intense light instantly reflects off the lil’ pieces in Lizzerd’s “armor”. Yeah, it’d be a real show stopper until they see what it really is. Ha/Ha.
They get Lizzerd’s armor and decide this is som’ real serious stuff! LOL. So they put Lizzerd on “razor restriction” and arbitrarily decide all the rest of us can no longer possess disposable shaving razors. In prison conditions law parlance, that’s what’s known as an “overreaching exaggerated response to legitimate penological needs”. “Prison officials can infringe ‘our’ constitutional rights only if it is absolutely necessary in furtherance of a legitimate penological goal or objective”. This is the U.S. Supreme Court case law I’m quoting here. If Lizzerd abused his razors, they can do something about that, with him; however it gives them no authority at all to punish the rest of us, or deprive us of items we’re permitted by policy to possess.
But wait! TDCJ has a strict grooming policy and they require you to be clean shaven. Yes, they are still enforcing that policy, too.
In your cell there is a sink and a mirror where you can shave. In the shower there is neither. So the Major arbitrarily decides no one can have a razor anymore except in the shower and “shave by feel”. Bullshit. Lil’ Lester tried this same thing when he was Major back here and everybody bucked and just quit shaving and “grooming” altogether.
TDCJ has no right to make anyone cut and disfigure themselves in order to comply with their “grooming standards”. That’s inevitably what happens when you’re forced to “shave by feel” in the shower.
Not only that but it creates an unacceptable risk of infection by blood-borne diseases like HIV, syphilis, herpes, hepatitis C and a myriad of other blood-borne pathogens. In 1998 TDCJ Officer Herbitch intentionally infected me with hepatits C. I successfully sued and won, forced them to give me a treatment (over a year’s worth of Interferon recombinant-A Roferon shots 3 times a week and 600mg Ribavirin twice a day). It happened in the shower. As part of the settlement of that suit, TDCJ agreed to do away with the razor boards where they hung all the razors on hooks and withheld them until a prisoner was in the shower. They agreed to give each individual prisoner his own razor and allow him to keep it on person. Slowly but surely since, lil’ Lester has eroded and violated that agreement by degrees – first he decided that Level III couldn’t have razors because they’re assaultive-aggressive; then he decided Level II couldn’t have ‘em for som’ other equally ridiculous reason. Lester’s favorite tactic was to withhold razors and then use it as an excuse to keep a prisoner on level for “refusing to groom”. All this totally overlooks the fact that TDCJ’s grooming policies have been found unconstitutional by a Federal Court and TDCJ prohibited from enforcing them. Lil’ Lester doesn’t care about anyone’s rights or TDCJ policy or anything else. He does what he wants. He’s above the law. Just ask him.
Now however, TDCJ/Lil’ Lester is courting a far different disaster: MRSA, which is running rampant in jails and prisons everywhere. MRSA is Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus.
The other day I went to the shower behind one of these prisoners who’d “shaved by feel” and there was blood all over the floor and on the wall and door. That’s a biohazard, big time. If that blood contained HIV, Hep C or any other blood-borne pathogen and you have one lil’ open sore on your foot, a scratch, a cut and you come into contact with that blood, you’re infected.
They’re creating an environment ripe for transmission of MRSA. Now the Major is saying they’re going to start locking the bean holes on the showers when someone is in there and when the showers are not in use.
A bean hole, for those of you who don’t know, is a lil’ trap door portal at the same height as a mail slot on the door of a house – just above knee level. It’s a rectangle 5 ½ “ high by approx. 15” wide with a locking door on the outside. They use it to handcuff you before you come out and to unhandcuff you coming in. There’s one on the cell door as well, used for the same purpose, and to feed your trays through.
Currently with the bean hole open, we reach out and hang our boxers on the doorknob of the shower door – it don’t turn; the door is operated electrically from the picket to unlock it. The knob is only there to pull it open with. We hang our towel and boxers out there to keep them from getting wet.
The shower stall is like a small closet, three (3) feet wide by six (6) feet deep. The walls are slick. There’s no hooks, bolts, knobs or anything to hand something on. There’s no mirror. The way it’s arranged in relation to the showerhead, once you turn on the water, every surface inside it, floor to ceiling, gets soaking wet; even the ceiling, by rising steam/moisture.
MRSA thrives in wet areas. The showers have an exhaust vent but that vent cannot circulate air and cannot exhaust at all if the bean hole is shut because the shower is a solid metal door with only a plexiglass view port at face height. When the bean holes are locked, the shower never dries out after use and starts to smell like a wet, dead dog – moldy, rotten and mildewy.
They have a crew of prisoner workers out of population called support service inmates (SSI’s) who come around to sweep, mop and clean the showers. On each of six (6) pods there are six (6) sections of fourteen (14) cells arranged in a two-tiered configuration of seven (7) cells each, called one row and two row. On each row of a section is one shower stall shared by (7) ore more prisoners. I say “seven (7) or more” because if there are unshowered prisoners in other sections and all (7) are showered already in the next section, they will utilize the empty shower and bring prisoners over from the next section to shower.
When the SSI’s come to clean, they use the same brush and bucket of cleaning solution to clean all the showers on the whole pod, 12 showers total. So in actuality they’re just transferring whatever pathogens are present all around the whole pod. Even worse, I’ve seen them fill the shower bucket by dipping it into the mop water bucket they used to mop the floors all over the whole pod.
With this sort of pathogen transfer extant and the shower bean holes closed so the shower stall never fully dries out, it’s a recipe for disaster. The showers are not designed to be shaving in them. More so, there’s no place inside the shower you can hang you boxers and towel if the bean hole is locked. You’d just have to lay them on the floor.
Then there’s Lester’s Lil’ no clothesline rule. First he told us we couldn’t have a clothesline at all. So I filed a grievance on him, me and Todd Willingham did and won it. Lester couldn’t stand that so he made up all those other rules – you can only have a clothesline made of this certain material and you can only run it from here to here and you can only have it up from 6:00pm to 6:00am, blah, blah, blah. See, Lester is a micro-managing idiot in the first degree.
We don’t shower at night. Ha/Ha. We shower in the daytime, 6:30am-6:00pm on first shift. Our towels, boxers and other clothes, washrags, etc. are wet during that time and that’s when they need to be hung up.
The next ingredient in this recipe for disaster is that before we came over here, this whole building, all six (6) pods, 504 cells, was ad seg and they were all shit slingers. Once TDCJ started using pepper spray to subdue prisoners in ad seg, the prisoners started responding with liquefied feces. It got so bad at one point that officers could not come on a section unless they were wearing a face shield, a rain slicker and rubber hat. To this day, every time it rains and gets damp here, it reactivates the shit that is still in all the cracks and crevices of the cells, floors, outside walls, etc. So anytime it gets humid here, the faint (or sometimes very strong) scent of shit is in the air. Shit is 66% bacteria.
Then there’s the laundry. Ever since Tabler’s big escapade with Senator Whitmire, the population prisoners hate death row with a passion. They’re not washing the clothes but doing what they call “short runs” where they do not use enough Dejest (soap) to clean the poundage of clothes in the extractor (giant washer) and they cheat the cycle card it runs on, so that instead of two washes, spins, rinses and a sanitation cycle (utilizes a steam manifold and 180°-200°F water to disinfect the clothes), then final spin out, they use one 6 or 8 minute wash, one rinse, one spin and no sanitation cycle. That’s just enough to mix up the dirt and redistribute it evenly through the clothes – so now everybody gets some of everybody else’s pathogens. They they run it through the dryer at 300°F or more and cook it into the clothes. The result is that all the clothes, towels and sheets we get smell like B.O. and stinky feet; and are either dookie brown or sewage gray and not fit for human consumption, or use.
Finally is the new problem created by Capt Shannon Price. She tells the necessity officer he is not allowed to give us any state soap at all and the officers who pass it out to limit us to only five (5) bars a week, no more, no matter what. So, with no access to soap and bleach we’re forced to wear the clothes and use the sheets “as is”.
Incidentally, Shannon, aka Sha-nae-nae, is no longer with us. She got busted for illicit drug use and dirty U.A. and terminated – escorted off the unit. Yay!! So at least one good thing happened, eh.
Captain Patrick Dickens replaced Sha-nae-nae. We’ll see what he says about all this, as I’m about to bring it to him.
We crush up this soap and use it to wash our clothes, linens and towels. It works really great for that. To give you the proper perspective on the soap, consider this: the bars TDCJ makes are lye soap from rendered fat they get for free and prisoners produce it so the cost is in negligible. The soap is “one use” bars, 1 ½ “ wide, 2 ½ “ Long and ¼ “ thick – enough for one shower if you use it sparingly.
Some of you may say “why don’t you buy soap from the commissary?” The answer is that only level I prisoners can buy unrestricted soap from the commissary. Level II & III can buy only five (5) small “personal use” bars of Dial soap from commissary every two (2) weeks and, if you’re on commissary restriction, as most of us are, you can buy only five (5) bars a month. Yes, I know that’s crazy. Dial contains triclosan, which is an anti-bacterial agent and, while it’s good for washing your body, it’s no good at all for washing clothes, linens and towels. The TDCY lye soap disinfects. Dial doesn’t. And, finally, not every prisoner here has $ with which to buy soap.
In a place like prison, where so many men are confined in such a small place, where pathogens run rampant and infections spread so quickly; in the age of MRSA running rampant in jails and prisons across the nation, you gotta wonder what on earth these “prison officials” must be thinking? Lil’ Lester Pester says it’s to cut down on “trafficking and trading” is why they’re denying us access to soap and bleach. So, um, to keep one prisoner from giving soap to another one is more important than keeping your prisoners clean and preventing the spread of disease?
Two prisoners here, that I know of, have suffered serious staph infections due to these filthy sheets – Jeff Pribble and Brent Ripkowsky. I’m sure there are probably others.
I myself have some kind of chronic skin infection on my ankles and legs, my sides and the backs of my arms that I’ve had for over 6 years now. The doctor here, D.O. Alan Zond, does not know how to cure it, yet he refuses to give me a referral to a dermatologist so I can get treatment. Consequently the infection is disfiguring me on a daily basis. I have scars and discoloration all over, where I’m infected. All Zond will do is give me triamcinolone cream – an anti-inflammatory, anti-itch medication, to mask the symptoms.
While I’m on that issue, medical care here now is non-existent. I have prescription eyeglasses. Policy says we’re allowed to renew our prescriptions and update via eye exam every two years. Mine have not been done in over six (6) years now. I put in for update and eye exam for the 8th time back in April 2010 and they gold me they’d take me to Estelle Unit to get my glasses done. That was 11 months ago. My eyeglasses are in four (4) separate pieces because the goon squad crushed ‘em in the repeated run-ins I suffered at the hands of Lil’ Lester Pester.
Back to the disaster in the making. It’s a lethal recipe, as I said: transmission of biohazards and blood-borne pathogens; inadequately washed, unsanitized clothes, undergarments and linens/towels; perpetually wet showers and towels; state created denial of adequate access to soap, bleach, Bippy scouring power and other hygiene sundries: forcing prisoners to “shave by feel” in showers not equipped nor designed for such activities, resulting in hazardous exposure of prisoners to blood, etc.
I cannot imagine the kind of idiot who, in a prison setting, would want to restrict prisoner access to soap, bleach and Bippy scouring powder. That is beyond insane.
Sorry this one got a little longwinded but this is a convoluted issue with many facets interrelated but separate issues; To any D.R. prisoner who becomes infected and wants to sue, have your attorney contact me. I’ll provide all the information and documentation needed to win the suit.
That’s it for this time, but wait ‘til you read the next one!
Best regards,
Hank
999143 Polunsky Unit
H W Hank Skinner
3872 FM 350 South
Livingston TX 77351-8580
h.w.skinner@gmail.com
http://www.hankskinner.org
For those of you who use JPay to write, don’t forget to always include your postal address and your e-mail address after your signature, so I can reply. www.jpay.com don’t forget to enter my TDC number as an 8-digit number: 00999143.
Showing posts with label H W HANK SKINNER. Show all posts
Showing posts with label H W HANK SKINNER. Show all posts
Thursday, March 24, 2011
Monday, March 07, 2011
Hank Skinner Wins at Supreme Court Allowing Him to Continue to Seek DNA Testing
Today, Hank Skinner won his Supreme Court case 6-3, so he can continue to seek DNA testing of evidence. At least year's Anti-Death Penalty Alternative Spring Break, Hank's wife, Sandrine, spoke at a press conference organized by the students participating at spring break. It was one week before Hank's scheduled execution. Last year during spring break, the students also visited legislative offices and got Sen Ellis and Rep Naishtat to write clemency letters for Hank Skinner to Governor Perry. If you want to make a major difference in the effort against the death penalty like last year's participants, register for this year's spring break at springbreakalternative.org/deathpenalty.
From the New York Times:
From the New York Times:
The Supreme Court on Monday made it easier for inmates to sue for access to DNA evidence that could prove their innocence.
The legal issue in the case was tightly focused, and quite preliminary: Was Hank Skinner, a death row inmate in Texas, entitled to sue a prosecutor there under a federal civil rights law for refusing to allow testing of DNA evidence in his case? By a 6-to-3 vote, the court said yes, rejecting a line of lower-court decisions that had said the only proper procedural route for such challenges was a petition for habeas corpus.
Wednesday, February 09, 2011
New Hell Hole News #27
Sunday January 30th, 2011
Hey y’all. Well, we had oral arguments in the U.S. Supreme Court on October 13th, 2010. So one way or another we’re making history, here. When I sat down and figured out how to file this civil rights suit against D.A. Switzer (and, let me say right here too, I did not do all the figuring; my attorneys deserve most of the credit. I came up with the structural frame of the claim. The basics of what I wanted to do. But they are the real architects and engineers making this plane fly).
Speaking of planes flying, on 11.24.10, the day before Thanksgiving and 8 months to the day after my execution date (NDE 03.24.10) the private attorney representing D.A. Lyn Switzer, Greg Coleman, was flying his mother-in-law and her brother to meet Coleman’s wife and other family for Thanksgiving in Destin, Florida when he crashed and burned 1500 ft out in the water from shore, killing him and everyone on board. There have been a lot of strange deaths associated with my case over the years. As one attorney recently noted on Scotusblog, the case has been brutal. I think Coleman’s mishap was his own making; he’d apparently been running on 16+hr workdays for years and only 3-4 hours of sleep a night. I think he was just too stressed out and suffering exhaustion. After reading all the news articles and NTSB findings on the crash, I’m convinced that’s what happened. There seemed to be no indication of mechanical failure so that leaves only weather conditions (sea fog low and heavy) and pilot error.
This guy had written some really hateful and very untruthful stuff in his brief in the Supreme Court about me. I was really hot at him and beaming some bad and upset feelings at him. I think any agent of the state should adhere to a higher level of honor and integrity than to lodge arguments with the nation’s highest court (or any court) that are patently false; full of guile, deceit, sleight of hand and treachery. But, now he’s dead and I feel really bad for being mad at him. Some days I think I really am crazy as hell: this man tried to help usher my death for a crime I didn’t commit yet I feel bad for him. I feel really bad for his poor wife and kids, who are now without a husband and the kids are gonna grow up without their dad.
Had to get that outta my system and off my chest! It’s been eatin’ my lunch. It still is. I cannot reconcile in my mind how a guy who was supposed to be such a great advocate of the downtrodden, a wonderful husband and father, could stoop to the levels he did, to write the kind of malicious stuff he did in his briefs in my case.
I’m tired of talkin’ about my innocence and my case; and all the associated effluvia and errata it’s generated. 17+ years. I’m tired. Exhausted.
Hey check this out: what if you were technically guilty as hell of capital murder as it is described in the statutes but totally justified morally, physically and in actuality? What if you could say, I had not choice. It was self-defense. Do it or die myself. I did it, I’m not the least bit remorseful, nor should I be; if I had to do it over again, I’d do exactly the same. I’m about to relate to you three such cases.
The first is Rogelio Reyes Cannady #99245 who was executed May 19th, 2010. RIP Roy. We called him “Cowboy Roy” because at one time, every time the police tried to get him out of his cell, he thought it was rodeo season. I spent a lot of time ridin’ with Roy after he first came to D.R. in December 1997. We ended up in solitary together at Ellis and were the first two off the bus when they began to transfer us over here to Polunsky. Roy was like my own personal guide because he’d been locked up in a succession of these 2250 prototype SHU supermaxes TX had constructed all over the state. This place is so different from Ellis and all they had over here was ad seg and they were aggravated all to hell – “agg” – so were the bosses (officers). Psych patients, feces slingers, etc.
