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:

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.

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.

Breaking News: Stay of Execution for Hank Skinner

6:30 PM: AP has posted the following:

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Supreme Court has blocked the execution of a Texas man who says DNA testing could clear him of the triple slaying that has sent him to death row.

The justices' order Wednesday could allow Hank Skinner access to evidence that he says could demonstrate his innocence. The 47-year-old Skinner faced lethal injection for the bludgeoning and strangling of his girlfriend, 40-year-old Twila Jean Busby, and the stabbings of her two adult sons at their home in the Texas Panhandle town of Pampa on New Year's Eve in 1993.

6:15 PM: We were just informed from our friends in Huntsville that the US Supreme Court has issued a stay of execution for Hank Skinner. More details to follow!

Troy Davis' execution stayed

Here is the court order:

ORDER LIST: 554 U.S.)
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 23, 2008
ORDER IN PENDING CASE
08-66 DAVIS, TROY A. V. GEORGIA
(O8A241)

The application for stay of execution of sentence of death
presented to Justice Thomas and by him referred to the Court is
granted pending the disposition of the petition for a writ of
certiorari. Should the petition for a writ of certiorari be
denied, this stay shall terminate automatically. In the event
the petition for a writ of certiorari is granted, the stay shall
terminate upon the issuance of the mandate of this Court.

The Onion: Supreme Court Rules Death Penalty Is 'Totally Badass'

Supreme Court Rules Death Penalty Is 'Totally Badass'

Dallas Morning News Editorial: Free to kill again

This editorial was published on April 17, by the Dallas Morning News.

The Supreme Court decision yesterday allowing execution by lethal injection eventually will free the nation's busiest death chamber – the one in Huntsville, Texas – to pick up where it left off.

It's not a moment to celebrate for those distressed about the quality of justice meted out in the state's courts.

The six-month hiatus from state-sponsored killing allowed the Supreme Court to review a challenge to a widely used injection method. A hiatus is just what this newspaper has been calling for, but for different reasons.

The disturbing spate of DNA exonerations of Texas inmates is the most powerful argument for freezing Texas' machinery of death. Dallas County has the distinction of having more discredited cases than any county nationwide. Just this week, a 16th wrongful conviction was announced here. Thomas Clifford McGowan Jr. spent 23 years imprisoned by the state stemming from a rape in Richardson that he didn't commit.

It appears that a flawed photo lineup technique was the root of the breakdown in justice. Other prosecution methods and junk forensic "science" have been implicated by the exonerations. None have involved a death sentence, but they indicate flaws in the system that could have dire consequences for the 360 men and nine women on Texas' death row.

Gov. Rick Perry hailed the Supreme Court ruling yesterday, saying, "Texas is a law and order state, and I stand by the majority of Texans who support the death penalty as it is written in Texas law."

The governor's majority claim may be true, but support for the death penalty appears to be waning in Texas. Prosecutors are more wary of taking on marginal cases, and jurors want a higher standard of proof than the recollections of a purported eyewitness. Life sentences without parole are now an option for the courts.

Lethal injections may be cleared for use in the Texas death chamber again, but that doesn't mean executions have to go forward. State lawmakers who have doubts about the system have a responsibility to restate their case.

Dont Miss Boston Legal tonight

Tonight is the promised episode of Boston Legal where the lawyers take on the Supreme Court and the Death Penalty in a non-murder rape case from deep south.

Several people from the abolitionist community visited the set in March and saw the episode being filmed. Apparently Alan Shore gives a great lecture to the members of the SCOTUS. The look-alikes they have of the justices are just amazing, specially how they spoof Clarence Thomas.

Supreme Court OK's lethal injections

As expected, today in a 7-2 decision the Supreme Court found the lethal injection to be constitutional. Capital Defense Weekly has more details about the decision. You can read the full text of the opinion online.

NYT: Supreme Court Allows Lethal Injection for Execution
AP: Executions to resume after high court OK's lethal injections
SCOTUS Blog: Analysis: Limit may be imposed on death penalty for child rape

Cruel punishment? Texas and other states should halt lethal injections while the Supreme Court weighs constitutionality

Thats the title of Houston Chronicle's editorial calling on Texas to stop all executions while the Supreme Court considers constitutionality of lethal Injections.

There are several good reasons to give every death row inmate an indefinite reprieve. This week the U.S. Supreme Court found another.

Particularly in Texas, the nation's execution leader, the criminal justice system is prone to mistakes and abuse. The system is too unreliable in its assessment of guilt to justify exacting the ultimate, irrevocable penalty.

