Texas

TEXAS – Texas ordered to pay ex-inmate $2M over conviction – Billy Allen

may 18, 2012 Source : http://www.freep.com

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Texas was ordered on Friday to pay about $2 million to a man who spent 26 years in prison for murder before his conviction was overturned.

Billy Frederick Allen’s attempt to get the money has been a key case in developing standards for when ex-prisoners should be compensated. State Comptroller Susan Combs resisted paying Allen, arguing his conviction was overturned because of ineffective lawyers, not because he had proven his innocence.

But the state Supreme Court said the criminal courts showed Allen had a legitimate innocence claim and he should be paid.

Allen was convicted of two 1983 Dallas-area murders. He was freed in 2009 and sued the state for compensation for wrongful imprisonment.

Texas’ compensation law is the most generous in the U.S., according to the national Innocence Project, which works on cases where inmates allege wrongful convictions. Freed inmates who are declared innocent by a judge, prosecutors or a governor’s pardon can collect $80,000 for every year of imprisonment.

In Allen’s case, he didn’t have an innocence declaration. What he had instead was a Court of Criminal Appeals ruling that reversed his conviction based on ineffective counsel. It also determined that the evidence against him was too weak to for a reasonable jury to convict him.

Although prosecutors dismissed the charges, they said they still consider him a suspect and have kept the case open.

DNA evidence has led to most of Texas’ exonerations. But with DNA testing essentially standard in most cases now and the number of DNA-based exonerations expected to dwindle, cases like Allen’s — which had no DNA evidence — are likely to account for more compensation claims.

TEXAS – Roberts loses appeal in Lake Livingston Death

May 16, 2012 Source : http://www.chron.com

HOUSTON (AP) — A man sent to death row for the slaying of an East Texas woman nearly nine years ago has lost a federal court appeal, moving him a step closer to execution.

Forty-one-year-old Donnie Lee Roberts Jr. was condemned for robbing and shooting his girlfriend,Vicki Bowen, at her home on Lake Livingston in Polk County. Evidence showed Roberts, who previously served prison time in Louisiana for armed robbery, traded a gun stolen from the home for cocaine.

Roberts contended his trial judge improperly refused testimony from an expert witness about his alcohol and drug use, that his trial legal help was deficient and that his trial judge refused testimony from one of his relatives during punishment.

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals late Tuesday rejected each of his claims.

TEXAS – Steven Staley – execution STAYED

May 14, 2012 Source : http://www.chron.com

HOUSTON (AP) — The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals on Monday stopped this week’s scheduled execution of a convicted killer whose mental health had become an issue in his appeals.

The state’s highest criminal court gave a reprieve to Steven Staley, 49, who was set for lethal injection Wednesday evening in Huntsville for the 1989 shooting death of a Fort Worth restaurant manager during a botched robbery.

“This is great,” said Staley’s attorney, John Stickels. “I’m very happy.”

Prosecutors contended Staley was competent for execution, but Stickels in his appeal to the court said that was accomplished only because a state judge in Fort Worth improperly ordered Staley be given drugs to make him competent so the state of Texas could kill him.

The appeals court spent much of the ruling’s three pages recounting Staley’s case in the courts and only in a final paragraph specifically addressed the appeal, saying the court had determined the execution should be halted “pending further order by this court.”

It gave no reason. Justice Lawrence Meyers dissented from his eight colleagues but issued no dissenting opinion.

“I don’t know what’s next,” Stickels said. “It just orders the execution stayed and doesn’t order anything else. I’m not going to do anything until they tell me.”

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TEXAS – Death Sentence Reviews Leave Unsettled Issues

may 13, 2012 source :http://www.texastribune.org

Stanley Schneider was shocked last year when Texas’ highest criminal court sent his death row client an early Christmas gift of sorts, ordering the trial court to re-examine evidence from a psychologist who had decided thatJohn Reyes Matamoros was mentally fit to face execution.

“We were hopeful their sending it back would mean something,” Schneider said.