Roy was one of the best people I have ever met in my years on death row. Just a real solid dude on all four corners, head-to-toe. He was thrown in prison for a crime he didn’t commit – a crime which was actually committed by a cop’s son and the cop framed Roy. Years later, when this cop learned of Roy’s fate, he made some tapes where he confessed how he framed Roy and set him up, then shot himself, committed suicide. Roy’s case was tragic. He was a juvenile certified as an adult, given a life sentence and thrown in prison with grown men twice his size. But Roy learned how to fight and he survived. He had a particular hatred for the police and whipped guards relentlessly.
They got tired of him beating up the officers and they set him up, more or less. They put him in a cell with a known booty bandit named Bonal. Roy was a small fellow who had a lot of heart. Bonal started coming on to Roy. Roy told him point blank he wasn’t into homosexuality. Roy was sick with the flue and in a weakened state. He feared if he fell asleep this guy Bonal would try to tie him down and rape him. Bonal attacked Roy. Roy had his belt wrapped around his hand, threaded through two combination locks.
They fought. Bonal was twice Roy’s size and outweighed him by a considerable margin. Despite being the underdog, Roy prevailed and killed Bonal. He was locked in a cell and literally fighting for his life and for his ass. If you snitch or get “turned out” (raped) in prison, you lose respect and all the sharks will attack you and take you for everything you’ve got. So Roy quite literally had no choice in the world except to do what he did. The state of TX put Roy in that position, then killed him over it. What’s even worse is Roy should never have been in prison to start with. And more than that, the law they used to kill him wasn’t even in effect when Roy killed Bonal; it was applied to him years later, ex post facto, which is illegal. But this is Texas! As if that makes it ok.
The second case is similar. Leet Taylor who we call “Tiny” #99344. Tiny is a ‘wood that was known by the prisoners at the time but not the prison administration. Tiny was convicted as a juvenile, certified to stand trial as an adult just like Rogelio. Tiny was placed on a cellblock full of Blacks. Some day it was intentional. Tiny had a reputation as someone who would stand up and fight no matter what. Some units in Texas are racially segregated. Tensions stay high. Violence can erupt any second. So when these dudes cliqued on Tiny, he had literally no help. They told him, at breakfast when they roll the doors, “it’s on”.
At Tiny’s trial the state faulted him for “not notifying any officer and alerting him to the potential trouble” sot they could’ve got him out of harm’s way. That would’ve certainly got Tiny killed. It’s called snitching and catching out. i.e. telling it and running. In Texas (or any prison) if you tell it, you got a jacket (reputation) as a snitch. Catch outs are considered cowards and become targets of the strong arms (extortionists) and booty bandits (rapists). No prisoner in his right mind is going to “notify” or “alert” any officer. That’s an instant death sentence of an excruciating kind. Also you gotta figure it was the laws (ranking officers) who got you assigned to this Black cellblock and since they don’t do anything without a purpose, they must’ve intended for this result to occur. What good’s it gonna do to tell them anything? They are not going to help you. They’d just laugh and tell you som’ like “you got yourself in it, get yourself out”.
When it went down, Tiny defended himself – they brought it to him, he didn’t instigate anything. He prevailed against the guys who attacked him and ended up killing one of them. All of this happened only because Tiny was misclassified and put in a situation where he didn’t belong. Texas did that to him and now they’re trying to kill him for it.
What’s worse in Tiny’s case is the underlying case he was serving time for that put him in prison was committed as a juvenile. The U.S. Supreme Court has outlawed the execution as punishment for a crime committed as a juvenile. In Texas, this underlying conviction is what was used to elevate the murder he committed in prison to capital murder. Tiny was doing life for aggravated robbery. Under TX law that’s what’s known as a 3rd degree offense. The law says that if you’re serving time for a 3rd degree offense and kill someone in prison, it’s capital murder. That law was meant to deter willfully aggressive
Wouldn’t you know, I saved the best for last! None of them are best; they’re all bad really. But this last case I’m about to relate to you is the wildest thing I’ve heard in awhile. Texas has a reputation to over-the-top, hot-doggin’, abusive cops. But this one really takes the cake.
Meet office Nix. “Psycho Nix”. Aptly so called. Officer Nix here is a Dallas cop who has a habit of jerking citizens off the sidewalk and slamming on their faces (Anthony Williams, 14 years old, 08.23.06) and shooting people he don’t like just because they’re scared of him and running from the abuse he threatens (Raquel Sosa and Jesus Ortiz. On July 21st 2002, Nix chased them on foot into a big drainage pipe over a mere traffic violation. When they emerged from the other end, Nix drew a bead on Ortiz while cussing him and shot him in the buttocks, killing him). At the time officer Nix demise he had two uses of excessive force sustained against him and many more pending. If he had not died on March 23rd 2007, he likely would’ve been fired from his job shortly after.
OK, meet Wesley Ruiz #999536. Born Nov 1979, he’s 27 years old on 03.23.07. He lives in a very rough part of town. He’s armed with a pistol for his own protection. He borrow a friend’s car to run some errands. Two cops on a task force who’re UC in a plain truck see Ruiz be-boppin’ down the road and arbitrarily (and very incorrectly) decide this car Ruiz is driving matches the description of a car involved in a murder that’d happened recently – it didn’t match. So they call in a marked unit to make a traffic stop and use that as a springboard to search the car and its occupant. Such pretextual “stop and arrests” are illegal but they do it all the time in TX.
Ruiz knows if he gets stopped he’s going to jail. So he runs. Who’d blame him? Gotta take that small chance. Maybe he’ll get lucky and get away. He’s got enough problems as it is. Other than just refusing to stop and trying to get away, Ruiz has done nothing wrong. Even in TX, mere evading is not a killing offense.
He spins out trying to make a corner and winds up in someone’s yard. Pyscho Nix pulls his cruiser nose-to-nose with Ruiz’ stalled car, leaps out, draws his weapon, runs over to the passenger side while screaming at Ruiz “if you try to get away, MFER, I’ll kill your ass!” Nix puts his gun on the ground (ain’t he brite?), grabs his asp off his service belt and starts pounding the read passenger window. An asp is a telescopic series of coil springs with a big lead sap weight on the end of it. It’s a mean weapon. When you swing it, the spring makes the weight whiplash into the target with a force magnified exponentially. Ruiz hears the crack of the asp against glass and thinks it’s a gunshot. Believing this crazy cop is making good on his threat to kill him, Ruiz reached into the backseat, grabs his pistol and fires one shot at Nix’s shoulder just to disable him so he can’t shoot at him again. He’s not trying to kill Nix, just to stop Nix killing him, Ruiz.
He drops the pistol and faces the front where the other (5) officers involved insanely open up a fusillade of bullets that takes the terms “excessive force” and “overkill” to new heights.
Without another shot fired by Ruiz, these officers expend 56 (fifty six) rounds of ammunition, hitting Ruiz 14 times. Ruiz is not in an offensive posture when he’s shot. He’d already dropped his weapon and surrendered. But still he’s shot fourteen times (14) !!!?? Unbelievable.
All of these actions D.P.D. officers violate every procedural protocol in their operations manual. They weren’t supposed to force a high speed chase in a residential section; they we’re not supposed to bum rush the stalled car with guns drawn; officer Nix was not supposed to go running up to the car with gun drawn threatening death to Ruiz for nothing; and they surely weren’t supposed to shoot him after he’d relinquished his weapon, fourteen times (14),
Although they took him to the hospital and gave him very minimal treatment, within a day and a half they threw him out of took him to an isolated single cell at Dallas County jail, hoping he’d die. He still somehow managed to live anyway.
Officer Nix wasn’t as lucky. He was hit in the shoulder/collarbone area but the bullet struck his badge and ricocheted into his neck, severing his carotid artery. Officer Nix subsequently bled out on the ground and in the car on the way to the hospital – the officers thought they could get him to the E.R. faster than waiting on an ambulance.
You can blame Ruiz all you want but the fact remains that these officers openly and very damn viciously attacked a citizen on false, pretextual pretenses later found to have no basis in fact, tried to assassinate him in order to cover it up (another citizen witness on the scene who observed the incident says the police opened up on Ruiz and shot him first), then convicted him of capital murder for defending himself against Nix.
Here’s the kicker: it’s capital murder to kill a cop who’s acting in furtherance of discharging his lawful duties. Office Nix, when he was shot, was not acting in furtherance of discharging any lawful duty. Had he merely used the P.A. system in his vehicle to address Ruiz and tell him to exit the vehicle with his hands in the air where he can see them and to place his hands on the hood of the vehicle and assume the position officer Nix would still be alive today. Officer Nix’s illegal actions got him killed.
Now, I got some questions for y’all and I want some answers! I get tired of being a lone voice on this sphere of new balls I chunck outta the hellhole from time to time. Time for you folks out there to give me some feedback. I demand interaction, now! Ha/Ha J
Seriously though, here’s my questions:
This is not a debate on the death penalty here. This is an assessment of potential consequences of someone’s actions in abstract. In any of the three instant cases I described, do these guys’ actions merit death and, if so, why?
Rogelio’s dead. Put some flowers on his grave. Tiny’s not dead but soon could be. Ruiz is just starting out his appeal process. Please write and offer him support and encouragement to Tiny and Wesley, OK. You know, when I first met Wesley and he told me the story himself, I would’ve swore he was lying. Embellishing, aggrandizing, shading it his way. Nope. He was 100% truthful in every fact he related. I’ve read his brief written by Lydia Brandt, a well-known D.P. appellate attorney. She’s 100% reliable in citing the evidence and trial record. It’s just too insane to be real, I tell you! But it’s real!
Tiny’s case has some mean twists and subterfuge engaged by the swine, too. But it involves gangs and stuff I can’t speak on because I don’t know what’s permissible to say publicly. I’ll let Tiny explain to you what he can, if you write him. You should!
Well, I just wanted to give y’all some’ to think about. You never know what’s gonna happen in your life from one day to the next, eh. I’d guarantee you, on the days it happened, neither of these guys woke up and thought “hey today, I’m gonna kill a prisoner and get sentenced to death”. You think Ruiz knew, when he left to run errands, he’d wind up shot 14 times, on the 6 o’clock news, with a cop dead and he’s charged with it? Nope. No way.
That’s the Hellhole News for this edition, Sunday January 30th, 2011. Goodnight and have a pleasant evening. Write me too! At the address below:
999143 Polunsky Unit
H W Hank Skinner
3872 FM 350 South
Livingston TX 77351-8580
Hey y’all. Well, we had oral arguments in the U.S. Supreme Court on October 13th, 2010. So one way or another we’re making history, here. When I sat down and figured out how to file this civil rights suit against D.A. Switzer (and, let me say right here too, I did not do all the figuring; my attorneys deserve most of the credit. I came up with the structural frame of the claim. The basics of what I wanted to do. But they are the real architects and engineers making this plane fly).
Speaking of planes flying, on 11.24.10, the day before Thanksgiving and 8 months to the day after my execution date (NDE 03.24.10) the private attorney representing D.A. Lyn Switzer, Greg Coleman, was flying his mother-in-law and her brother to meet Coleman’s wife and other family for Thanksgiving in Destin, Florida when he crashed and burned 1500 ft out in the water from shore, killing him and everyone on board. There have been a lot of strange deaths associated with my case over the years. As one attorney recently noted on Scotusblog, the case has been brutal. I think Coleman’s mishap was his own making; he’d apparently been running on 16+hr workdays for years and only 3-4 hours of sleep a night. I think he was just too stressed out and suffering exhaustion. After reading all the news articles and NTSB findings on the crash, I’m convinced that’s what happened. There seemed to be no indication of mechanical failure so that leaves only weather conditions (sea fog low and heavy) and pilot error.
This guy had written some really hateful and very untruthful stuff in his brief in the Supreme Court about me. I was really hot at him and beaming some bad and upset feelings at him. I think any agent of the state should adhere to a higher level of honor and integrity than to lodge arguments with the nation’s highest court (or any court) that are patently false; full of guile, deceit, sleight of hand and treachery. But, now he’s dead and I feel really bad for being mad at him. Some days I think I really am crazy as hell: this man tried to help usher my death for a crime I didn’t commit yet I feel bad for him. I feel really bad for his poor wife and kids, who are now without a husband and the kids are gonna grow up without their dad.
Had to get that outta my system and off my chest! It’s been eatin’ my lunch. It still is. I cannot reconcile in my mind how a guy who was supposed to be such a great advocate of the downtrodden, a wonderful husband and father, could stoop to the levels he did, to write the kind of malicious stuff he did in his briefs in my case.
I’m tired of talkin’ about my innocence and my case; and all the associated effluvia and errata it’s generated. 17+ years. I’m tired. Exhausted.
Hey check this out: what if you were technically guilty as hell of capital murder as it is described in the statutes but totally justified morally, physically and in actuality? What if you could say, I had not choice. It was self-defense. Do it or die myself. I did it, I’m not the least bit remorseful, nor should I be; if I had to do it over again, I’d do exactly the same. I’m about to relate to you three such cases.
The first is Rogelio Reyes Cannady #99245 who was executed May 19th, 2010. RIP Roy. We called him “Cowboy Roy” because at one time, every time the police tried to get him out of his cell, he thought it was rodeo season. I spent a lot of time ridin’ with Roy after he first came to D.R. in December 1997. We ended up in solitary together at Ellis and were the first two off the bus when they began to transfer us over here to Polunsky. Roy was like my own personal guide because he’d been locked up in a succession of these 2250 prototype SHU supermaxes TX had constructed all over the state. This place is so different from Ellis and all they had over here was ad seg and they were aggravated all to hell – “agg” – so were the bosses (officers). Psych patients, feces slingers, etc.
Roy was one of the best people I have ever met in my years on death row. Just a real solid dude on all four corners, head-to-toe. He was thrown in prison for a crime he didn’t commit – a crime which was actually committed by a cop’s son and the cop framed Roy. Years later, when this cop learned of Roy’s fate, he made some tapes where he confessed how he framed Roy and set him up, then shot himself, committed suicide. Roy’s case was tragic. He was a juvenile certified as an adult, given a life sentence and thrown in prison with grown men twice his size. But Roy learned how to fight and he survived. He had a particular hatred for the police and whipped guards relentlessly.
They got tired of him beating up the officers and they set him up, more or less. They put him in a cell with a known booty bandit named Bonal. Roy was a small fellow who had a lot of heart. Bonal started coming on to Roy. Roy told him point blank he wasn’t into homosexuality. Roy was sick with the flue and in a weakened state. He feared if he fell asleep this guy Bonal would try to tie him down and rape him. Bonal attacked Roy. Roy had his belt wrapped around his hand, threaded through two combination locks.
They fought. Bonal was twice Roy’s size and outweighed him by a considerable margin. Despite being the underdog, Roy prevailed and killed Bonal. He was locked in a cell and literally fighting for his life and for his ass. If you snitch or get “turned out” (raped) in prison, you lose respect and all the sharks will attack you and take you for everything you’ve got. So Roy quite literally had no choice in the world except to do what he did. The state of TX put Roy in that position, then killed him over it. What’s even worse is Roy should never have been in prison to start with. And more than that, the law they used to kill him wasn’t even in effect when Roy killed Bonal; it was applied to him years later, ex post facto, which is illegal. But this is Texas! As if that makes it ok.
The second case is similar. Leet Taylor who we call “Tiny” #99344. Tiny is a ‘wood that was known by the prisoners at the time but not the prison administration. Tiny was convicted as a juvenile, certified to stand trial as an adult just like Rogelio. Tiny was placed on a cellblock full of Blacks. Some day it was intentional. Tiny had a reputation as someone who would stand up and fight no matter what. Some units in Texas are racially segregated. Tensions stay high. Violence can erupt any second. So when these dudes cliqued on Tiny, he had literally no help. They told him, at breakfast when they roll the doors, “it’s on”.
At Tiny’s trial the state faulted him for “not notifying any officer and alerting him to the potential trouble” sot they could’ve got him out of harm’s way. That would’ve certainly got Tiny killed. It’s called snitching and catching out. i.e. telling it and running. In Texas (or any prison) if you tell it, you got a jacket (reputation) as a snitch. Catch outs are considered cowards and become targets of the strong arms (extortionists) and booty bandits (rapists). No prisoner in his right mind is going to “notify” or “alert” any officer. That’s an instant death sentence of an excruciating kind. Also you gotta figure it was the laws (ranking officers) who got you assigned to this Black cellblock and since they don’t do anything without a purpose, they must’ve intended for this result to occur. What good’s it gonna do to tell them anything? They are not going to help you. They’d just laugh and tell you som’ like “you got yourself in it, get yourself out”.
