PRESS
U.S. SUPREME COURT KEEPS HANK SKINNER ALIVE, AGAIN THE TEXAS TRIBUNE
 MARCH 7, 2011
U.S. Supreme Court Keeps Hank Skinner Alive, Again by Brandi Grissom – The Texas Tribune March 7, 2011 Hank Skinner was sentenced to death in a 1993 triple slaying of his girlfriend and her two sons. Skinner claims his innocence, insisting for 15 years that DNA evidence could exonerate him. The US Supreme Court ordered a stay of execution on March 24 until it can further review the case. The U.S. Supreme Court has given Texas death row inmate Hank Skinner another chance at getting DNA testing done on evidence he says could prove he did not kill his live-in girlfriend and her two sons in 1993. In a 6-3 opinion released today, the justices reversed the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals' denial of Skinner's federal civil rights claim requesting DNA testing. The case will now go back to a federal court in Amarillo, which will decide whether Skinner can get access to the evidence for testing. Rob Owen, Skinner's attorney, said they were "relieved and pleased" with the high court's decision. Skinner was convicted in 1995 of murdering his live-in girlfriend, Twila Busby, and her two mentally disabled sons, Randy Busby and Elwin Caler, in their small Pampa home. Busby was strangled and bludgeoned to death; the young men were stabbed. Skinner doesn’t deny he was in the house that New Year’s Eve in 1993 but maintains that he was too incapacitated from a mixture of vodka and codeine to carry out the attacks. Since 2000, Skinner has asked the state to release evidence that was not examined at trial for DNA testing, including a rape kit, biological material from Twila's fingernails, sweat from a man’s jacket resembling one that another potential suspect often wore, a bloody towel and knives. Those items weren’t tested at Skinner's original trial because his attorney at the time worried the results might be incriminating. Texas courts have repeatedly denied Skinner’s requests for testing in the years since, saying that he had his chance in 1995 and contending that more tests wouldn’t prove that he wasn’t the murderer. The question before the Supreme Court was not whether the testing should be done but instead about the type of lawsuit that Skinner could bring in order to access the evidence for testing. The justices agreed that Skinner could file his request as a civil rights lawsuit. Now, Skinner must prove to the federal court that he is entitled to DNA testing. "The heart of the case is going to be decided in the next round of litigation in federal court," Owen said. http://www.texastribune.org/texas-dept-criminal-justice/hank-skinner/us-supreme-court-keeps-hankskinner-alive-again/