But his hope flagged in March when, he said, two Harris County state district judges virtually rubber-stamped Dr. George Denkowski’s findings in the cases of Matamoros and a fellow death row inmate,Steven Butler. Denkowski, the psychologist who testified in the cases of 14 current Texas death row inmates that the convicted men were mentally fit for execution, was reprimanded last year after other psychologists and defense lawyers filed a complaint alleging that he had used discredited evaluation methods.

Lawyers for Matamoros and Butler, who have filed objections with the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, say any findings by Denkowski should be disregarded. They said that the trial court judges — who are husband and wife — simply adopted Denkowski’s conclusions instead of examining reams of evidence from other psychologists that they said proved their clients were mentally retarded and ineligible for the death penalty.

“This is a perfect example of the state taking science and trying to prostitute it,” Schneider said, adding, “The role of the courts is to protect us from junk science.”

 

Judge Marc Brown, of Harris County District Court, who reviewed the Matamoros case, was in trial and did not respond to a request for comment. His wife, Judge Susan Brown, declined to comment on the Butler case because it is continuing. Calls to Denkowski were not returned.

But Roe Wilson, Harris County assistant district attorney, contended that the judges had disregarded Denkowski’s findings.

The judge’s findings in Butler’s case repeatedly refer to Denkowski’s findings, but Wilson said the references were “historical.”

“There was no consideration given and no mention given,” Wilson said.

The Supreme Court of the United States ruled in 2002 that states could not execute people who were mentally retarded. The court allowed states to decide on guidelines for determining whether a person was mentally retarded. Texas courts have adopted a three-part definition that requires the convicted inmate to have below-average intellectual function, to lack adaptive behavior skills and to have had these problems since an early age.

Denkowski conducted tests to determine whether defendants who might face the death penalty aligned with those definitions.

But other psychologists and defense lawyers complained that he artificially inflated intelligence scores to make defendants eligible for the death penalty. (Denkowski’s lawyer has said that he vigorously denies having violated any psychology board rules and that he used his best clinical judgment in making forensic evaluations.)

Last year, the Texas Board of Examiners of Psychologists agreed to a settlement with Denkowski in which it reprimanded him, but he did not admit guilt. He agreed not to conduct intellectual disability evaluations in future criminal cases and to pay a fine of $5,500. In return, the board dismissed the complaints.

 

Since that reprimand, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has asked trial courts to review at least six cases that included Denkowski’s work to determine what effect it had had on the case.

Defense lawyers argue that Denkowski’s conclusions should be completely excluded from those reviews.

“You can talk all day long about how you don’t want junk science used in these cases, but when you’re confronted with it, you have to take active steps to make sure it hasn’t contaminated the case,” said Kathryn Kase, executive director of the Texas Defender Service, which represents death row inmates.

The Butler and Matamoros cases are the first to be returned to the Court of Appeals.

Butler, who was also sentenced to life in prison for a separate conviction of aggravated sexual assault with a weapon, was sentenced to death in 1988 for the shooting death of Velma Clemons, a clerk at a dry-cleaning business.

Denkowski evaluated Butler, and he testified in the case in 2006. School records showed Butler had been classified as “educable but mentally retarded,” but Denkowski said nothing in the records indicated that he required special education. He noted that Butler could tell time and could recite his Social Security number, “highly atypical skills for a mentally retarded person.” He concluded that Butler’s I.Q. was borderline normal.

Similarly, Judge Susan Brown concluded that Butler’s poor academic performance reflected underachievement and poor choices, not lack of intellectual function. She also wrote that he had enough intellectual ability to plan, commit and then lie about the murder for which he was convicted.

Dick Burr, a defense lawyer, said the judge had ignored findings by experts hired by Butler’s lawyers, including Dr. Denis Keyes, a special education professor at the College of Charleston, and Dr. Jack Fletcher, a psychology professor at the University of Houston. Both found that Butler had a low I.Q. and was mentally retarded.  Fletcher — one of the psychologists who complained to the board about Denkowski’s work — said that Denkowski’s conclusion that Butler was mentally fit for execution “was based on outmoded, no-longer-accepted information.”

“Our evidence demonstrated very persuasively that Steven Butler has mental retardation,” Burr said.

Matamoros, whose criminal history included auto theft and burglary with intent to sexually assault, was convicted of the 1990 murder of 70-year-old Eddie Goebel, who was found in his bed with 25 stab wounds.