When it went down, Tiny defended himself – they brought it to him, he didn’t instigate anything. He prevailed against the guys who attacked him and ended up killing one of them. All of this happened only because Tiny was misclassified and put in a situation where he didn’t belong. Texas did that to him and now they’re trying to kill him for it.
What’s worse in Tiny’s case is the underlying case he was serving time for that put him in prison was committed as a juvenile. The U.S. Supreme Court has outlawed the execution as punishment for a crime committed as a juvenile. In Texas, this underlying conviction is what was used to elevate the murder he committed in prison to capital murder. Tiny was doing life for aggravated robbery. Under TX law that’s what’s known as a 3rd degree offense. The law says that if you’re serving time for a 3rd degree offense and kill someone in prison, it’s capital murder. That law was meant to deter willfully aggressive
Wouldn’t you know, I saved the best for last! None of them are best; they’re all bad really. But this last case I’m about to relate to you is the wildest thing I’ve heard in awhile. Texas has a reputation to over-the-top, hot-doggin’, abusive cops. But this one really takes the cake.
Meet office Nix. “Psycho Nix”. Aptly so called. Officer Nix here is a Dallas cop who has a habit of jerking citizens off the sidewalk and slamming on their faces (Anthony Williams, 14 years old, 08.23.06) and shooting people he don’t like just because they’re scared of him and running from the abuse he threatens (Raquel Sosa and Jesus Ortiz. On July 21st 2002, Nix chased them on foot into a big drainage pipe over a mere traffic violation. When they emerged from the other end, Nix drew a bead on Ortiz while cussing him and shot him in the buttocks, killing him). At the time officer Nix demise he had two uses of excessive force sustained against him and many more pending. If he had not died on March 23rd 2007, he likely would’ve been fired from his job shortly after.
OK, meet Wesley Ruiz #999536. Born Nov 1979, he’s 27 years old on 03.23.07. He lives in a very rough part of town. He’s armed with a pistol for his own protection. He borrow a friend’s car to run some errands. Two cops on a task force who’re UC in a plain truck see Ruiz be-boppin’ down the road and arbitrarily (and very incorrectly) decide this car Ruiz is driving matches the description of a car involved in a murder that’d happened recently – it didn’t match. So they call in a marked unit to make a traffic stop and use that as a springboard to search the car and its occupant. Such pretextual “stop and arrests” are illegal but they do it all the time in TX.
Ruiz knows if he gets stopped he’s going to jail. So he runs. Who’d blame him? Gotta take that small chance. Maybe he’ll get lucky and get away. He’s got enough problems as it is. Other than just refusing to stop and trying to get away, Ruiz has done nothing wrong. Even in TX, mere evading is not a killing offense.
He spins out trying to make a corner and winds up in someone’s yard. Pyscho Nix pulls his cruiser nose-to-nose with Ruiz’ stalled car, leaps out, draws his weapon, runs over to the passenger side while screaming at Ruiz “if you try to get away, MFER, I’ll kill your ass!” Nix puts his gun on the ground (ain’t he brite?), grabs his asp off his service belt and starts pounding the read passenger window. An asp is a telescopic series of coil springs with a big lead sap weight on the end of it. It’s a mean weapon. When you swing it, the spring makes the weight whiplash into the target with a force magnified exponentially. Ruiz hears the crack of the asp against glass and thinks it’s a gunshot. Believing this crazy cop is making good on his threat to kill him, Ruiz reached into the backseat, grabs his pistol and fires one shot at Nix’s shoulder just to disable him so he can’t shoot at him again. He’s not trying to kill Nix, just to stop Nix killing him, Ruiz.
He drops the pistol and faces the front where the other (5) officers involved insanely open up a fusillade of bullets that takes the terms “excessive force” and “overkill” to new heights.
Without another shot fired by Ruiz, these officers expend 56 (fifty six) rounds of ammunition, hitting Ruiz 14 times. Ruiz is not in an offensive posture when he’s shot. He’d already dropped his weapon and surrendered. But still he’s shot fourteen times (14) !!!?? Unbelievable.
All of these actions D.P.D. officers violate every procedural protocol in their operations manual. They weren’t supposed to force a high speed chase in a residential section; they we’re not supposed to bum rush the stalled car with guns drawn; officer Nix was not supposed to go running up to the car with gun drawn threatening death to Ruiz for nothing; and they surely weren’t supposed to shoot him after he’d relinquished his weapon, fourteen times (14),
Although they took him to the hospital and gave him very minimal treatment, within a day and a half they threw him out of took him to an isolated single cell at Dallas County jail, hoping he’d die. He still somehow managed to live anyway.
Officer Nix wasn’t as lucky. He was hit in the shoulder/collarbone area but the bullet struck his badge and ricocheted into his neck, severing his carotid artery. Officer Nix subsequently bled out on the ground and in the car on the way to the hospital – the officers thought they could get him to the E.R. faster than waiting on an ambulance.
You can blame Ruiz all you want but the fact remains that these officers openly and very damn viciously attacked a citizen on false, pretextual pretenses later found to have no basis in fact, tried to assassinate him in order to cover it up (another citizen witness on the scene who observed the incident says the police opened up on Ruiz and shot him first), then convicted him of capital murder for defending himself against Nix.
Here’s the kicker: it’s capital murder to kill a cop who’s acting in furtherance of discharging his lawful duties. Office Nix, when he was shot, was not acting in furtherance of discharging any lawful duty. Had he merely used the P.A. system in his vehicle to address Ruiz and tell him to exit the vehicle with his hands in the air where he can see them and to place his hands on the hood of the vehicle and assume the position officer Nix would still be alive today. Officer Nix’s illegal actions got him killed.
Now, I got some questions for y’all and I want some answers! I get tired of being a lone voice on this sphere of new balls I chunck outta the hellhole from time to time. Time for you folks out there to give me some feedback. I demand interaction, now! Ha/Ha J
Seriously though, here’s my questions:
• Did Rogelio Cannady deserve to die? I’ve already said I believe he did not. If you think his execution was just, tell me why you believe that.
• Does Lee Taylor deserve to die for defending himself in a lethal situation in which the state placed him? If you say yes, tell me why.
• Does Wesley Ruiz deserve to die for defending himself against this psycho officer Nix? Again, if you say yes, tell me why. Explain it, spell it out in detail.
This is not a debate on the death penalty here. This is an assessment of potential consequences of someone’s actions in abstract. In any of the three instant cases I described, do these guys’ actions merit death and, if so, why?
Rogelio’s dead. Put some flowers on his grave. Tiny’s not dead but soon could be. Ruiz is just starting out his appeal process. Please write and offer him support and encouragement to Tiny and Wesley, OK. You know, when I first met Wesley and he told me the story himself, I would’ve swore he was lying. Embellishing, aggrandizing, shading it his way. Nope. He was 100% truthful in every fact he related. I’ve read his brief written by Lydia Brandt, a well-known D.P. appellate attorney. She’s 100% reliable in citing the evidence and trial record. It’s just too insane to be real, I tell you! But it’s real!
Tiny’s case has some mean twists and subterfuge engaged by the swine, too. But it involves gangs and stuff I can’t speak on because I don’t know what’s permissible to say publicly. I’ll let Tiny explain to you what he can, if you write him. You should!
Well, I just wanted to give y’all some’ to think about. You never know what’s gonna happen in your life from one day to the next, eh. I’d guarantee you, on the days it happened, neither of these guys woke up and thought “hey today, I’m gonna kill a prisoner and get sentenced to death”. You think Ruiz knew, when he left to run errands, he’d wind up shot 14 times, on the 6 o’clock news, with a cop dead and he’s charged with it? Nope. No way.
That’s the Hellhole News for this edition, Sunday January 30th, 2011. Goodnight and have a pleasant evening. Write me too! At the address below:
999143 Polunsky Unit
H W Hank Skinner
3872 FM 350 South
Livingston TX 77351-8580
http://www.hankskinner.org
For those of you who use JPay to write, don’t forget to always include your postal address and your e-mail address after your signature, so I can reply to you. www.jpay.com don’t forget to enter my TDC number as an 8-digit number: 00999143.
PS. Two more things about the Ruiz case: to anyone who doubts that the swine tried to assassinate Mr. Ruiz – after they expended 56 rounds, hitting him 14 times, they left him, unconscious and bleeding. Laying half out of his car for over an hour and later had the temerity to call it a “standoff”!! On Nix MySpace page he answered a survey question about how he wanted to die, saying he wanted to go out “in a blaze of glory”. I guess he got his wish. After Mr. Ruiz arrest, once they learned he lived, Dallas police spin doctors went on a long propaganda smear campaign against Mr. Ruiz, calling him everything from a “zetas drug cartel associate”, to a “known methamphetamine dealer” to a “confirmed gang member” ad nauseum. None of these accusations were ever proven true because, of course, they are not true at all. All of this was designed to counter the allegations D.P.D. knew (or thought they knew) were coming about their ambushing a citizen and trying to assassinate him with no justifiable or plausible probable cause at all, except the pretext stop and arrest I mentioned earlier; which of course was illegal. Unfortunately for Mr. Ruiz, he was appointed a sellout lawyer who wholly failed to adequately represent him pretrial or at the trial itself. So here he sits on death row.
For those of you who use JPay to write, don’t forget to always include your postal address and your e-mail address after your signature, so I can reply to you. www.jpay.com don’t forget to enter my TDC number as an 8-digit number: 00999143.
PS. Two more things about the Ruiz case: to anyone who doubts that the swine tried to assassinate Mr. Ruiz – after they expended 56 rounds, hitting him 14 times, they left him, unconscious and bleeding. Laying half out of his car for over an hour and later had the temerity to call it a “standoff”!! On Nix MySpace page he answered a survey question about how he wanted to die, saying he wanted to go out “in a blaze of glory”. I guess he got his wish. After Mr. Ruiz arrest, once they learned he lived, Dallas police spin doctors went on a long propaganda smear campaign against Mr. Ruiz, calling him everything from a “zetas drug cartel associate”, to a “known methamphetamine dealer” to a “confirmed gang member” ad nauseum. None of these accusations were ever proven true because, of course, they are not true at all. All of this was designed to counter the allegations D.P.D. knew (or thought they knew) were coming about their ambushing a citizen and trying to assassinate him with no justifiable or plausible probable cause at all, except the pretext stop and arrest I mentioned earlier; which of course was illegal. Unfortunately for Mr. Ruiz, he was appointed a sellout lawyer who wholly failed to adequately represent him pretrial or at the trial itself. So here he sits on death row.
Saturday, October 23, 2010
New Hell Hole News #26
October 18th, 2010
This is in reference to Mary Fischer’s articles posted on the ScotusBlog “Texas Death Row DNA Case”, which can be found in the “Death Row News” section, “Hank’s case in the media” paragraph of the website: http://www.hankskinner.org
Dear Mary, again. I wrote the foregoing long before its posted date and was going to send it to you much earlier but the unit went on lockdown at an inopportune time and I had no stamps to write my wife so she could give it to you.
Now I’ve read your first two articles and I must say, I was quietly impressed – compare yours to Michael Graczyk’s (A.P.) crap. Whoo! That man makes me ill.
Jeff Blackburn and I have a long (yet fairly decent) history. I really think a lot of him, although I rarely tell him that. He knows me so well because he’s just like me! But keeping his law license keeps him on check, in the courts, before judges. I practice “guerilla law”. Ha/Ha Like Che Guevara, I play to win.
Yes, I am sometimes abrasive. Sometimes downright rude and ornery. I’m confrontational and I love heated argument or debate. To me, it’s like crying, (which I am also not hesitant to do if circumstances and emotion warrant it); it’s a form of soulful emotional purge. That’s what makes us human and distinguishes us from lower animals, like bears or dogs: the ability to emote and express. Language, although it can be ugly, is generally a beautiful gift from God. But I disdain people who abuse it, and lie, or hide behind words, who are fake, who use words deceitfully, underhandedly and falsely, to mislead others. Quite literally, people in Texas are trying to use words in a wrong way, to kill me.
As to your first two stories:
About my stay: Doug did not “yell excitedly” into the phone. Doug would never do that. First, this thing had worn him out. He and the associated counsel on my team had been in Huntsville 3 days without sleep, working on my appeals and had to answer a very irrational and out-of-time opposition filing from the A.G. So they were just so tired and worn out.
Secondly, Douglas Robinson is the coolest customer you ever met, so aloof and understated, so deep with his few chosen words, that in 13 years of his representation I can recall verbatim almost every conversation we’ve ever had. I often tease him that he unnerves me because he has the demeanor of an undertaker I once worked for and that I once owned a marine iguana that was more emotive than he is. Doug is just a guy who lets his actions speak for themselves. But he is also a great and very dedicated lawyer. I love him dearly and I’m fortunate to have him.
He certainly did say those words, but they came tiredly and very coolly. No exclamation point. Ha/Ha.
No, I’m not hopeful again. I still think I am ultimately going to die. 17 years ago this evidence probably would have proved my innocence. DNA degrades over time, so it may be impossible to get a probative result out of it, now. Who knows.
The funny thing about Lynn Switzer’s I’m “gaming the system” argument is that, at any time during the last 17 years the State could have tested this evidence and been done with it, one way or the other. As I pointed out to Switzer in my letter 01.27.10, all three of her predecessors in office have stated publicly, on the records (look at the exhibits with the letter!) that this evidence is “important” and needs to be tested.
“Prosecutors” (who now say) I “should’ve tested the evidence at trial but chose not to” are liars! If that were solely true, then what was the post conviction DNA testing statute enacted for? (VACCP TX CH 64) CH 64 wasn’t even yet a law when I went to trial! It was made for cases like mine. You see, when you examine what Switzer says with an exacting, factual logic, it is most readily apparent that what they argue is both ridiculously hollow and inanely circular. They are solely the exact cause of what they complain of.
As to Switzer’s short answer likely being “procedure” as to why she won’t allow testing of the evidence, that belies her duty (her sworn duty!) as a prosecutor. Code of Criminal Procedure article 2.01 “duty of district attorneys” clearly states that they shall not hide or secret evidence of the innocent nor win convictions at any cost, but do all that is necessary to see that true justice prevails. That means exonerating the innocent. As to her “full and fair trial” arguments, the jury never got to hear Andrea Reed’s truthful testimony (in her 1997 recantation) nor the current exculpatory evidence, so how can my trial possibly have been “full or fair”?! Once again, viewed logically, Switzer’s arguments and excuses, as I said, are baseless, meritless, hollow and redundantly circular. The jurors themselves have recently been interviewed and shown exculpatory evidence. They now say the evidence needs to be tested. Well and knowing what they know now, likely would not have convicted me. (see “Texas jurors reconsider verdict” by Medill Innocence Project on my website)
One more thing about Switzer, your asking about my sitting down to talk to her and what would I say? You’re reading it now. She could not answer on the facts. She has no viable answer, which is why she keeps hiding behind these private attorneys she hired at the taxpayers expense. But more than that, as my letter to her, the proof I sent, the offers I made, clearly prove, she is not the least interested in justice at all, but would (and almost did!) sacrifice the life of an innocent man for political expediency – she is little different from Pontius Pilate, who washed his hands and sealed Jesus’ fate. In 2000 years, we’ve learned nothing, as a society. Why on earth would I want to sit down and talk to someone like Lynn Switzer? For what? She’s a murderer in the making.
The other funny thing about this, in these capital cases, prosecutors hire a psychiatrist called “Dr Death” who rotely testifies that the defendant suffers “anti-social personality disorder”, is a “sociopath”, “psychopath”, “super predator” or worse. They say the marked things about such people are their only emotional responses are based in aggression, anger or, ruthless manipulation; they don’t learn from their mistakes, are suffused with greed related solely to their own well being and have no qualms at all about sacrificing an innocent victim in order to further their own goals. Ta-da! I give you John Mann, Harold Comer, Randy Stubblefield, Rick Roach and most currently, Lynn Switzer!
As to Kenneth Rosenstein, Alaska assistant attorney general and his inane comment “the answer lies in the procedure”, he is typical of latter day “ultra-conservative” republicans who exalt procedure over substantive law and facts. It’s insane! What he’s actually saying is, as long as you dot the Is and cross the Ts, it’s perfectly fine to kill an innocent person. En toto, his “strong advice” to me and my attorneys eats shit. Be sure you tell him all I’ve said here, please.
Our arguments are not emotional at all. They’re 100% on the evidence. Isn’t it funny how the opposition spins all this subterfugal crap, but has never once responded to the facts and evidence we allege?!! It’s because they have no response! What we argue and present is 100% on the money and true! Why can’t you see this, Mary dearest? Is it not apparent to your discerning eye that you’re being “hoodwinked, boondoggled and hornswaggled”* by these officious state buffoons? (* that’s ol’ Foghorn leghorn’s words! I love that rooster! Bugs Bunny – Road Runner hour loony ‘toons and merry melodies!) Ha/Ha.