As recorded by the Innocence Project, advances in DNA analysis have exonerated more than 200 convicted prisoners nationwide since 1989. The wrongful convictions often involved cases of mistaken identity. Police and prosecutorial misconduct were common. The odds are that many more innocent people are in prison for crimes they did not commit and for whom there is no DNA to analyze.

In Houston, the Police Department crime lab's incompetent testing of all kinds of evidence — combined with false testimony — tainted hundreds of cases, placing their convictions in doubt.

Tuesday the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to decide whether lethal injections are cruel and unusual and therefore unconstitutional. Critics allege the injections can cause great agony, but the drugs paralyze the prisoner before he can protest.

In an earlier case, Justice John Paul Stevens informed a deputy attorney general from Florida that the drug cocktail used by her state and all the others — sodium thiopental, pancuronium bromide and potassium chloride in various dosages — would not be allowed to be used to euthanize cats and dogs. In a California case, a member of the American College of Veterinary Anesthesiologists testified that those drugs were soundly rejected by his peers and would be very likely to cause pain in animals.

With lethal injections suspected of being cruel and unusual and therefore unconstitutional and unjust, it is inappropriate for Texas to proceed with executions until the court has ruled. A spokeswoman for Gov. Rick Perry, however, said executions in Texas would continue, as the cases under review affect only Kentucky.

That is a narrow and mean view of justice. Do the governor and the members of the Board of Pardons and Paroles wish to look back on a series of cruel and possibly illegal executions carried out under a legal cloud?

Death row inmates about to be executed committed their crimes 15-20 years ago. Where is the harm in postponing executions for a few months until the court makes its ruling? After executing more than 400 people since 1977, Texas can afford to wait.

STARVIN' FOR JUSTICE 2007

The 14th Annual Fast & Vigil to Abolish the Death Penalty
at the U.S. Supreme Court
June 29th - July 2nd, 2007

A four day vigil maintaining a presence at SCOTUS, the Supreme Court Of The United States. Some of the participants fast during this time, but fasting is not required. We encounter thousands of visitors to the Court and share our message that no matter how you slice it, the death penalty is BAD PUBLIC POLICY. Much of the time is spent talking to individuals and creating visibilty. Several larger events are held at key times during the event to highlight specific concerns, with a series of speakers each evening to educate, enlighten and entertain…

Click Here to see pictures and more info on what goes on during the Fast & Vigil!

Among the confirmed Evening Program speakers for 2007 are the following. You never know who might show up... Each evening will feature full-length talks plus Q&A with between two and four speakers, including people with direct experience and also movement activists and professionals.

CLICK HERE to see the schedule of who is speaking when!

• Moreese Bickham - whose death sentence was changed due to the Furman decision and who completed his sentence and was released.
• SueZann Bosler, Murder Victim Family Member
• Joan Cheever - Author of "BACK FROM THE DEAD: One Woman's Search For The Men Who Walked Off America's Death Row."
• Renny Cushing - Murder Victim Family Member
• David Elliot - Communications Director, National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty
• Georgi Fisher - Murder Victim Family Member
• Shujaa Graham, California Death Row Survivor
• Marshall Hartman - Advocate for the Condemned/Participant in Furman Legal Effort
• Jennifer Bishop-Jenkins and Bill Jenkins - Murder Victim Family Members
• Art Laffin - Murder Victim Family Member
• Christina Lawson - murder victim family member and widow of an executed prisoner
• Ron McAndrew - former prison warden who has participated in executions
• Bill Pelke - Co-founder of the F&V; Murder Victim Family Member
• Phyllis Prentice - Organizer & Spouse of an Exonerated Death Row Prisoner
• Delia Perez Meyer - Sister of Texas Death Row Prisoner
• Shabak WaQlimi - Exonerated and Freed from Florida's Death Row
• George White, Murder Victim Family Member, Exonerated Prisoner

And other Death Row Family Members and Murder Victim Family Members....

Supreme Court throws out 3 death sentences

The Supreme Court threw out death sentences from Texas because of problems with instructions given jurors who were deciding between life in prison and death. UT’s Capital Punishment Clinic and the Supreme Court Clinic represented all three cases. For more information about their success read Supreme Persuasion by Laura Castro. Capital Defense Weekly has more information on today's SCOTUS ruling.

Quote of the day is from mayor Bloomberg in response to a reporter's question about the case of Ronell Wilson, who was sentenced last week to die by lethal injection.

I'm opposed to the death penalty. How many times do I have to tell you? I don't need the question every time there is one...You should write it down and share it with your associates. It's not going to change. Okay? My position on every one of these things, you know what they are. Write it down, pull it out of the morgue, put it on your word processor, and hit the button and put it in.