Denkowski concluded in 2006 that Matamoros was not mentally retarded. His low I.Q. scores and a psychologist’s finding in 1977 that at 14 Matamoros had a mild intellectual disability, Denkowski concluded, were a result of bilingualism and his rearing in a deprived environment.

Judge Marc Brown agreed, quoting from a federal court ruling in the case that in turn relied on Denkowski’s findings. Like Denkowski, the judge concluded that Matamoros’s ability to care for himself as an inmate and to plan and commit crimes also contradicted his claims of mental retardation.

Judge Brown’s findings discounted the evaluations of psychologists hired by Matamoros’s lawyers who found that he was mentally retarded.

Dr. Thomas Oakland, a psychologist and a professor at the University of Florida, reviewed Denkowski’s findings along with Judge Marc Brown’s ruling. Both, he said, showed a “reckless disregard” for established forensic psychology.

“Based upon my review of Denkowski’s affidavit and testimony, it is my opinion that Matamoros’s intelligence was and is significantly subaverage,” he wrote in an affidavit.

Wilson, the assistant district attorney in Harris County, disputed the inmates’ lawyers’ argument that the judges’ findings were largely copied from Denkowski’s work.

“I don’t think that is an accurate characterization, but that is something the Court of Criminal Appeals will determine,” she said.

Lawyers for Butler and Matamoros want the Court of Criminal Appeals to insist that the death row inmates’ claims be re-evaluated without any reliance on Denkowski’s work.

Schneider said the decision by the Court of Appeals in the two cases would also send a signal to other judges who are reviewing cases in which Denkowski had made evaluations. He said he hoped the court would continue to reject forensic methods that had been proven unscientific.

“Their role has to be that of the supergatekeeper of forensic science,” Schneider said. “They have to say we will not allow a proceeding tainted by junk science to go forward.”

South Texas DA charged in widening extortion, fraud scheme

May 7, 2012 Source : http://www.statesman.com

BROWNSVILLE — A South Texas prosecutor running for U.S. Congress was charged Monday with taking more than $100,000 in bribes to settle and minimize criminal cases, including one deal that allegedly netted $80,000 while a convicted murderer fled a prison sentence.

Armando Villalobos, the district attorney in Cameron County, was charged with racketeering, extortion and honest services fraud, prosecutors said. His former law partner, Eduardo Lucio, faces similar charges.

The two men were the latest to be roped into in a multiyear federal investigation of corruption in the county’s criminal justice system, which has ensnared a judge, a bailiff, lawyers and former state Rep. Jim Solis. Former state District Judge Abel Limas and other local attorneys have pleaded guilty to charges.

After being released on bail, Villalobos stood outside the courthouse Monday in front of supporters and denied the charges.

“Have faith in the system, and have faith in me,” Villalobos said.

In its most explosive allegation, the indictment claims Villalobos agreed to a deal that gave a man who pleaded guilty to first-degree murder 60 days of freedom before reporting to prison. Amit Livingston was convicted in 2007 of killing 32-year-old substitute teacher Hermila Hernandez, whose body was found on South Padre Island two years earlier.

Livingston was sentenced to 23 years in prison but given time to get his “affairs in order” by presiding judge Limas, the Brownsville Herald reported. Instead, Livingston fled and remains at large.

Meanwhile, Villalobos allegedly had Lucio file a wrongful death lawsuit against Livingston on behalf of Hernandez’s family. The $500,000 bond Livingston posted was used to settle the lawsuit, the indictment said. Hernandez’s family collected $300,000, while Lucio took $200,000 and paid Villalobos $80,000, the indictment said.

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TEXAS – For immediate release – Thomas Whitaker

DEATH ROW INMATES SUE TEXAS GOVERNOR RICK PERRY AND SENATOR JOHN WHITMIRE FOR ABUSIVE CONDITIONS
Livingston, Texas, USA ‐ April 26, 2012
Thomas Whitaker, an inmate on Texas death row, has filed a class action lawsuit against Texas Governor Rick Perry, Senator John Whitmire, and the Texas Department of Criminal Justice
for the inhumane and unconstitutional conditions under which the men on death row must live.
Allegations include taking away wheelchairs from those who cannot walk, denying mental and physical health care, being held in solitary confinement for over ten years without any legal justification based on their conduct, dangerously unsafe living conditions, inadequate nutrition, inadequate exercise, denial of adequate access to telephones, destruction and loss of necessary legal documents, denial of religious freedom, denial of fair administrative process, failure to timely deliver mail including legal correspondence, and other abuses. 
 