While you were quoting Lynn Switzer’s public statement, why did you not quote my response to it in either New Hell Hole News #24 or #25? She lies! The lies are blatant, obvious and openly contradicted by the legal and public record!
As I said – how can I be “gaming the system” when it is Lynn Switzer who has an obligation to test this evidence but for years has absolutely refused to do so? No, Lynn Switzer does not believe her own words. She knows they’re lies designed only to protect her and conceal the truth of my innocence from the public. As Jeff Blackburn eloquently stated: “We have a deeply institutionalized culture and the most backward courts in the country that protect the government from criticism (or any real exposure of corruption and wrongdoing!) or fault at all costs”. That is exactly what has been going on in my case all these years and I have never heard it more aptly or succinctly stated than that. Yay, Jeff!
As to Jeff’s comments about my attitude and my views and how I act, he’s 100% correct. He and my other attorneys have often told me I should be more amiable. It’s just hard to do. I’m a child of the sixties – I’m an old hippie and I’m anti-establishment to the max. I’ve been wrongly and falsely convicted by people I have zero respect for, who have just continued to smile at the cameras and lie on me for 17 years! It is impossible for me to just sit idly by and accept that.
Once again, irony: any cop will tell you that the first test they use in interrogation of a suspect is confrontational accusation. They expect an innocent one to become somewhat enraged and upset if they’re falsely accused, and adamant about their innocence. I didn’t learn this until after I’d been in here for years, reading true crime books, police interrogation manuals and statements of cops on their methodology. The books of the famous FBI profilers, Robert Ressler and John Douglas “Mindhunter”. The guys who actually developed these techniques and have taught them in police schools for decades, yet have only recently revealed them to the public.
Over the years, one of the ways I’ve kept my sanity, is to read the books. It’s a great comfort to me to know that the grandmasters of the FBI Forensic Sciences Academy and the Behavioral Sciences section all profile the anticipated actions of an innocent person to behave exactly the ways I do.
Jeff says I defy conventional thinking of how an innocent person should act – yes, the public’s perception. But, all these cops, prosecutors and state officials know differently, as described above; that I act exactly as they expect an innocent person would – yet they still want to kill me. Just to silence me. They fear me, because they know I’m probably innocent and they fear that too. The scandal and public distrust my exoneration would cause. That’s what this is really all about from the State’s perspective: keeping the cat in the bag; hiding the lies, concealing the truth; damage control. Chernobyl is covered over with concrete, lead and steel too. But it’s deadly brew festers still on the surface of the earth; infecting thousands, polluting the land, air and water. Texas likewise may yet succeed in covering this up and killing me, but underneath the pervasive rot in its legal system remains.
Thank you for getting Roy Greenwood’s comment on testing. It’s nice to know he had the guts to confirm what I told you about Comer’s duty to DNA test pretrial when I demanded it. Roy says: “if he can be believed” about me telling Comer to test. Well, Comer admitted it at the 2005 evidentiary hearing and my pretrial letters to Comer are part of that record.
Like I keep telling you, I’m telling the truth and everything I say is 100% backed up by the facts, evidence, and the public/media/legal records of the case.
One thing you failed to mention about the jacket found next to Twila’s body is that the forensic criminalist who viewed the evidence, Max Courtney, stated that the cuffs and forearms of the sleeves of that jacket contained medium velocity (blood) impact spatter and that jacket was likely worn by the assailant. Only Twila had wounds that would result in medium velocity impact spatter (M. V. I. S.) ergo, whoever wore that jacket killed her. It’s a man’s X-LG 44-46! I wear a med 38-40. It’s six full sizes too big for me!
The last thing I’d like to address (for the 10,000th time) is the lie that I was found at Andrea’s “hiding in a closet” Ha/Ha. It’s kind of funny in a way – on the one hand they say I’m this full blown murderous psychopath, but on the other I’m so fearful I’m “cowering and hiding in a closet” – we knew it was the law pulling up. If I’m a killer, why didn’t I take Andrea and her kids hostage and have a standoff?
It’s because neither of those things were true. I wasn’t cowering or hiding. Michael Graczyk of the A. P. is a ghoul, a wannabe cop and an outright liar. When the law drove up, Andrea led me into the front bedroom in the dark and told me “stay here until I see what they want.” In reality Andrea’s kids were in the back bedroom and she wanted me in the opposite end of the trailer as far from them as possible because it was well known that the stupid sheriff, Randy Stubblefield, was trigger happy and she figured they’d shoot me.
There was a mattress on the floor of this cramped bedroom and the closet, about 5 ft wide but only 2 ½ ft deep, had a ton of clothes hanging in it and no doors on it. When the cops rushed in the room and flipped on the lights with their guns drawn, and I heard hammers cocking, I was blinded and I staggered backwards and fell backwards against the clothes. My heels caught against the edge of the mattress and my butt against the wall, my knees hyperflexed and I couldn’t get up. But I was in plain sight at all times and held my hands out so they could see I was not armed. Knowing they were going to kill me, I turned my face toward the clothes so I wouldn’t have to see my death coming.
At trial, John Mann made up out of thin air this “hiding in the closet” lie to try to imply guilt, when he rhetorically asked “why would he hide if he’s not guilty?” to the public and a jury. It was John Mann’s circus and he was head ringmaster. In 2004, Randy Stubblefield was deposed for the federal hearing and forced to admit I was never “hiding” nor attempting to. Unscrupulous, lying pieces of shit like Michael Graczyk (A.P.) and Allan Turner of the Houston Chronicle to this day continue to perpetuate that lie and others.
From Graczyk’s 10/10/2010 story * which was picked up by various papers around the country: some of his other lies, below. This story was retaliatory because, a few weeks back he and I got into it over another of his lies – where he falsely stated I “had two victims’ blood ‘splattered’ all over” me.
That’s an obvious lie. Only Twila had wounds (blunt force trauma) that resulted in any spatter at all. The blood of Scooter was only a contact stain which the State’s blood experts conceded was consistent with my actual innocence. Randy’s blood was not on me.
Back in December last year, after I publicly called Graczyk a ghoul and chastized him for lying on me about the cell phone mess (see my NHHN & TDCJ’s documentation attached to my letter to a wired magazine reporter on my website), Graczyk began courting me and trying to turn me. I met with him and told him the truth. I provided a foot tall stack of documentation to prove all I said. He took photos of me and gave me copies – trying to manipulate me and coax me to confess: “wasn’t it at least possible you did it? You don’t remember, do you?” Ha/Ha. When I recited the evidence and facts that prove I didn’t do it, he was forced to grudgingly agree with me. But he couldn’t resist lying so I called him on it, cut off his requests for interviews and wrote him a letter detailing his lies a couple of weeks ago and I told him when this evidence gets tested and they prove my innocence, I’m going to hire lawyers to sue him for all his lies.
I’ve long accused Graczyk of being a wannabe cop and a ghoul. He says I’m an asshole. Maybe I am, but I’m a truthful one, and I can pass a polygraph on anything I say and he’s just a liar, contradicted by the facts, evidence, the record itself and previous media stories. Here’s some more of Graczyk’s lies from his 10.10.10 story:
- Graczyk says I’m a former convicted car thief and parole violator. I was convicted of unauthorized use, not theft, aka joyriding. I was not a parole violator. In fact I had, 8 months prior to the murders, successfully completed and discharged 5 ½ years of super-intensive sup
I’ve already addressed the “game the system” comments. The State, through its own agents, are solely responsible for the delays they complain of. They are “the system”. They’re the ones gaming the public and blaming it on me.
- I’ve already addressed, infra, what the DNA testing could prove.
- We’re not claiming as in the Alaska – S. Ct. Osborne case that I have any general substantive due process right to DNA testing. We’re claiming an as-applied law challenge that the State and Switzer arbitrarily and capriciously denied me access to the evidence and violated my due process rights. I’ve carefully explained all this to Graczyk more than once. So he’s either dense or intentionally siding with the State’s abject misrepresentation of the case and its attendent issues in the S. Ct.
- My bloody handprints found in the house? He fails to tell you it’s my blood, as I fell on glass getting out of there and cut my hand. More importantly, the D.A. lied and said the cut on my hand is a self-inflicted wound where I supposedly stabbed one of the sons. Yet my blood is not on any of the murder weapons. Why? I never touched them. But Graczyk conveniently forgets to mention any of this crucial evidence in his little story, huh. Wonder why?
- Mike Graczyk also conveniently forgot to tell you that I wasn’t even wearing my clothes when the murders occurred and I was passed out on the couch. My clothes were draped across the furniture where I’d removed them and hanging 18” or less from where Twila was bludgeoned to death.
- The defense blood spatter expert Graczyk quotes as “acknowledging the stains on my clothes were inconsistent with someone merely laying on the sofa”, was never told the information, in the above stated paragraph – that I wasn’t wearing the clothes at that time – and that the oldest son, mortally wounded and bleeding, got me up and out of the house while I fell all over the place, getting more blood on my clothes. The stains tested were only contact stains. My sell-out Judas of a trial lawyer never told our expert any of these facts!
- The testing of items we want, the knife was found in a trashbag bearing fully articulated bloody handprints of an unknown individual that
- Trial lawyer Comer never said he feared additional DNA testing would be inculpatory towards me until after John Mann, then D.A., selectively tested certain items in 2000 and then falsely claimed the results “pointed to” me, in the media.
- “Prosecutors say there’s ample evidence to prove guilt” and “no evidence to conclusively prove innocence”. Well of course that’s what they’d say because they fear the results of the tests proving my innocence. However, instead of merely allowing them to sling around the descriptive terms “ample” and “overwhelming evidence of guilt”, why doesn’t someone put them to the test to show and detail all this “ample and overwhelming evidence of guilt”? I’ll tell you why, because it doesn’t exist! Without Andrea Reed’s lies, today there is not a single shred of
- It’s not “Skinner and his lawyers who point to Donnell” as the killer but the State’s star witness, Howard Mitchell, who told D.A.’s investigator, Bill McMinn, that he believed Donnell did it and gave credible evidence to back it up. My sell-out trial attorney Comer never investigated it.
I could go on and on here for 10 or 20 more pages, but I’ve said it all before in previous NHHN posts so I won’t keep harping on it. Dig a hole, Michael Graczyk. Legally speaking, you are one day gonna lay in it, I guarantee you that. To all of you haters, other lying idiots, flotsam and jetsam of the world who prowl the internet looking for some issue to beat up on, get a life! Ha/Ha.
As always,
Hank
999143 Polunsky Unit
H W Hank Skinner
3872 FM 350 South
Livingston TX 77351-8580
http://www.hankskinner.org
h.w.skinner@gmail.com
For those of you who use JPay to write to Hank, don’t forget to always include your postal address and your e-mail address after your signature, so Hank can reply to you. For those who would like to use JPay to write to Hank (www.jpay.com) don’t forget to enter the TDC number as an 8-digit number: 00999143.
Thank you!
This is in reference to Mary Fischer’s articles posted on the ScotusBlog “Texas Death Row DNA Case”, which can be found in the “Death Row News” section, “Hank’s case in the media” paragraph of the website: http://www.hankskinner.org
Dear Mary, again. I wrote the foregoing long before its posted date and was going to send it to you much earlier but the unit went on lockdown at an inopportune time and I had no stamps to write my wife so she could give it to you.
Now I’ve read your first two articles and I must say, I was quietly impressed – compare yours to Michael Graczyk’s (A.P.) crap. Whoo! That man makes me ill.
Jeff Blackburn and I have a long (yet fairly decent) history. I really think a lot of him, although I rarely tell him that. He knows me so well because he’s just like me! But keeping his law license keeps him on check, in the courts, before judges. I practice “guerilla law”. Ha/Ha Like Che Guevara, I play to win.
Yes, I am sometimes abrasive. Sometimes downright rude and ornery. I’m confrontational and I love heated argument or debate. To me, it’s like crying, (which I am also not hesitant to do if circumstances and emotion warrant it); it’s a form of soulful emotional purge. That’s what makes us human and distinguishes us from lower animals, like bears or dogs: the ability to emote and express. Language, although it can be ugly, is generally a beautiful gift from God. But I disdain people who abuse it, and lie, or hide behind words, who are fake, who use words deceitfully, underhandedly and falsely, to mislead others. Quite literally, people in Texas are trying to use words in a wrong way, to kill me.
As to your first two stories:
About my stay: Doug did not “yell excitedly” into the phone. Doug would never do that. First, this thing had worn him out. He and the associated counsel on my team had been in Huntsville 3 days without sleep, working on my appeals and had to answer a very irrational and out-of-time opposition filing from the A.G. So they were just so tired and worn out.
Secondly, Douglas Robinson is the coolest customer you ever met, so aloof and understated, so deep with his few chosen words, that in 13 years of his representation I can recall verbatim almost every conversation we’ve ever had. I often tease him that he unnerves me because he has the demeanor of an undertaker I once worked for and that I once owned a marine iguana that was more emotive than he is. Doug is just a guy who lets his actions speak for themselves. But he is also a great and very dedicated lawyer. I love him dearly and I’m fortunate to have him.
He certainly did say those words, but they came tiredly and very coolly. No exclamation point. Ha/Ha.
No, I’m not hopeful again. I still think I am ultimately going to die. 17 years ago this evidence probably would have proved my innocence. DNA degrades over time, so it may be impossible to get a probative result out of it, now. Who knows.
The funny thing about Lynn Switzer’s I’m “gaming the system” argument is that, at any time during the last 17 years the State could have tested this evidence and been done with it, one way or the other. As I pointed out to Switzer in my letter 01.27.10, all three of her predecessors in office have stated publicly, on the records (look at the exhibits with the letter!) that this evidence is “important” and needs to be tested.
“Prosecutors” (who now say) I “should’ve tested the evidence at trial but chose not to” are liars! If that were solely true, then what was the post conviction DNA testing statute enacted for? (VACCP TX CH 64) CH 64 wasn’t even yet a law when I went to trial! It was made for cases like mine. You see, when you examine what Switzer says with an exacting, factual logic, it is most readily apparent that what they argue is both ridiculously hollow and inanely circular. They are solely the exact cause of what they complain of.
As to Switzer’s short answer likely being “procedure” as to why she won’t allow testing of the evidence, that belies her duty (her sworn duty!) as a prosecutor. Code of Criminal Procedure article 2.01 “duty of district attorneys” clearly states that they shall not hide or secret evidence of the innocent nor win convictions at any cost, but do all that is necessary to see that true justice prevails. That means exonerating the innocent. As to her “full and fair trial” arguments, the jury never got to hear Andrea Reed’s truthful testimony (in her 1997 recantation) nor the current exculpatory evidence, so how can my trial possibly have been “full or fair”?! Once again, viewed logically, Switzer’s arguments and excuses, as I said, are baseless, meritless, hollow and redundantly circular. The jurors themselves have recently been interviewed and shown exculpatory evidence. They now say the evidence needs to be tested. Well and knowing what they know now, likely would not have convicted me. (see “Texas jurors reconsider verdict” by Medill Innocence Project on my website)
One more thing about Switzer, your asking about my sitting down to talk to her and what would I say? You’re reading it now. She could not answer on the facts. She has no viable answer, which is why she keeps hiding behind these private attorneys she hired at the taxpayers expense. But more than that, as my letter to her, the proof I sent, the offers I made, clearly prove, she is not the least interested in justice at all, but would (and almost did!) sacrifice the life of an innocent man for political expediency – she is little different from Pontius Pilate, who washed his hands and sealed Jesus’ fate. In 2000 years, we’ve learned nothing, as a society. Why on earth would I want to sit down and talk to someone like Lynn Switzer? For what? She’s a murderer in the making.
The other funny thing about this, in these capital cases, prosecutors hire a psychiatrist called “Dr Death” who rotely testifies that the defendant suffers “anti-social personality disorder”, is a “sociopath”, “psychopath”, “super predator” or worse. They say the marked things about such people are their only emotional responses are based in aggression, anger or, ruthless manipulation; they don’t learn from their mistakes, are suffused with greed related solely to their own well being and have no qualms at all about sacrificing an innocent victim in order to further their own goals. Ta-da! I give you John Mann, Harold Comer, Randy Stubblefield, Rick Roach and most currently, Lynn Switzer!
