Criminal Law News

This isn’t the kind of thing that California criminal defense lawyers get to see very often.  A Texas convict has received a temporary reprieve in the form of a United States Supreme Court stay of his execution. The stay came just as Hank Skinner was eating his last meal, one hour before the execution was due to take place.

The days and hours leading up to the execution have been dramatic, and full of frenzied efforts by Skinner’s advocates around the country and worldwide. Texas Gov. Rick Perry received more than 8,000 letters of support calling for a stay on the execution.

Those calls of support are based on Skinner’s insistence that more DNA testing could prove his innocence, and exonerate him of the murder of his girlfriend and her two adult sons. That murder took place on New Year’s Eve 1990. The girlfriend Twila Busby and her two sons Elwin Caler and Randy Busby were found dead in the home Busby shared with Skinner. Busby had been bludgeoned to death, while her two sons had been stabbed.

Skinner was in the home when the murders occurred. He has never denied that. He says he was incapacitated by heavy alcohol and codeine use, and does not know what happened. He has always pointed to Busby’s uncle, who has since died, as the real murderer.

DNA testing ultimately convicted Skinner, but the testing was not done on items that Skinner now wants tested.  For over a decade, Skinner has insisted that more DNA testing on untested evidence from the scene – including vaginal swabs from Busby, finger nail clippings, strands of hair, two knives, a dish towel and a jacket found at the scene – could exonerate him.  Prosecutors insist that all evidence found at the scene points to Skinner as the murderer. Gov. Perry has resisted acting on Skinner’s behalf, but the U.S. Supreme Court has now finally acted with a temporary reprieve.

The reprieve comes after hectic efforts by criminal defense lawyers around the country, the Innocence Project, and Change.org. The case quickly went international, with appeals for a stay coming in from France and other European countries.

The Supreme Court will now decide whether to take up Skinner’s appeal, although it isn’t yet certain when that will happen.