In the case of Ruiz v. Estelle, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District held that conditions for the Texas prison system were unconstitutional but also held that the inmates of death row would need to bring a separate lawsuit to address their unique situation. That is the action now being taken by Whitaker. There have been acts of retaliation by TDCJ toward men who have been a part of this suit or similar litigation.
Thomas Whitaker, No. 999522, age 32, from Fort Bend County, Tx, Residing on Texas Death Row since March 2007, convicted under the Law of Parties. Visit his blog: “Minutes Before Six”.
Contact Information
Robert B. Wells,
Co‐Director
Descending Eagles
512/478‐4973
Fax: 512/302‐4774
P.O. Box 49339, Austin, Tx 78765
3724 Jefferson, Ste. 309, Austin, Tx 78731
The following acts and omissions of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice have caused irreparable harm to all residents of death row at the Polunsky Unit in Livingston, Texas. These acts and omissions continue to harm the residents of death row at the Polunsky Unit. All residents now housed at Polunsky, previously housed at Ellis, on death row were put in solitary confinement in administrative segregation improperly and in violation of the existing plan for incarceration of those persons on male death row. Although most of the residents had not been charged with or found guilty of any conduct that would be punishable by solitary confinement, they have been retained in solitary for over ten years (since 2000). No less than a full due process hearing is required to determine whether there is a valid reason for the continued confinement in solitary. No such hearings have been held. The Texas Department of Criminal Justice regulations require a hearing with attendance by the Plaintiff, the warden, and the Classification Committee of the unit to determine if administrative segregation is appropriate or to extend such conditions beyond a limited period. There have been no such hearings. Those so held do not meet the Texas Department of Criminal Justice [TDCJ] requirements for such confinement because there has been no determination that each individual is in need of segregation for his protection or safety; there is no violation of the regulations of TDCJ for which a hearing is pending, there is no reason to assume that all are “custody risks” when they have shown no signs of being such. The fact that another person attempted escape does not make this entire class any more of a custody risk than the average person incarcerated in the general population.
By both action and inaction basic human needs of adequate food, safe shelter, adequate exercise, medical care and living conditions conducive to mental health are being denied every resident of death row. There are frequent failures to provide sufficient nutrition for the residents of death row in their daily food provision. Housing conditions include unsanitary living conditions due to inadequate cleaning of the cells and shower areas. At times, no cleaning product other than water is used by those performing general cleaning. Residents are not given access to cleaning products to maintain their cells in a sanitary condition and to kill black mold. Although security might dictate precluding caustic chemicals in the area housing those who might be a security risk, there is no reason to deny them ordinary cleaning products to keep their living area safe from disease causing bacteria. The food trays are often placed on the floors where there is sewage or spittle. The showers have inadequate ventilation causing it to be so humid and hot that residents have been made ill. The attorney visitation booths are not adequately ventilated for the residents. When an unruly resident is being gassed for misconduct, the other are exposed to so much of the caustic and harmful fumes as to also suffer from the contact. There is inadequate exercise. One hour a week is inadequate for the maintenance of physical health. There is no reason access to the outdoors and vigorous physical activity daily should be denied. The cells have inadequate ventilation and they effectively shut off the residents from all contact with the outside world. The occupants of the cells are subjected to harsh temperatures. The ceilings of some cells leak and there is black mold growing in some cells. Lights are controlled by officers who turn them off and on at their discretion exposing those trying to sleep to light that awakens them and prevents adequate rest. Food is served at hours not usually considered appropriate for meals with no justification for such a schedule. Clothing also is delivered at hours designed to interrupt sleep. Other than the brief periods they are allowed out to shower and one time a week they are allowed recreation, they are in solitary confinement twenty‐four hours a day, seven days a week. The prolonged period of sensory deprivation has resulted in serious mental health conditions. No effort has been made to examine the residents of these isolation cells to see how they have been damaged by these conditions.
There has been a frequent lack of care used in regard to legal documents. When their cells are searched for contraband, their legal documents are often tossed in with other property and subsequently lost or damaged.
In violation of the regulations of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, “legal visits” between offenders in order to obtain needed assistance in their legal cases have been curtailed. Adequate postage is denied which prevents corresponding with legal counsel when necessary. Mail sent to or received from legal representatives has been opened and read.
Access to law books is very limited and difficult as well as access to information that could be gained from having greater access to the library and to television. Telephone access so as to be able to contact their legal representatives is not permitted. Residents of death row are denied adequate telephone access to contact legal counsel. At times, the transport of the resident is so slow that they are denied access to legal counsel. Counsel often is forced to wait for up to an hour or completely denied a legal visit. 
 