As to Kenneth Rosenstein, Alaska assistant attorney general and his inane comment “the answer lies in the procedure”, he is typical of latter day “ultra-conservative” republicans who exalt procedure over substantive law and facts. It’s insane! What he’s actually saying is, as long as you dot the Is and cross the Ts, it’s perfectly fine to kill an innocent person. En toto, his “strong advice” to me and my attorneys eats shit. Be sure you tell him all I’ve said here, please.
Our arguments are not emotional at all. They’re 100% on the evidence. Isn’t it funny how the opposition spins all this subterfugal crap, but has never once responded to the facts and evidence we allege?!! It’s because they have no response! What we argue and present is 100% on the money and true! Why can’t you see this, Mary dearest? Is it not apparent to your discerning eye that you’re being “hoodwinked, boondoggled and hornswaggled”* by these officious state buffoons? (* that’s ol’ Foghorn leghorn’s words! I love that rooster! Bugs Bunny – Road Runner hour loony ‘toons and merry melodies!) Ha/Ha.
While you were quoting Lynn Switzer’s public statement, why did you not quote my response to it in either New Hell Hole News #24 or #25? She lies! The lies are blatant, obvious and openly contradicted by the legal and public record!
As I said – how can I be “gaming the system” when it is Lynn Switzer who has an obligation to test this evidence but for years has absolutely refused to do so? No, Lynn Switzer does not believe her own words. She knows they’re lies designed only to protect her and conceal the truth of my innocence from the public. As Jeff Blackburn eloquently stated: “We have a deeply institutionalized culture and the most backward courts in the country that protect the government from criticism (or any real exposure of corruption and wrongdoing!) or fault at all costs”. That is exactly what has been going on in my case all these years and I have never heard it more aptly or succinctly stated than that. Yay, Jeff!
As to Jeff’s comments about my attitude and my views and how I act, he’s 100% correct. He and my other attorneys have often told me I should be more amiable. It’s just hard to do. I’m a child of the sixties – I’m an old hippie and I’m anti-establishment to the max. I’ve been wrongly and falsely convicted by people I have zero respect for, who have just continued to smile at the cameras and lie on me for 17 years! It is impossible for me to just sit idly by and accept that.
Once again, irony: any cop will tell you that the first test they use in interrogation of a suspect is confrontational accusation. They expect an innocent one to become somewhat enraged and upset if they’re falsely accused, and adamant about their innocence. I didn’t learn this until after I’d been in here for years, reading true crime books, police interrogation manuals and statements of cops on their methodology. The books of the famous FBI profilers, Robert Ressler and John Douglas “Mindhunter”. The guys who actually developed these techniques and have taught them in police schools for decades, yet have only recently revealed them to the public.
Over the years, one of the ways I’ve kept my sanity, is to read the books. It’s a great comfort to me to know that the grandmasters of the FBI Forensic Sciences Academy and the Behavioral Sciences section all profile the anticipated actions of an innocent person to behave exactly the ways I do.
Jeff says I defy conventional thinking of how an innocent person should act – yes, the public’s perception. But, all these cops, prosecutors and state officials know differently, as described above; that I act exactly as they expect an innocent person would – yet they still want to kill me. Just to silence me. They fear me, because they know I’m probably innocent and they fear that too. The scandal and public distrust my exoneration would cause. That’s what this is really all about from the State’s perspective: keeping the cat in the bag; hiding the lies, concealing the truth; damage control. Chernobyl is covered over with concrete, lead and steel too. But it’s deadly brew festers still on the surface of the earth; infecting thousands, polluting the land, air and water. Texas likewise may yet succeed in covering this up and killing me, but underneath the pervasive rot in its legal system remains.
Thank you for getting Roy Greenwood’s comment on testing. It’s nice to know he had the guts to confirm what I told you about Comer’s duty to DNA test pretrial when I demanded it. Roy says: “if he can be believed” about me telling Comer to test. Well, Comer admitted it at the 2005 evidentiary hearing and my pretrial letters to Comer are part of that record.
Like I keep telling you, I’m telling the truth and everything I say is 100% backed up by the facts, evidence, and the public/media/legal records of the case.
One thing you failed to mention about the jacket found next to Twila’s body is that the forensic criminalist who viewed the evidence, Max Courtney, stated that the cuffs and forearms of the sleeves of that jacket contained medium velocity (blood) impact spatter and that jacket was likely worn by the assailant. Only Twila had wounds that would result in medium velocity impact spatter (M. V. I. S.) ergo, whoever wore that jacket killed her. It’s a man’s X-LG 44-46! I wear a med 38-40. It’s six full sizes too big for me!
The last thing I’d like to address (for the 10,000th time) is the lie that I was found at Andrea’s “hiding in a closet” Ha/Ha. It’s kind of funny in a way – on the one hand they say I’m this full blown murderous psychopath, but on the other I’m so fearful I’m “cowering and hiding in a closet” – we knew it was the law pulling up. If I’m a killer, why didn’t I take Andrea and her kids hostage and have a standoff?
It’s because neither of those things were true. I wasn’t cowering or hiding. Michael Graczyk of the A. P. is a ghoul, a wannabe cop and an outright liar. When the law drove up, Andrea led me into the front bedroom in the dark and told me “stay here until I see what they want.” In reality Andrea’s kids were in the back bedroom and she wanted me in the opposite end of the trailer as far from them as possible because it was well known that the stupid sheriff, Randy Stubblefield, was trigger happy and she figured they’d shoot me.
There was a mattress on the floor of this cramped bedroom and the closet, about 5 ft wide but only 2 ½ ft deep, had a ton of clothes hanging in it and no doors on it. When the cops rushed in the room and flipped on the lights with their guns drawn, and I heard hammers cocking, I was blinded and I staggered backwards and fell backwards against the clothes. My heels caught against the edge of the mattress and my butt against the wall, my knees hyperflexed and I couldn’t get up. But I was in plain sight at all times and held my hands out so they could see I was not armed. Knowing they were going to kill me, I turned my face toward the clothes so I wouldn’t have to see my death coming.
At trial, John Mann made up out of thin air this “hiding in the closet” lie to try to imply guilt, when he rhetorically asked “why would he hide if he’s not guilty?” to the public and a jury. It was John Mann’s circus and he was head ringmaster. In 2004, Randy Stubblefield was deposed for the federal hearing and forced to admit I was never “hiding” nor attempting to. Unscrupulous, lying pieces of shit like Michael Graczyk (A.P.) and Allan Turner of the Houston Chronicle to this day continue to perpetuate that lie and others.
From Graczyk’s 10/10/2010 story * which was picked up by various papers around the country: some of his other lies, below. This story was retaliatory because, a few weeks back he and I got into it over another of his lies – where he falsely stated I “had two victims’ blood ‘splattered’ all over” me.
That’s an obvious lie. Only Twila had wounds (blunt force trauma) that resulted in any spatter at all. The blood of Scooter was only a contact stain which the State’s blood experts conceded was consistent with my actual innocence. Randy’s blood was not on me.
Back in December last year, after I publicly called Graczyk a ghoul and chastized him for lying on me about the cell phone mess (see my NHHN & TDCJ’s documentation attached to my letter to a wired magazine reporter on my website), Graczyk began courting me and trying to turn me. I met with him and told him the truth. I provided a foot tall stack of documentation to prove all I said. He took photos of me and gave me copies – trying to manipulate me and coax me to confess: “wasn’t it at least possible you did it? You don’t remember, do you?” Ha/Ha. When I recited the evidence and facts that prove I didn’t do it, he was forced to grudgingly agree with me. But he couldn’t resist lying so I called him on it, cut off his requests for interviews and wrote him a letter detailing his lies a couple of weeks ago and I told him when this evidence gets tested and they prove my innocence, I’m going to hire lawyers to sue him for all his lies.
I’ve long accused Graczyk of being a wannabe cop and a ghoul. He says I’m an asshole. Maybe I am, but I’m a truthful one, and I can pass a polygraph on anything I say and he’s just a liar, contradicted by the facts, evidence, the record itself and previous media stories. Here’s some more of Graczyk’s lies from his 10.10.10 story:
- Graczyk says I’m a former convicted car thief and parole violator. I was convicted of unauthorized use, not theft, aka joyriding. I was not a parole violator. In fact I had, 8 months prior to the murders, successfully completed and discharged 5 ½ years of super-intensive sup
I’ve already addressed the “game the system” comments. The State, through its own agents, are solely responsible for the delays they complain of. They are “the system”. They’re the ones gaming the public and blaming it on me.
- I’ve already addressed, infra, what the DNA testing could prove.
- We’re not claiming as in the Alaska – S. Ct. Osborne case that I have any general substantive due process right to DNA testing. We’re claiming an as-applied law challenge that the State and Switzer arbitrarily and capriciously denied me access to the evidence and violated my due process rights. I’ve carefully explained all this to Graczyk more than once. So he’s either dense or intentionally siding with the State’s abject misrepresentation of the case and its attendent issues in the S. Ct.
- My bloody handprints found in the house? He fails to tell you it’s my blood, as I fell on glass getting out of there and cut my hand. More importantly, the D.A. lied and said the cut on my hand is a self-inflicted wound where I supposedly stabbed one of the sons. Yet my blood is not on any of the murder weapons. Why? I never touched them. But Graczyk conveniently forgets to mention any of this crucial evidence in his little story, huh. Wonder why?
- Mike Graczyk also conveniently forgot to tell you that I wasn’t even wearing my clothes when the murders occurred and I was passed out on the couch. My clothes were draped across the furniture where I’d removed them and hanging 18” or less from where Twila was bludgeoned to death.
- The defense blood spatter expert Graczyk quotes as “acknowledging the stains on my clothes were inconsistent with someone merely laying on the sofa”, was never told the information, in the above stated paragraph – that I wasn’t wearing the clothes at that time – and that the oldest son, mortally wounded and bleeding, got me up and out of the house while I fell all over the place, getting more blood on my clothes. The stains tested were only contact stains. My sell-out Judas of a trial lawyer never told our expert any of these facts!
- The testing of items we want, the knife was found in a trashbag bearing fully articulated bloody handprints of an unknown individual that
- Trial lawyer Comer never said he feared additional DNA testing would be inculpatory towards me until after John Mann, then D.A., selectively tested certain items in 2000 and then falsely claimed the results “pointed to” me, in the media.
- “Prosecutors say there’s ample evidence to prove guilt” and “no evidence to conclusively prove innocence”. Well of course that’s what they’d say because they fear the results of the tests proving my innocence. However, instead of merely allowing them to sling around the descriptive terms “ample” and “overwhelming evidence of guilt”, why doesn’t someone put them to the test to show and detail all this “ample and overwhelming evidence of guilt”? I’ll tell you why, because it doesn’t exist! Without Andrea Reed’s lies, today there is not a single shred of
- It’s not “Skinner and his lawyers who point to Donnell” as the killer but the State’s star witness, Howard Mitchell, who told D.A.’s investigator, Bill McMinn, that he believed Donnell did it and gave credible evidence to back it up. My sell-out trial attorney Comer never investigated it.
I could go on and on here for 10 or 20 more pages, but I’ve said it all before in previous NHHN posts so I won’t keep harping on it. Dig a hole, Michael Graczyk. Legally speaking, you are one day gonna lay in it, I guarantee you that. To all of you haters, other lying idiots, flotsam and jetsam of the world who prowl the internet looking for some issue to beat up on, get a life! Ha/Ha.
As always,
Hank
999143 Polunsky Unit
H W Hank Skinner
3872 FM 350 South
Livingston TX 77351-8580
http://www.hankskinner.org
h.w.skinner@gmail.com
For those of you who use JPay to write to Hank, don’t forget to always include your postal address and your e-mail address after your signature, so Hank can reply to you. For those who would like to use JPay to write to Hank (www.jpay.com) don’t forget to enter the TDC number as an 8-digit number: 00999143.
Thank you!
* Death row inmate seeks high court OK for DNA tests
By MICHAEL GRACZYK (AP) – Oct 10, 2010
LIVINGSTON, Texas — An ex-con sent to Texas' death row for three murders and spared from execution earlier this year by the U.S. Supreme Court is set to take his case before the high court, which may decide whether his attorneys can test items for DNA he claims could prove his innocence.
Hank Skinner was convicted of pummeling his girlfriend with a pickax handle and stabbing her two sons on New Year's Eve in 1993 in their Texas Panhandle home. DNA evidence at his trial showed blood on his clothing from that night was his and from at least two of the victims.
The Supreme Court will hear arguments Wednesday on whether prison inmates may use a federal civil rights law to get DNA testing that was not performed before their conviction. Prosecutors in Skinner's case have refused to make some evidence available for DNA testing, including knives from the scene and a jacket next to one of the bodies.
The arguments come seven months after the Supreme Court spared Skinner just an hour before he was to go to the death chamber. Justices said then they wanted to postpone his execution until they decided whether to review his case.
"The relief Mr. Skinner seeks is simple and limited: the opportunity to obtain access to physical evidence for the purpose of conducting DNA testing," Rob Owen, a University of Texas law professor and Skinner's lead attorney, said in a brief to the high court.
Gray County District Attorney Lynn Switzer has refused to surrender the items and lower courts agreed with her, saying Texas law already gave Skinner "plenty of opportunity" to show additional testing could prove his innocence.
Skinner, a former convicted car thief and parole violator, was trying to "game the system," Switzer said.
Prosecutors have said there's no evidence to conclusively prove Skinner wasn't the killer and that ample evidence exists to show he is guilty. They also contend new DNA testing "would not affirmatively prove anything."
"They're fixing to kill me for something I didn't do," Skinner, 48, said last December from a tiny visiting cage outside death row as his execution date neared.
To head off the scheduled March execution, his legal team renewed its appeals seeking release of evidence for new DNA testing.
Since the Supreme Court justices agreed to look at the case, the high court ruled in a DNA-related case from Alaska that convicts have no constitutional right to test genetic evidence to try to show their innocence. The court said it would not second-guess states or force them routinely to look again at criminal convictions.
Attorneys for Switzer, citing that case, argued in court briefs that Skinner's lawyers hoped to get federal district courts involved in "second-guessing the decisions of state courts" under state DNA statutes. They also noted his trial lawyer chose not to test items Skinner now wants access to, and that using the civil rights law was an improper attempt to circumvent other appeals already refused.
Switzer has the backing of attorneys general from nearly two dozen states, who filed a brief on her behalf.
"He seeks a judge-crafted remedy that he hopes will be more favorable to him," the attorneys general's brief said.
Similarly, the National District Attorneys Association urged the justices to reject Skinner's argument, saying a ruling favorable to him would undermine state law, expand federal jurisdiction over state matters and delay resolution of capital cases.
At his trial in 1995, Skinner's jury heard evidence he was in the house where his girlfriend, Twila Jean Busby, 40, and her two sons, Elwin "Scooter" Caler, 22, and Randy Busby, 20, were killed. Besides the blood on his clothing, Skinner's bloody hand prints were found in the house.
Skinner doesn't deny being in the home at the time of the slayings, but insisted he couldn't have killed them because he was passed out from a mix of vodka and codeine.
Skinner explained that Caler, who had several stab wounds, likely bled on him while trying to roust Skinner from his drunken stupor. And he said he was lying on a couch just a few feet from where Twila Busby was bludgeoned, likely accounting for her blood.
Police were summoned when Caler staggered to the front porch of a neighbor's home. Officers followed a 3 1/2-block-long blood trail to the trailer of a woman Skinner knew. He was found there hiding in a closet.
A defense blood-spatter witness at Skinner's trial acknowledged stains on Skinner's clothing were inconsistent with someone merely laying on a sofa.
Skinner's lawyers want DNA testing on vaginal swabs taken from Busby at the time of her autopsy, fingernail clippings, a knife from the porch of Busby's house and a second knife found in a plastic bag in the house, a towel with the second knife and a jacket next to Busby's body.
Skinner's trial attorney testified at an evidentiary hearing he didn't seek testing of the items Skinner's appeals lawyers now want because he feared the tests would be more damaging to the case.
Skinner and his lawyers point to Twila Busby's now deceased uncle, Robert Donnell, as the possible killer, contending he was a "hot-tempered ex-con" who became more violent when he drank. Donnell and Busby were seen at a New Year's Eve party the evening of the slayings but she returned home early after Donnell's crude remarks and unwanted passes, Skinner's lawyers have said.
Incapacitated from drugs and booze, Skinner didn't go to the party.
Texas has executed 16 inmates so far this year.
Copyright © 2010 The Associated Press.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ ALeqM5hyq8ouhwjWsFV7suUawcDjy9 AVAAD9IP1JK80?docId=D9IP1JK80
Friday, October 08, 2010
Sandrine Ageorges-Skinner, wife of Hank Skinner, to Speak at 11th Annual March to Abolish the Death Penalty
On October 13, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in the case of Hank Skinner to determine if he may seek testing of DNA evidence through a civil rights lawsuit. If he is not allowed to test the DNA evidence, then Texas may execute an innocent person.
Hank Skinner received a stay of execution from the U.S. Supreme Court on March 25, 2010 only hours before his scheduled execution.
On March 18, 2010, Sandrine spoke at a press conference (watch video) to appeal for Governor Rick Perry and the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles to stop the execution of Hank Skinner. The press conference was held by Texas Moratorium Network and Students Against the Death Penalty in the Texas Capitol with her and with six exonerated former death-row inmates: Ron Keine, Juan Melendez, Shujaa Graham, Perry Cobb, Curtis McCarty and Derrick Jamison (see photo). Some of them had come within days and even hours of being executed. The exonerees said they supported a moratorium on executions and called on Gov. Perry and Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles to stay the upcoming execution of Hank Skinner to allow testing of the DNA evidence.
Video of Sandrine Ageorges-Skinner, wife of Hank Skinner, appearing on CNN's Larry King Live to speak about stay of execution received by Hank Skinner on March 24, 2010.
The annual march is organized by several Texas anti-death penalty organizations, including the Austin chapter of the Campaign to End the Death Penalty, Texas Moratorium Network, the Texas Death Penalty Abolition Movement, Texas Students Against the Death Penalty, Texas Death Penalty Education and Resource Center, Death Penalty Free Austin, and Kids Against the Death Penalty.
Monday, May 24, 2010
Breaking News: The U.S. Supreme Court just decided to hear Hank Skinner's case
Breaking news: The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to decide whether Texas death row inmate Hank Skinner should have access to evidence for DNA testing that could clear him of three murders.
The justices said they will use Skinner’s case to decide whether prison inmates may use a federal civil rights law to petition for DNA testing that was not performed prior to their conviction. Federal appeals courts around the country have decided the issue differently.
The high court previously blocked Skinner's execution while it considered his appeal. The case will be argued before the Supreme Court in the fall.
The justices said they will use Skinner’s case to decide whether prison inmates may use a federal civil rights law to petition for DNA testing that was not performed prior to their conviction. Federal appeals courts around the country have decided the issue differently.
The high court previously blocked Skinner's execution while it considered his appeal. The case will be argued before the Supreme Court in the fall.
Tuesday, May 04, 2010
Hell Hole News #24 - Hank Skinner
Hell
April 10, 2010
More fun! It has been brought to my attention that some false and undocumented « adverse » allegations, about me and my case are currently circulating on the web. Ordinarily I ignore things like this but I want to expose these coward allegations, usually raised by the haters, so it provides me a unique and excellent opportunity to counter this once and for all. In the future, any of my supporters or others inquiring on these topics can be referred to this NHHN article and it will save me the time and effort of having to repeat myself.
1/ Henry Watkins “Hank” Skinner – the Hype
No, dummy, it’s the facts, sans hype.
2/ When one reads all the media-driven innocence hype about Hank Skinner, one can be instantly coerced into believing that Skinner is truly innocent of the ghastly murders of Twila Busby and her two mentally-impaired sons.
No one is coercing anyone. The facts speak loudly for themselves. Two the most prestigious innocence projects in America both say I’m likely innocent and the evidence that remains needs to be tested.
3/ After all, Skinner is a cause de celebre around the world – a poster boy for “justice denied”. How could he have possibly done what a jury convicted him of?
Needs no comment.
4/ Hank’s jailhouse “wife” (a French anti-death penalty activist in real life) and Hank have done a great job at putting together a website calling into question aspects of how Hank has been treated over the years. There was, according to Hank and Mrs. Hank, a massive criminal/judicial conspiracy involving the police, prosecutors, judges and even Hank’s original trial attorney.
Sandrine Ageorges-Skinner is not my “jailhouse wife” but my wife in every respect, legal and otherwise. We are legally married in both Texas and France. The President of France and his Foreign minister made a diplomatic entreaty to the Governor of Texas, Rick Perry, on our behalf, asking Perry for a 30-day reprieve of execution and to conduct the DNA tests. That’s how legal our marriage is. I have our marriage license and certificate. I can produce it upon request to any who doubt me.
No one ever said there was any massive criminal conspiracy. I said, merely, the pigs didn’t like me for various reasons, there was animus against me and it provided them a motive to frame me, which they most certainly did. It was caused by small town, small minded authorities who possess exactly the same mindset as the person who authored this mess I’m now responding to. My trial attorney was an ex D.A. who’d previously prosecuted me.
5/ But the simple question remains: did Hank Skinner kill the Busby family?
No, I most certainly did not. The hairs ‘clutched’ in the victim’s (Twila’s) hand, sticking out from between her knuckles and caught under her ring, the D.A. says she pulled those hairs “from the head of her assailant during the struggle for her life, which she ultimately lost”. John Mann at first lied and said those hairs were mine. Subsequent DNA testing of the hairs at first produced a “mixed profile” alleged to contain my DNA. Further testing revealed this result was due to contamination in the wellplate caused by loading my standard sample too close to the evidentiary sample of Twila’s. Further testing proved that the blood flakes off the hair are solely Twila’s own blood and, subsequent mitochondrial testing of the hairs themselves are from an unknown male individual. I am absolutely and unequivocally excluded. See my letter 01/07/10 to D.A. Lynn Switzer and accompanying exhibits P2, P3 & P4 which are available on my website (legal documents section, DNA issue paragraph). It is beyond obvious that the person making these allegations is not at all well acquainted with the facts of the case but just hating and mud slinging.
6/ Was Skinner the murderer, or was it some faceless, nameless (or conveniently dead) person who poisoned Skinner with codeine (something to which Skinner was “deathly allergic”) before killing the family while Skinner slept?
See 5 above. He’s not faceless or nameless. We have his DNA profile! He’s not “conveniently dead”, just dead. In 1996/97 my investigator of that time confronted Twila’s uncle and told him he believed he was guilty. Bob Donnell had a confirmed incestuous relationship with Twila and probably killed her because of it. According to the state’s own witnesses Donnell had the means, motive, opportunity and animus to have committed the murders. The criminalist who viewed the jacket said it had medium velocity impact blood spatter on the cuffs and forearms of the sleeves meaning it was likely worn by the assailant. Only Twila had injuries which would cause impact spatter.
7/ In order for Skinner not to have been the killer, one has to ignore or dismiss an extraordinary set of events. Skinner would also have to be taken at his word on many of the events of New Year’s Eve, 1993.
This preface is a total lie. You don’t have to ignore or dismiss anything – this is truly “hype”. You don’t have to take my word for anything. That’s why the evidence and affidavits of scientific experts and forensic tests are so extensively presented on my website – like I say, it all speaks for itself but, you have to take time to read and review it, which this person obviously did not.
8/ Here are some of the things one would have to believe
Not true. See 9 and 12 below.
9/ some anonymous person spiked Skinner’s drink, before the murders, for whatever reason
No, they probably did not. I will not knowingly take codeine because it makes me sick. I’d not had any R’s for codeine. All my friends who’d been to our house that afternoon and evening knew I was allergic to codeine and that I avoided it studiously. I used to think someone must have poisoned me because I wouldn’t take codeine voluntarily.
A few years ago I learned that truth from a toxicologist who testified in another guy’s case, here. He says that once you reach a certain level of intoxication you go colorblind. Twila was always putting pills in her drink and sipping that one drink all evening. I later learned her girlfriend (G.S.) had given her 13 Fiorinal #4 codeine that she’d put in her drink. Twila and I had identical glasses but hers was Fuschia pink, mine was baby medium blue. I vaguely remember seeing the dregs of pills in the bottom of my cup and getting sick, passing out. I couldn’t figure out how it got into my cup. So I thought someone must have poisoned me. I think now I was just too messed up and colorblind to tell our cups apart anymore, I accidentally got Twila’s cup and drank from it, thinking it was my cup.
10/ A comatose Skinner “slept” through the murder (and possibly rape) of his beloved girlfriend, and the stabbing of her kids
I was comatose. I didn’t “sleep” through anything, I was out cold. Howard Mitchell, one of the two of the State’s star witnesses, testified that he came over to pick us up, I was out of it, he grabbed my arm and jerked on it until he pulled my torso off the couch but he got no response from me at all, even while screaming and hollering in my face “Come on Hank, Let’s go! Get up! Come on!” See the legal documents section, DNA issue paragraph, exhibit Q to my letter to Lynn Switzer on my website - Interview of Howard Mitchell by D.A.’s investigator.
My recitation of the facts and what I believe happened and why are presented just so I can tell the facts and how I believe they fit together, to give you the whole picture in a coherent fashion. But each item has a link to the evidence that backs it up, so you don’t need to take my word for anything. Review the evidence and let it speak to you of its own volition.
11/ Skinner could only to be roused by the girlfriend’s stabbed and mortally-wounded mentally-impaired son
“Skinner could only to be roused by”? That sentence makes no sense. “could only to be”? Well, Scooter got me off the couch over two and a half hours after Howard tried to and failed, he did so by sprinkling water in my face. He was mortally wounded. He helped me up to get dressed, we left the house together after checking on Randy and (Scooter) finding he was dead. Scooter and Randy were not “mentally impaired”, “mentally challenged” or “retarded”. Twila’s mother, Beverly, was a nursing home manager/administrator. She was a master at milking the federal system for $ to care for her wards at the old folks home. She employed the same tactics for Scooter and Randy. They were getting social security disability checks every month. Scooter was listed as mentally retarded and suffering muscular dystrophy; Randy as mentally retarded. Mann discovered this subterfuge of Beverly’s and decided to employ it for his own purposes. I was 5’9”, 145 lbs at the time. Scooter was 6’6”, 245 lbs. Randy was 6’1”, 180 lbs. There was no way any jury was going to believe I overpowered and killed Scooter and his mother in my condition at the time of the murders. So Mann turned them into “poor little retarded boys” and tried to get the Medical Examiner at autopsy to diminish their heights and weights. I don’t know how Randy was stabbed in his bed, either. I only know that’s supposedly where he was found according to the pigs. But the M.E. says both Randy and his mother’s bodies were moved prior to her in situ inspection.
12/ After this rousing, he managed to stumble around through the crime scene in a “stuporous” state, getting his handprint all over everything, and all the victim’s blood all over him
That’s not true. First, the person who wrote this garbage tries to paint in overly broad strokes and weakly implies some inculpatory evidence results from it. For example: “getting his handprints all over everything”. My handprints were never detected or identified as being “all over everything”, but I’m sure my prints were all over items in the house because (DUH) I lived there. Most importantly though, my fingerprints are not on any of the three murder weapons and it is not my print on a black plastic trash bag that contained one of the murder weapons. I am not linked forensically to the murders at all. More importantly still, I did not have “all the victims’ blood all over me”. Two stains were tested on my clothes and determined to be only contact stains. As the State’s own experts at trial explained, those stains proved only that I either came into contact with a victim at a time after they became bloody or, I came into contact with a surface upon which one of the victims deposited blood; again at a time after they became bloody. So you see, that evidence does not prove me guilty of anything at all but is totally consistent with my defense that I fell at the scene after getting off the couch, after the murders occurred, when leaving the house. Only Scooter and Twila’s DNA was on my shirt and pants, two spots. Randy’s blood/DNA was not on me at all. So again “all the victims’ blood all over him” is a blatant lie.
13/ Skinner’s website (hankskinner.org) spends page after page pushing out the testimony of a toxicologist who claimed that, because of the level of codeine and alcohol in Skinner’s system, Skinner would have been unable to commit the murders
I spend “page after page pushing out the testimony of a toxicologist” blah-blah-blah. Well, if this hater had read that “push-out”, he/she would know that toxicologist is a 27-year experienced FBI agent whose testimony was unrefuted and that the State’s own expert confirmed as correct his testimony, blood alcohol and blood codeine timeline profiles and his retrograde analysis as to how much alcohol/codeine was in my system and when I took it.
14/ But there is a big question: when did Skinner really take (or ingest) the drugs? 15/ A toxicology study can tell, given the level of drugs/alcohol in one’s blood at the time the study is performed, what the intoxication levels were between the time the drugs were taken and the time of the testing 16/ A toxicology study cannot tell when one actually ingested a substance. So we have to rely on Skinner to tell us when he ingested the codeine
That is a lie. No, again you do not have to rely on my word about when I took the codeine. This hater here just totally overlooks the evidence. The toxicologist, Dr Lowry, allows the State’s witnesses to tell him when I ingested the codeine and the evidence proves it unequivocally. Twila and I called Howard to come get us at 9:15 – 9:30pm and I was drunk but coherent. Howard got there 45 minutes later at 10:15pm and I would out cold, comatose, unrousable by any external stimuli. Dr Lowary knew alcohol alone would not have put me under that deep because he knew what my B.A.C. was at that time. Andrea testified that I did not consume any pills or drink, any alcohol while I was at her home. Once again, the State’s experts totally agreed with these findings so it’s not a matter in any dispute at all, despite what this hater would attempt to lead you to believe, otherwise. So, there is no question or dispute that I ingested the codeine before 10:00pm but after 9:15pm, before the murders, not after them.
Also there is no question of tolerance to codeine. First of all, I never took codeine, my Rx records clearly show I never had any Rx for it; so I could not have been tolerant of it. Secondly my condition at the time of the murders is described by the State’s two star witnesses, Andrea Reed and Howard Mitchell. See www.hankskinner.org (legal documents section, DNA issue paragraph) exhibits Q & R. Andrea’s recantation testimony is also available from the federal evidentiary hearing on my website. I’d urge you to read it in its entirety and especially view John Mann’s diatribe against her telling the truth at a previous grand jury proceeding where he openly threatens her and then later urges the court reporter not to record it – but he did, anyway.
17/ AHH, THE CODEINE – Skinner’s website says (in the 2nd paragraph) “Skinner was also subjected to a near lethal dose of codeine and passed out some time before 10:15pm…” The website goes on to drive home the point home about how “severely allergic” Skinner is to codeine.
View the blood codeine profile-timeline graphic display that was presented at trial. There is no question that I was subjected to a near lethal dose of codeine between .8 mg per liter and 1.35 mg per liter. View the affidavit of Dr Harold Kalant on my website. Dr Kalant is probably the world’s foremost recognized expert on this issue.
18/ See, if Skinner knowingly taken codeine that his allergy to which (again according to the website) had been documented in “his medical reports since the age of 19”, and made Skinner “deathly ill” one might tend to ask why he took it, right?
I accidentally ingested it. I wouldn’t have voluntarily or knowingly have taken the codeine. There is a range of intolerance to codeine. The lightest is, it makes you itch. Most people have that reaction to it. The worst if anaphylactic shock, which is a histamine reaction that can easily be very deadly. My level of intolerance is one step down from anaphylactic shock, termed moderately severe: extreme lethargy, vertigo, nausea and vomiting, colorblindness – every thing turns kodachrome shades of red and green tinted with black, difficulty breathing – my lungs feel like they’re full of cotton and my throat feels constricted; impaired balance and gait. When you add that on top of the vodka and Xanax I’d knowingly consumed that night, it is not easy to see why I’d be comatose and utterly incapable of committing these murders?
19/ So in order for Skinner’s story to work, somebody else would have had to have poisoned Skinner.
It’s not “Skinner’s story”. The evidence speaks for itself. No, somebody else probably had nothing to do with my being poisoned by codeine. See 9 above.
20/ So Skinner’s website says “… it is believed that (Skinner) was either accidentally or intentionally poisoned by the addition of the pills to his drinks (…) Hank was comatose during the commission of the murders…”
See 9 above.
21/ So when did Skinner ingest the codeine and who spiked his drink?
See 16 above.
22/ If Skinner (as his website claims) was already “passed out” from the codeine at 10:15 (when Twila Busy left with a close friend to go to the party), does this mean the faceless/nameless alleged murderer had already been in the house before 10:15 spiking drinks in preparation for the stabbings and beating that were to come?
See 9, 10, 11, 13, 14, 15 and 16 above.