Residents of death row have been denied reasonable treatment for diagnosed medical conditions. Medical staff exhibits indifference or is unavailable. Dental care is extremely inadequate as is care of vision. Those in need of wheelchairs are now being denied access to a wheelchair and required to walk using a walker out of an excessive reaction to one person having been a security risk because he was being transported in a wheelchair when a weapon was found in the wheelchair. There is a concerted effort to avoid identifying the mentally handicapped for fear it will lead to them getting their sentences reduced to life rather than execution. Further, the mentally ill are not housed separately as is required by the regulations. Those nearby are kept awake by the shouts of those who are psychologically disturbed. There is inadequate treatment of the mental health issues that incarceration in these conditions necessitates. There is totally inadequate screening to determine whether mental health issues have arisen. There is inappropriate supervision of the mentally ill in terms of their maintenance on the prescribed treatment. The seriously mentally ill are not transferred to more suitable facilities nor is staff trained to deal with them properly. Prescribed medications and “over the counter” medications are not provided promptly or consistently so as to allow maintenance of the health of all residents, both mentally and physically in need of regular treatment. Both the mentally and physically ill have had the water turned off in their cells to prevent them from urinating due to dehydration. They have been denied food so as to not have fecal matter if the mentally ill individuals throw feces at guards. The physically ill had hemorrhoids and was bleeding excessively. At such time as each such sick individual became unable to move, they were finally given some degree of treatment at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, Texas. Contrary to the ethical standards required, no physician or guard or warden reported these crimes of abuse. The elderly, diabetic or mentally ill have been abused because they could not move quickly or fell due to their fragile condition. The very severely mentally ill are incapable of completing their administrative appeals due to their condition. Everyone suffers emotional trauma from witnessing these episodes of abuse of weak and fragile individuals. The mentally challenged or mentally ill are subject to punishment for their failure to understand the regulations they must follow. Their non‐compliance due to confusion leads to longer and longer confinement in segregation without clothes, mattress, linens, and inadequate food and medication. Guards are poorly trained in mental health so as to recognize whether there is real misconduct or a lack of comprehension. Those who are delusional are harassed and tormented by some guards. These guards are not disciplined or terminated, but are allowed to continue to abuse the mentally ill. Those who are mentally ill are incompetent to personally bring any grievance or complaint on their own behalf. Assistive devices such as braces, medical issue boots, and wheelchairs have been confiscated and not provided to those requiring them for proper function of their extremities or movement from location to location. Adequate pain medication is routinely withheld.
All residents are denied activities that would be conducive to good mental health such as an opportunity to engage in creative work or crafts which are allowed those in the general population of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice and only denied to residents of death row, including those who have nearly perfect conduct records. They are further denied access to television. These activities were allowed until recently. Some men escaped from Ellis, as a consequence of their conduct ‐ not the conduct of the current residents of death row at Polunsky, all previous activities that actually provided the residents with an incentive to improve their conduct so as to be able to engage in such activities, have been curtailed. It should be noted that the residents of death row purchase the materials with which to do crafts from the commissary operated by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice which provides money for the operation of the prison system. The men then were able to sell their work and spend the money paid for the completed craft project at the commissary, which actually recirculates the money again into the income of TDCJ. There is no security reason for denial of this activity. Furthermore, when a resident attempts to design his own craft activity, it is destroyed because using shoe strings or thread or plastic lids to make a craft is deemed using the item for a purpose other than the one originally intended. This is cruel and an absurd abuse of authority.
The residents of death row are thwarted in their attempts to pursue their administrative appeals as these appeals are mislaid either accidentally or intentionally or by there being a denial of the right to pursue their administrative appeal to conclusion due to action designed to delay or circumvent the administrative process.
Access to religious literature and other religious objects is denied in an indiscriminate manner. Those on death row are also denied the right to attend a religious service. No religious service is available for them to attend. Some are denied access to a representative of their faith as a spiritual adviser. In regard to adequacy of food, food that is Halal or Kosher is being exposed to pork grease.
The mail room is one of the worst situations for those men on death row. Entire publications are being withheld because the newspaper or magazine contains one article that the particular person screening the mail found unacceptable without applying the written standard as set out in Department regulations. Correspondence is very, very frequently mishandled. There is an ongoing retaliatory process to prevent some residents from sending or receiving their mail or to delay receipt of their mail unnecessarily. The amount of postage actually physically permitted each individual has been unduly and unreasonably curtailed.Access to postage at all has also been unreasonably curtailed. Legal mail has been opened before being delivered and has been  read. Outgoing legal mail has been read. There is no justification for denial of access to television. Television was available until death row was moved to the Polunsky Unit. Charitable groups have offered to donate televisions, there is an empty rack for holding a television in the day room, but no television. There is no valid security reason for denying access to the educational and recreational benefits of television. No other residents of penal institutions in Texas are denied televisions. This, on occasion, denies access to information that would be beneficial in regard to their legal defense.
The opportunity to work in a job in the Department of Criminal Justice is now suspended. That suspension needs to be ended. Other men found guilty of murder who are in the general population are permitted to work. This would be a very strong incentive for the men to maintain good conduct. Many, if not most, men on death row would be eager to have an opportunity to perform work. This would reduce the cost of maintaining their pod. They would willingly clean their pod themselves. They would maintain their own living area better than it is now cleaned.
Giving any person who is incarcerated incentives for good conduct is going to result in fewer disciplinary problems. Treating people fairly and with decent concern for their health and safety and emotional needs will result in a group that is easier to discipline. Those who do not respect the opportunity, then deserve to have opportunities denied.
Source: Minutes Before Six, April 26, 2012
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TEXAS – DEATH ROW PRISONER SUES GOV. PERRY OVER INTOLERABLE LIVING CONDITIONS