23/ Skinner, who apparently couldn’t stand for a photo at the police station, didn’t seem to have much trouble standing up and hiding from the police in his ex-girlfriend’s closet at the time of his arrest (a detail that curiously isn’t mentioned on Skinner’s website)
See Sheriff Stubblefield’s deposition in the federal proceedings available on my website. He admits I was not “hiding in the closet”. That detail curiously, certainly is mentioned on my website in more than one place. When the police showed up at Andrea’s, she put me in the front bedroom which had a bare mattress on the floor and it was dark. She told me to stay there until the police left. The closet was shallow and full of clothes. It had no doors. When the police stormed into the room with guns drawn and flipped on the light, I stumbled backwards off the edge of the mattress and fell back against the clothes in the closet. My knee joints hyperflexed and locked. My butt was jammed against the clothes, my feet jammed against the edge of the mattress. I couldn’t get up. But I was at all times in plain sight and not attempting to “hide” at all. I just didn’t want to be shot. They kept screaming “Get down! Get on the ground!” but I couldn’t move. So the D.A.’s investigator stepped forward, I held out my hands and he pulled me forward onto the mattress.
24/ Was Skinner selectively comatose: comatose during the murders, then lucid at his ex’s house, but comatose again at the police station? A little bit of an inconvenient question for Skinner isn’t it?
Covered above and in Andrea Reed’s recantation testimony, not worthy of any reply.
25/ Perhaps it’s more likely that Skinner heard the police coming through the front door of his ex’s house, so he hid in the closet, pulled a handful of codeine pills out of the pocket of his blood-soaked clothes, and popped them in his mouth in an attempt to commit suicide.
Covered above. I didn’t have “blood soaked clothes”. The spots on my clothes are covered above in 12. It truly amazes me, the liberties people take in telling their little false stories about this case, even some elements in the media embellish the blood and gore in order to try to make me look guilty. “Blood caked on his clothes. The killer…”: Allan Turner of the Houston Chronicle. “Blood drenched clothes”, “blood soaked clothes”, “he was covered in the blood of the victims”, “He had their blood all over him”. None of that is true. What makes people lie like that? It’s true, I had some blood on my clothes, mostly contact stains from falling at the scene, some dripped blood from my hand wound. My clothes were hanging on the furniture during the commission of the murders and I’m sure that being right next to where Twila was murdered, they got blood spatter on them somewhere. This produces one other thought, a question I’ve always wanted to ask people. If you were in my condition on the night in question and trying to get dressed and get out of there with Scooter, would you be even thinking about getting blood on you? I could’ve cared less. I was pretty much hysterical, in shock, scared to death and too intoxicated to think anything like that. I don’t remember much of what we did, just bits and flashes, but I think Scooter was frantic to go and I went with him. That seemed to be his main theme “We gotta go. We gotta get the hell outa here”. So we did. It never once entered my mind that I can think of “oh, don’t touch that. Don’t get that on you, they’ll blame you”. One last thing on this issue, I’ve never denied being there. I had every right to be there, it was my home. Under Texas law, mere presence doesn’t prove guilt.
26/ The fact is: there is no evidence (except Skinner’s word) that he was passed out from codeine at 10:15. The only thing anybody knows is that Skinner didn’t take codeine between the time he was arrested and the time he was tested.
That is a blatant lie. Once again, you don’t have to take my word – take the word of the State’s second star witness Howard Mitchell! See Exhibit Q to my letter to Switzer on my website. At 10:15pm I was out cold, he says. He testified to that at trial. It’s irrefuted and undisputed!
27/ AAH, THE BLOOD-SOAKED CLOTHES. Here is another detail that, curiously enough, seems to have escaped on Skinner’s website.
Nothing has escaped mention. See Exhibit F to my letter to Switzer on my website.
28/ Skinner, according to police reports, was found standing in a closet at his ex-girlfriend’s house wearing clothes soaked in the victims’ blood some 3 hours later.
More lies. See 25 above.
29/ Let’s add a quote from Skinner’s website: “Three hours after their initial search of the crime scene, the police traced Hank to his neighbor’s house and immediately arrested him”. What?
Police didn’t “trace” me anywhere. They went to Andrea’s looking for Connie, my ex-wife. They found me instead.
30/ The “inseparable” and distraught Hank Skinner certainly called the police to report the murders, didn’t he?
The phone cord was jerked out of the wall. Nobody could call from our house. Scooter tried.
31/ Neither Skinner nor his ex-girlfriend, were apparently distraught enough to call the police. Skinner was, however, lucid enough to hide from them, in a closed, in blood-soaked clothes when the police came along.
Andrea wasn’t any longer my ex. We hadn’t been together in over 10 years at that time. We were friends but we weren’t associating at that time because she quit drinking and I had not. See 25 above.
32/ AAH, “INSEPARABLE” Skinner frequently refers to Twila Busby, and himself, as inseparable. They were, according to Skinner, madly in love. They were always together.
That’s true.
33/ However court testimony painted a different picture. Skinner was abusive and violent, not only to Twila Busby, but to her sons as well.
Court testimony painted no such picture at all. Twila and I never fussed or argued. See John Mann, D.A.’s memo 01.10.94 Bates stamped pages #94, 95 & 96 out of the D.A.’s file. Beverly, Twila’s mother, stated that I was very good to Twila, Scooter, Randy and Lisa. She’d never seen Twila happier than when she was with me. Twila’s mother had direct contact with her every day and talked to her every night before bed.
34/ But they weren’t the only targets of Skinner’s wrath. Skinner has even more violence in history. To quote Skinner, again, from his website: “I have one probation for aggravated assault on a police officer.”
Danny Lance beat the shit out of me at the city jail. Danny was Pampa P.D. In order to try to cover up his beating me, he alleged an injury and instead claimed I assaulted him. Detective Alan Smith however told the truth in his statement: I heard Skinner cry out. I turned to see Skinner flying backwards into the drunk tank with Officer Lance going in and on top of Skinner. Later Officer Lance said Skinner kicked him but I did not see any assault.”
On 01.05.94 in a recorded statement, the sheriff acknowledged that Harold Comer, then D.A., was supposed to terminate my probation but failed to do so. Thus rather than it showing as unadjudicated offense it shows as a felony conviction. I was arrested in the summer of 1992 for an outstanding revocation warrant on this non-existent probation, I was immediately released but the improper conviction was never remedied.
35/ More accurate: Skinner had a 1998 felony conviction for aggravated assault on the cop for which he initially received probation. Skinner’s probation was revoked and he was sent to prison after two subsequent felony convictions for motor vehicle (UUMV).
See 34. More lies.
36/ According to the Texas Attorney General, “Skinner was also arrested in Gun Barrel City on two counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, and became violent and abusive with arresting officers.”
People can allege anything. How odd that the “charges” were never formally filed and I was released after the alleged witnesses were found to be lying.
37/ But according to Skinner’s website, it’s all a big conspiracy. Everything was against him. The police, the district attorney, the judge, the Texas Attorney General, all the people at the crime labs – even Skinner’s own court-appointed attorney who Skinner (according to his website) embarrassed on multiple occasion in Skinner’s role as an “able paralegal worth a proven track record for caring and standing up for the rights of the people he barely even knew.”
Hardly.
38/ But, hey, we’re getting off on a bit of tangent here. The real murderer. So who does Skinner claim was the faceless/nameless family murderer?
See 5 and 6 above.
39/ Twila Busby’s dead uncle. Quoting Skinner’s website: “Robert Donnell, Twila’s maternal uncle, had a history of violence and was seen stalking Twila at a neighbor’s New Year’s Eve party on the night of the crime. Donnell had twice raped Twila in recent past and was known to have a propensity for knives.”
True. There’s far more.
40/ Skinner’s website suggests that not only did Uncle Robert stab the kids and bludgeon Twila Busby to death, he raped her, too.
The medical examiner’s testimony supports that she was raped too, yes. Her vaginal rim was reddened and chafed indicating recent sexual activity and she had possible semen in her panties.
41/ All of this happened, of course, when Skinner lay “comatose” on the sofa after consuming the drink that Uncle Robert must have spiked hours earlier.
See 10, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17 and 18 above.
42/ It should be noted that Robert Donnell had no convictions, nor had he ever been arrested, for violence, illegal weapons or sexual assaults – ever.
Rober Donnell had a long history of violence and that was testified to extensively by a long line of witnesses at both trial and the federal evidentiary hearing. Donnell attempted to kill Jimmy Hayes with a knife, he strangled California Rim while pregnant. He bragged to anyone who’ listen about how he killed a guy at pool hall in Oklahoma in a knife fight. He carried guns, knives and other “illegal weapons” everywhere he went. He tried to kill Doug Ward, Twila’s brother, Bob’s own nephew. He tried to rape Sherry Barnett-Baker and she testified at trial about it. See, again, Howard Mitchell’s interview with D.A. investigator Bill McMinn 09.24.94 (Exhibit Q of my letter Switzer on my website and investigator’s Cliff Carpenter affidavit about Donnell).
43/ But hey, even so, things could have unfolded exactly the way Skinner said they did in his 17-page diatribe: Skinner was simply a loving boyfriend, a talented paralegal, who stuck it to The Man and stood up for the rights of the wronged, and who happened to be a victim, himself, in the wrong place at the wrong time in the wrong condition.
A slew of reputable people have testified to my character, legal ability and activism on behalf of others and, in the community in general. A lot of it was covered in the newspapers. I don’t need to toot my own horn.
44/ Because believing that Hank Skinner was a sociopathic ex-con with a documented history of felonies and violence toward others, and who killed a mother of 2 children then hid from the police in a neighbor’s closet wearing clothes soaked with his victims’ blood would really be a stretch!
Bullshit! It certainly would be a helluva stretch, because the uncontested record evidence says otherwise. Truth will out.
The truth hurts, don’t it? I sure wish these people had the balls to identify themselves. Go back to your little drawing board and try to dream some new lies. I’ll be waiting to further introduce you to truth and reality.
Best regards,
Hank
999143 Polunsky Unit
H W Hank Skinner
3872 FM 350 South
Livingston TX 77351-8580
http://www.hankskinner.org
April 10, 2010
More fun! It has been brought to my attention that some false and undocumented « adverse » allegations, about me and my case are currently circulating on the web. Ordinarily I ignore things like this but I want to expose these coward allegations, usually raised by the haters, so it provides me a unique and excellent opportunity to counter this once and for all. In the future, any of my supporters or others inquiring on these topics can be referred to this NHHN article and it will save me the time and effort of having to repeat myself.
1/ Henry Watkins “Hank” Skinner – the Hype
No, dummy, it’s the facts, sans hype.
2/ When one reads all the media-driven innocence hype about Hank Skinner, one can be instantly coerced into believing that Skinner is truly innocent of the ghastly murders of Twila Busby and her two mentally-impaired sons.
No one is coercing anyone. The facts speak loudly for themselves. Two the most prestigious innocence projects in America both say I’m likely innocent and the evidence that remains needs to be tested.
3/ After all, Skinner is a cause de celebre around the world – a poster boy for “justice denied”. How could he have possibly done what a jury convicted him of?
Needs no comment.
4/ Hank’s jailhouse “wife” (a French anti-death penalty activist in real life) and Hank have done a great job at putting together a website calling into question aspects of how Hank has been treated over the years. There was, according to Hank and Mrs. Hank, a massive criminal/judicial conspiracy involving the police, prosecutors, judges and even Hank’s original trial attorney.
Sandrine Ageorges-Skinner is not my “jailhouse wife” but my wife in every respect, legal and otherwise. We are legally married in both Texas and France. The President of France and his Foreign minister made a diplomatic entreaty to the Governor of Texas, Rick Perry, on our behalf, asking Perry for a 30-day reprieve of execution and to conduct the DNA tests. That’s how legal our marriage is. I have our marriage license and certificate. I can produce it upon request to any who doubt me.
No one ever said there was any massive criminal conspiracy. I said, merely, the pigs didn’t like me for various reasons, there was animus against me and it provided them a motive to frame me, which they most certainly did. It was caused by small town, small minded authorities who possess exactly the same mindset as the person who authored this mess I’m now responding to. My trial attorney was an ex D.A. who’d previously prosecuted me.
5/ But the simple question remains: did Hank Skinner kill the Busby family?
No, I most certainly did not. The hairs ‘clutched’ in the victim’s (Twila’s) hand, sticking out from between her knuckles and caught under her ring, the D.A. says she pulled those hairs “from the head of her assailant during the struggle for her life, which she ultimately lost”. John Mann at first lied and said those hairs were mine. Subsequent DNA testing of the hairs at first produced a “mixed profile” alleged to contain my DNA. Further testing revealed this result was due to contamination in the wellplate caused by loading my standard sample too close to the evidentiary sample of Twila’s. Further testing proved that the blood flakes off the hair are solely Twila’s own blood and, subsequent mitochondrial testing of the hairs themselves are from an unknown male individual. I am absolutely and unequivocally excluded. See my letter 01/07/10 to D.A. Lynn Switzer and accompanying exhibits P2, P3 & P4 which are available on my website (legal documents section, DNA issue paragraph). It is beyond obvious that the person making these allegations is not at all well acquainted with the facts of the case but just hating and mud slinging.
6/ Was Skinner the murderer, or was it some faceless, nameless (or conveniently dead) person who poisoned Skinner with codeine (something to which Skinner was “deathly allergic”) before killing the family while Skinner slept?
See 5 above. He’s not faceless or nameless. We have his DNA profile! He’s not “conveniently dead”, just dead. In 1996/97 my investigator of that time confronted Twila’s uncle and told him he believed he was guilty. Bob Donnell had a confirmed incestuous relationship with Twila and probably killed her because of it. According to the state’s own witnesses Donnell had the means, motive, opportunity and animus to have committed the murders. The criminalist who viewed the jacket said it had medium velocity impact blood spatter on the cuffs and forearms of the sleeves meaning it was likely worn by the assailant. Only Twila had injuries which would cause impact spatter.
7/ In order for Skinner not to have been the killer, one has to ignore or dismiss an extraordinary set of events. Skinner would also have to be taken at his word on many of the events of New Year’s Eve, 1993.
This preface is a total lie. You don’t have to ignore or dismiss anything – this is truly “hype”. You don’t have to take my word for anything. That’s why the evidence and affidavits of scientific experts and forensic tests are so extensively presented on my website – like I say, it all speaks for itself but, you have to take time to read and review it, which this person obviously did not.
8/ Here are some of the things one would have to believe
Not true. See 9 and 12 below.
9/ some anonymous person spiked Skinner’s drink, before the murders, for whatever reason
No, they probably did not. I will not knowingly take codeine because it makes me sick. I’d not had any R’s for codeine. All my friends who’d been to our house that afternoon and evening knew I was allergic to codeine and that I avoided it studiously. I used to think someone must have poisoned me because I wouldn’t take codeine voluntarily.
A few years ago I learned that truth from a toxicologist who testified in another guy’s case, here. He says that once you reach a certain level of intoxication you go colorblind. Twila was always putting pills in her drink and sipping that one drink all evening. I later learned her girlfriend (G.S.) had given her 13 Fiorinal #4 codeine that she’d put in her drink. Twila and I had identical glasses but hers was Fuschia pink, mine was baby medium blue. I vaguely remember seeing the dregs of pills in the bottom of my cup and getting sick, passing out. I couldn’t figure out how it got into my cup. So I thought someone must have poisoned me. I think now I was just too messed up and colorblind to tell our cups apart anymore, I accidentally got Twila’s cup and drank from it, thinking it was my cup.
10/ A comatose Skinner “slept” through the murder (and possibly rape) of his beloved girlfriend, and the stabbing of her kids
I was comatose. I didn’t “sleep” through anything, I was out cold. Howard Mitchell, one of the two of the State’s star witnesses, testified that he came over to pick us up, I was out of it, he grabbed my arm and jerked on it until he pulled my torso off the couch but he got no response from me at all, even while screaming and hollering in my face “Come on Hank, Let’s go! Get up! Come on!” See the legal documents section, DNA issue paragraph, exhibit Q to my letter to Lynn Switzer on my website - Interview of Howard Mitchell by D.A.’s investigator.
My recitation of the facts and what I believe happened and why are presented just so I can tell the facts and how I believe they fit together, to give you the whole picture in a coherent fashion. But each item has a link to the evidence that backs it up, so you don’t need to take my word for anything. Review the evidence and let it speak to you of its own volition.
11/ Skinner could only to be roused by the girlfriend’s stabbed and mortally-wounded mentally-impaired son
“Skinner could only to be roused by”? That sentence makes no sense. “could only to be”? Well, Scooter got me off the couch over two and a half hours after Howard tried to and failed, he did so by sprinkling water in my face. He was mortally wounded. He helped me up to get dressed, we left the house together after checking on Randy and (Scooter) finding he was dead. Scooter and Randy were not “mentally impaired”, “mentally challenged” or “retarded”. Twila’s mother, Beverly, was a nursing home manager/administrator. She was a master at milking the federal system for $ to care for her wards at the old folks home. She employed the same tactics for Scooter and Randy. They were getting social security disability checks every month. Scooter was listed as mentally retarded and suffering muscular dystrophy; Randy as mentally retarded. Mann discovered this subterfuge of Beverly’s and decided to employ it for his own purposes. I was 5’9”, 145 lbs at the time. Scooter was 6’6”, 245 lbs. Randy was 6’1”, 180 lbs. There was no way any jury was going to believe I overpowered and killed Scooter and his mother in my condition at the time of the murders. So Mann turned them into “poor little retarded boys” and tried to get the Medical Examiner at autopsy to diminish their heights and weights. I don’t know how Randy was stabbed in his bed, either. I only know that’s supposedly where he was found according to the pigs. But the M.E. says both Randy and his mother’s bodies were moved prior to her in situ inspection.
12/ After this rousing, he managed to stumble around through the crime scene in a “stuporous” state, getting his handprint all over everything, and all the victim’s blood all over him
That’s not true. First, the person who wrote this garbage tries to paint in overly broad strokes and weakly implies some inculpatory evidence results from it. For example: “getting his handprints all over everything”. My handprints were never detected or identified as being “all over everything”, but I’m sure my prints were all over items in the house because (DUH) I lived there. Most importantly though, my fingerprints are not on any of the three murder weapons and it is not my print on a black plastic trash bag that contained one of the murder weapons. I am not linked forensically to the murders at all. More importantly still, I did not have “all the victims’ blood all over me”. Two stains were tested on my clothes and determined to be only contact stains. As the State’s own experts at trial explained, those stains proved only that I either came into contact with a victim at a time after they became bloody or, I came into contact with a surface upon which one of the victims deposited blood; again at a time after they became bloody. So you see, that evidence does not prove me guilty of anything at all but is totally consistent with my defense that I fell at the scene after getting off the couch, after the murders occurred, when leaving the house. Only Scooter and Twila’s DNA was on my shirt and pants, two spots. Randy’s blood/DNA was not on me at all. So again “all the victims’ blood all over him” is a blatant lie.
13/ Skinner’s website (hankskinner.org) spends page after page pushing out the testimony of a toxicologist who claimed that, because of the level of codeine and alcohol in Skinner’s system, Skinner would have been unable to commit the murders
I spend “page after page pushing out the testimony of a toxicologist” blah-blah-blah. Well, if this hater had read that “push-out”, he/she would know that toxicologist is a 27-year experienced FBI agent whose testimony was unrefuted and that the State’s own expert confirmed as correct his testimony, blood alcohol and blood codeine timeline profiles and his retrograde analysis as to how much alcohol/codeine was in my system and when I took it.
14/ But there is a big question: when did Skinner really take (or ingest) the drugs? 15/ A toxicology study can tell, given the level of drugs/alcohol in one’s blood at the time the study is performed, what the intoxication levels were between the time the drugs were taken and the time of the testing 16/ A toxicology study cannot tell when one actually ingested a substance. So we have to rely on Skinner to tell us when he ingested the codeine
That is a lie. No, again you do not have to rely on my word about when I took the codeine. This hater here just totally overlooks the evidence. The toxicologist, Dr Lowry, allows the State’s witnesses to tell him when I ingested the codeine and the evidence proves it unequivocally. Twila and I called Howard to come get us at 9:15 – 9:30pm and I was drunk but coherent. Howard got there 45 minutes later at 10:15pm and I would out cold, comatose, unrousable by any external stimuli. Dr Lowary knew alcohol alone would not have put me under that deep because he knew what my B.A.C. was at that time. Andrea testified that I did not consume any pills or drink, any alcohol while I was at her home. Once again, the State’s experts totally agreed with these findings so it’s not a matter in any dispute at all, despite what this hater would attempt to lead you to believe, otherwise. So, there is no question or dispute that I ingested the codeine before 10:00pm but after 9:15pm, before the murders, not after them.
Also there is no question of tolerance to codeine. First of all, I never took codeine, my Rx records clearly show I never had any Rx for it; so I could not have been tolerant of it. Secondly my condition at the time of the murders is described by the State’s two star witnesses, Andrea Reed and Howard Mitchell. See www.hankskinner.org (legal documents section, DNA issue paragraph) exhibits Q & R. Andrea’s recantation testimony is also available from the federal evidentiary hearing on my website. I’d urge you to read it in its entirety and especially view John Mann’s diatribe against her telling the truth at a previous grand jury proceeding where he openly threatens her and then later urges the court reporter not to record it – but he did, anyway.
17/ AHH, THE CODEINE – Skinner’s website says (in the 2nd paragraph) “Skinner was also subjected to a near lethal dose of codeine and passed out some time before 10:15pm…” The website goes on to drive home the point home about how “severely allergic” Skinner is to codeine.
View the blood codeine profile-timeline graphic display that was presented at trial. There is no question that I was subjected to a near lethal dose of codeine between .8 mg per liter and 1.35 mg per liter. View the affidavit of Dr Harold Kalant on my website. Dr Kalant is probably the world’s foremost recognized expert on this issue.
18/ See, if Skinner knowingly taken codeine that his allergy to which (again according to the website) had been documented in “his medical reports since the age of 19”, and made Skinner “deathly ill” one might tend to ask why he took it, right?
I accidentally ingested it. I wouldn’t have voluntarily or knowingly have taken the codeine. There is a range of intolerance to codeine. The lightest is, it makes you itch. Most people have that reaction to it. The worst if anaphylactic shock, which is a histamine reaction that can easily be very deadly. My level of intolerance is one step down from anaphylactic shock, termed moderately severe: extreme lethargy, vertigo, nausea and vomiting, colorblindness – every thing turns kodachrome shades of red and green tinted with black, difficulty breathing – my lungs feel like they’re full of cotton and my throat feels constricted; impaired balance and gait. When you add that on top of the vodka and Xanax I’d knowingly consumed that night, it is not easy to see why I’d be comatose and utterly incapable of committing these murders?
19/ So in order for Skinner’s story to work, somebody else would have had to have poisoned Skinner.
It’s not “Skinner’s story”. The evidence speaks for itself. No, somebody else probably had nothing to do with my being poisoned by codeine. See 9 above.
20/ So Skinner’s website says “… it is believed that (Skinner) was either accidentally or intentionally poisoned by the addition of the pills to his drinks (…) Hank was comatose during the commission of the murders…”
See 9 above.
21/ So when did Skinner ingest the codeine and who spiked his drink?
See 16 above.
22/ If Skinner (as his website claims) was already “passed out” from the codeine at 10:15 (when Twila Busy left with a close friend to go to the party), does this mean the faceless/nameless alleged murderer had already been in the house before 10:15 spiking drinks in preparation for the stabbings and beating that were to come?
See 9, 10, 11, 13, 14, 15 and 16 above.
23/ Skinner, who apparently couldn’t stand for a photo at the police station, didn’t seem to have much trouble standing up and hiding from the police in his ex-girlfriend’s closet at the time of his arrest (a detail that curiously isn’t mentioned on Skinner’s website)
See Sheriff Stubblefield’s deposition in the federal proceedings available on my website. He admits I was not “hiding in the closet”. That detail curiously, certainly is mentioned on my website in more than one place. When the police showed up at Andrea’s, she put me in the front bedroom which had a bare mattress on the floor and it was dark. She told me to stay there until the police left. The closet was shallow and full of clothes. It had no doors. When the police stormed into the room with guns drawn and flipped on the light, I stumbled backwards off the edge of the mattress and fell back against the clothes in the closet. My knee joints hyperflexed and locked. My butt was jammed against the clothes, my feet jammed against the edge of the mattress. I couldn’t get up. But I was at all times in plain sight and not attempting to “hide” at all. I just didn’t want to be shot. They kept screaming “Get down! Get on the ground!” but I couldn’t move. So the D.A.’s investigator stepped forward, I held out my hands and he pulled me forward onto the mattress.
24/ Was Skinner selectively comatose: comatose during the murders, then lucid at his ex’s house, but comatose again at the police station? A little bit of an inconvenient question for Skinner isn’t it?
Covered above and in Andrea Reed’s recantation testimony, not worthy of any reply.
25/ Perhaps it’s more likely that Skinner heard the police coming through the front door of his ex’s house, so he hid in the closet, pulled a handful of codeine pills out of the pocket of his blood-soaked clothes, and popped them in his mouth in an attempt to commit suicide.
Covered above. I didn’t have “blood soaked clothes”. The spots on my clothes are covered above in 12. It truly amazes me, the liberties people take in telling their little false stories about this case, even some elements in the media embellish the blood and gore in order to try to make me look guilty. “Blood caked on his clothes. The killer…”: Allan Turner of the Houston Chronicle. “Blood drenched clothes”, “blood soaked clothes”, “he was covered in the blood of the victims”, “He had their blood all over him”. None of that is true. What makes people lie like that? It’s true, I had some blood on my clothes, mostly contact stains from falling at the scene, some dripped blood from my hand wound. My clothes were hanging on the furniture during the commission of the murders and I’m sure that being right next to where Twila was murdered, they got blood spatter on them somewhere. This produces one other thought, a question I’ve always wanted to ask people. If you were in my condition on the night in question and trying to get dressed and get out of there with Scooter, would you be even thinking about getting blood on you? I could’ve cared less. I was pretty much hysterical, in shock, scared to death and too intoxicated to think anything like that. I don’t remember much of what we did, just bits and flashes, but I think Scooter was frantic to go and I went with him. That seemed to be his main theme “We gotta go. We gotta get the hell outa here”. So we did. It never once entered my mind that I can think of “oh, don’t touch that. Don’t get that on you, they’ll blame you”. One last thing on this issue, I’ve never denied being there. I had every right to be there, it was my home. Under Texas law, mere presence doesn’t prove guilt.
26/ The fact is: there is no evidence (except Skinner’s word) that he was passed out from codeine at 10:15. The only thing anybody knows is that Skinner didn’t take codeine between the time he was arrested and the time he was tested.
That is a blatant lie. Once again, you don’t have to take my word – take the word of the State’s second star witness Howard Mitchell! See Exhibit Q to my letter to Switzer on my website. At 10:15pm I was out cold, he says. He testified to that at trial. It’s irrefuted and undisputed!
27/ AAH, THE BLOOD-SOAKED CLOTHES. Here is another detail that, curiously enough, seems to have escaped on Skinner’s website.
Nothing has escaped mention. See Exhibit F to my letter to Switzer on my website.
28/ Skinner, according to police reports, was found standing in a closet at his ex-girlfriend’s house wearing clothes soaked in the victims’ blood some 3 hours later.
More lies. See 25 above.
29/ Let’s add a quote from Skinner’s website: “Three hours after their initial search of the crime scene, the police traced Hank to his neighbor’s house and immediately arrested him”. What?
Police didn’t “trace” me anywhere. They went to Andrea’s looking for Connie, my ex-wife. They found me instead.
30/ The “inseparable” and distraught Hank Skinner certainly called the police to report the murders, didn’t he?
The phone cord was jerked out of the wall. Nobody could call from our house. Scooter tried.
31/ Neither Skinner nor his ex-girlfriend, were apparently distraught enough to call the police. Skinner was, however, lucid enough to hide from them, in a closed, in blood-soaked clothes when the police came along.
Andrea wasn’t any longer my ex. We hadn’t been together in over 10 years at that time. We were friends but we weren’t associating at that time because she quit drinking and I had not. See 25 above.
32/ AAH, “INSEPARABLE” Skinner frequently refers to Twila Busby, and himself, as inseparable. They were, according to Skinner, madly in love. They were always together.
That’s true.
33/ However court testimony painted a different picture. Skinner was abusive and violent, not only to Twila Busby, but to her sons as well.
Court testimony painted no such picture at all. Twila and I never fussed or argued. See John Mann, D.A.’s memo 01.10.94 Bates stamped pages #94, 95 & 96 out of the D.A.’s file. Beverly, Twila’s mother, stated that I was very good to Twila, Scooter, Randy and Lisa. She’d never seen Twila happier than when she was with me. Twila’s mother had direct contact with her every day and talked to her every night before bed.
34/ But they weren’t the only targets of Skinner’s wrath. Skinner has even more violence in history. To quote Skinner, again, from his website: “I have one probation for aggravated assault on a police officer.”
Danny Lance beat the shit out of me at the city jail. Danny was Pampa P.D. In order to try to cover up his beating me, he alleged an injury and instead claimed I assaulted him. Detective Alan Smith however told the truth in his statement: I heard Skinner cry out. I turned to see Skinner flying backwards into the drunk tank with Officer Lance going in and on top of Skinner. Later Officer Lance said Skinner kicked him but I did not see any assault.”
On 01.05.94 in a recorded statement, the sheriff acknowledged that Harold Comer, then D.A., was supposed to terminate my probation but failed to do so. Thus rather than it showing as unadjudicated offense it shows as a felony conviction. I was arrested in the summer of 1992 for an outstanding revocation warrant on this non-existent probation, I was immediately released but the improper conviction was never remedied.
35/ More accurate: Skinner had a 1998 felony conviction for aggravated assault on the cop for which he initially received probation. Skinner’s probation was revoked and he was sent to prison after two subsequent felony convictions for motor vehicle (UUMV).
See 34. More lies.
36/ According to the Texas Attorney General, “Skinner was also arrested in Gun Barrel City on two counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, and became violent and abusive with arresting officers.”
People can allege anything. How odd that the “charges” were never formally filed and I was released after the alleged witnesses were found to be lying.
37/ But according to Skinner’s website, it’s all a big conspiracy. Everything was against him. The police, the district attorney, the judge, the Texas Attorney General, all the people at the crime labs – even Skinner’s own court-appointed attorney who Skinner (according to his website) embarrassed on multiple occasion in Skinner’s role as an “able paralegal worth a proven track record for caring and standing up for the rights of the people he barely even knew.”
Hardly.
38/ But, hey, we’re getting off on a bit of tangent here. The real murderer. So who does Skinner claim was the faceless/nameless family murderer?
See 5 and 6 above.
39/ Twila Busby’s dead uncle. Quoting Skinner’s website: “Robert Donnell, Twila’s maternal uncle, had a history of violence and was seen stalking Twila at a neighbor’s New Year’s Eve party on the night of the crime. Donnell had twice raped Twila in recent past and was known to have a propensity for knives.”
True. There’s far more.
40/ Skinner’s website suggests that not only did Uncle Robert stab the kids and bludgeon Twila Busby to death, he raped her, too.
The medical examiner’s testimony supports that she was raped too, yes. Her vaginal rim was reddened and chafed indicating recent sexual activity and she had possible semen in her panties.
41/ All of this happened, of course, when Skinner lay “comatose” on the sofa after consuming the drink that Uncle Robert must have spiked hours earlier.
See 10, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17 and 18 above.
42/ It should be noted that Robert Donnell had no convictions, nor had he ever been arrested, for violence, illegal weapons or sexual assaults – ever.
Rober Donnell had a long history of violence and that was testified to extensively by a long line of witnesses at both trial and the federal evidentiary hearing. Donnell attempted to kill Jimmy Hayes with a knife, he strangled California Rim while pregnant. He bragged to anyone who’ listen about how he killed a guy at pool hall in Oklahoma in a knife fight. He carried guns, knives and other “illegal weapons” everywhere he went. He tried to kill Doug Ward, Twila’s brother, Bob’s own nephew. He tried to rape Sherry Barnett-Baker and she testified at trial about it. See, again, Howard Mitchell’s interview with D.A. investigator Bill McMinn 09.24.94 (Exhibit Q of my letter Switzer on my website and investigator’s Cliff Carpenter affidavit about Donnell).
43/ But hey, even so, things could have unfolded exactly the way Skinner said they did in his 17-page diatribe: Skinner was simply a loving boyfriend, a talented paralegal, who stuck it to The Man and stood up for the rights of the wronged, and who happened to be a victim, himself, in the wrong place at the wrong time in the wrong condition.
A slew of reputable people have testified to my character, legal ability and activism on behalf of others and, in the community in general. A lot of it was covered in the newspapers. I don’t need to toot my own horn.
44/ Because believing that Hank Skinner was a sociopathic ex-con with a documented history of felonies and violence toward others, and who killed a mother of 2 children then hid from the police in a neighbor’s closet wearing clothes soaked with his victims’ blood would really be a stretch!
Bullshit! It certainly would be a helluva stretch, because the uncontested record evidence says otherwise. Truth will out.
The truth hurts, don’t it? I sure wish these people had the balls to identify themselves. Go back to your little drawing board and try to dream some new lies. I’ll be waiting to further introduce you to truth and reality.
Best regards,
Hank
999143 Polunsky Unit
H W Hank Skinner
3872 FM 350 South
Livingston TX 77351-8580
http://www.hankskinner.org
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