may 5 , 2012 by Execution Watch

LIVINGSTON, Texas — A prisoner on death row has filed a class-action lawsuit against Gov. Rick Perry and other officials for inhumane and unconstitutional living conditions, the nonprofit group Descending Eagles announced Friday.

Among the abuses alleged in the suit are:
— taking away wheelchairs from those who cannot walk,
— denying mental and physical health care,
— being held in solitary confinement for over ten years without any legal justification based on their conduct,
— dangerously unsafe living conditions, including inadequate nutrition and exercise,
— denial of adequate access to telephones,
— destruction and loss of necessary legal documents,
— denial of religious freedom
— denial of fair administrative process,
— failure to timely deliver mail including legal correspondence

The suit, which also names state Sen. John Whitmire and the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, identifies as the plaintiff death row prisoner Thomas Whitaker of Fort Bend County.

Descending Eagles, the Austin-based nonprofit that helps death row prisoners and their families, said there have been acts of retaliation by TDCJ toward men who have been a part of the suit or similar litigation.

Please take 5 min for read this juvenile case

I share with u a comment on my blog , maybe we can  help this mother and her son

blog link : http://therelentlessmom.wordpress.com/

Congrats, My son is in a Texas Prison, He has been since 15 yrs old. Soon he will be 18. On September 09-2012, and scheduled to be transferred over to notorious adult unit-open bay- cell. My minor child has been Wrongfully Convicted of a murder that he is not guilty of and not culpable for. What is a mother to do? As you know many people out there proclaim to be there to help people like my child Bryce, yet they are the polar opposite

do you accept links where by the writing is in Spanish?

https://lalistadepruebas.wordpress.com/

Thank you for your time.

 

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TEXAS – Top Criminal Court to Hear Hank Skinner’s DNA Plea (at 9 a.m)

Update  may 2 2012  Source : http://www.texastribune.org

Sensitive to dozens of DNA exonerations in recent years, judges on the nine-member Texas Court of Criminal Appeals today grilled the Texas solicitor general about what harm could be done by granting death row inmate Hank Skinner‘s decade-old request for biological analysis of crime scene evidence.

“You really tought to be absolutely sure before you strap a person down and kill him,” Judge Michael Keasler said.

Oral arguments in the hearing wrapped up today. It could take weeks or months for the court to render a decision on whether to allow DNA testing in the case.

Skinner, now 50, was convicted in 1995 of the strangulation and beating death of his girlfriend Twila Busby and the stabbing deaths of her two adult sons on New Year’s Eve 1993 in Pampa. Skinner maintains he is innocent and was unconscious on the couch at the time of the killings, intoxicated from a mixture of vodka and codeine.

For more than a decade, Skinner has asked the courts to allow testing on crime scene evidence that was not analyzed at his original trial, including a rape kit, biological material from Busby’s fingernails, sweat and hair from a man’s jacket, a bloody towel and knives. His lawyer, Rob Owen, co-director of the University of Texas at Austin’s Capital Punishment Clinic, told the court that if DNA testing on all the evidence points to an individual who is not Skinner, then it could create reasonable doubt about his client’s guilt.

“It changes the picture,” Owen said. “Having the DNA evidence makes the jurors look at other pieces of evidence differently, because I think jurors are inclined to accept DNA evidence as reliable.”

Texas Solicitor General Jonathan Mitchell told the court that there is such “overwhelming evidence” of Skinner’s “actual guilt” that DNA testing could not undermine the conviction. Mitchell argued that Skinner had his chance to test the evidence at his trial, but he chose not to. Skinner is now using the fight for DNA analysis as a frivolous attempt to delay his inevitable execution, Mitchell added. Allowing Skinner testing at this late point in the process, Mitchell said, would set a dangerously expensive precedent for guilty inmates. In future cases, he said, prosecutors would feel obligated to test every shred of evidence to prevent a guilty defendant from delaying his sentence by requesting additional DNA results.

“Prosecutors will have to test everything, no matter what the cost,” Mitchell told the court.

“Prosecutors should be testing everything anyway,” Keasler said.

The Court of Criminal Appeals has previously denied Skinner’s requests, citing restrictions in the state’s 2001 post-conviction DNA testing law that have since been repealed. Most recently, during the 2011 legislative session, lawmakers repealed part of the law that allowed DNA testing only in cases where analysis was not done during the original trial because the technology did not exist or for some other reason that was not the fault of the defendant.

The court of appeals stayed Skinner’s Nov. 9 execution date so they could determine how the change to the law should apply to his case.

The tough questions for the state today came as something of a surprise from the court, which typically favors prosecutors.

Mitchell told the court that legislators did not intend to allow defendants like Skinner to reject testing at their original trial but then use it later to delay their executions.

Read the full article : click here 

May 2, 2012 Source : http://www.texastribune.org

Death row inmate Hank Skinner’s decade-long fight for DNA testing, which he hopes will prove his innocence in a grisly West Texas triple murder, will take center stage this morning in the state’s highest criminal court.

Skinner, now 50, was convicted in 1995 of the strangulation and beating death of his girlfriend Twila Busby and the stabbing deaths of her two adult sons on New Year’s Eve 1993 in Pampa. Skinner maintains he is innocent and was unconscious on the couch at the time of the killings, intoxicated from a mixture of vodka and codeine.

A decision from the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals could take weeks or months.

For more than a decade, Skinner has asked the courts to allow testing on a slew of evidence that was not analyzed at his original trial: a rape kit, biological material from Busby’s fingernails, sweat from a man’s jacket, a bloody towel and knives from the crime scene.

Lawyers in the Texas attorney general’s office argue that Skinner is only trying to put off his inevitable execution and that the evidence of his guilt is so overwhelming that DNA testing is unwarranted. But Rob Owen, one of Skinner’s lawyers and the co-director of the University of Texas at Austin’s Capital Punishment Clinic, said he is hopeful the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals will finally allow the testing.

“The facts of Mr. Skinner’s case bear some of the hallmarks of wrongful conviction cases from around the country,” Owen said. “For all these reasons, none of the state’s arguments diminish the urgent need for DNA testing in his case.”

The appeals court has denied Skinner’s previous requests for testing, citing restrictions in the 2001 post-conviction DNA testing law. Lawmakers over the last several years, though, have repealed the restrictions that the court cited. Most recently, during the 2011 legislative session, lawmakers repealed part of the law that allowed DNA testing only in cases where analysis was not done during the original trial because the technology did not exist or for some other reason that was not the fault of the defendant.

In Skinner’s case, his original trial lawyers chose not to request DNA testing on all of the evidence available because they worried that it would further implicate him. Lawmakers referred to his case when they repealed the provision last year, and the court of appeals stayed Skinner’s execution date in November so it could “take time to fully review the changes in the statute as they pertain to this case.”

Today, lawyers for Skinner, who is at the Polunsky Unit in Livingston, will argue to the court that legal impediments to the testing that previously existed are gone. DNA testing, they say in court documents, could reveal not only that the death row inmate is innocent, but it could point to the real perpetrator.

“The State may well have the wrong man, and, in combination with exculpatory DNA results, evidence that would very likely leave a rational jury harboring reasonable doubt about his guilt,” Skinner’s lawyers wrote in a brief to the court.

The court must only decide whether the results of DNA testing, combined with other evidence, could cause a jury to have reasonable doubt about Skinner’s guilt, his lawyers argue.

Skinner’s lawyers theorize in court filings that it was Busby’s uncle, Robert Donnell, who killed her. Witnesses reported seeing Donnell, who has since died, harass Busby at a party the night before the killing. The two had previously had sexual encounters, he had a violent history and neighbors reported seeing him cleaning his truck with a hose and stripping the carpet from it days after the murders.

Skinner’s lawyers contend that toxicology reports show that Skinner would have been too inebriated at the time of the crimes to have been physically capable of strangling Busby to unconsciousness, stabbing her 14 times and then stabbing her two large sons to death.

Additionally, the one witness who said Skinner confessed to the murders — an ex-girlfriend of his — has since recanted her testimony, saying authorities coerced her.

But lawyers for the state argued in a court brief that “nothing that DNA testing might reveal would lead a jury to acquit Skinner of involvement in these murders.”

Skinner’s former girlfriend’s recantation, they charge, was untruthful. Skinner, an admitted alcoholic, they say, would have been more tolerant of the chemicals he had ingested.

State lawyers also submitted a statement that Skinner gave to the sheriff just hours after the murder in which he described a fight he had with Busby the night she was killed. “I can see me arguing with Twila. I can might even see maybe I might have killed her. But I can’t see killing them boys,” he said. (That statement was not admitted during trial because, Skinner’s lawyers wrote, it was taken while Skinner was deprived of sleep and still under the influence of painkillers he was given for an injury to his hand the night of the murders, and the prosecutor didn’t attempt to have it admitted because he said he “knew darn well it wasn’t admissible” because “it was so blatantly violative of the defendant’s rights.”)

The state also argues — despite the repeal of the provision prohibiting testing in cases where inmates chose not to have evidence analyzed previously — that the court should deny the testing because Skinner elected not to do it at his trial. Lawmakers, state lawyers said, did not intend to allow a defendant to “lie behind the log” during trial and then seek DNA tests later to prolong his life.

“Skinner’s transparently false claims of innocence do a grave disservice to the truly innocent prisoners who sit behind bars, who are less likely to be believed when inmates such as Skinner demand post-conviction DNA testing as a means of subverting capital punishment and delaying their eventual execution date,” state lawyers wrote in their March brief to the appeals court. “The State of Texas would never oppose the efforts of a wrongfully convicted inmate to clear his name and vindicate his innocence in court.”

Related articles

Texas appeals court stays pending execution to allow DNA testing (sentencing.typepad.com)

Oral Argument  may 2 2012,  9.a.m  pdf file 

AP-76,675 HENRY W. SKINNER GRAY
DNA
Robert C. Owen for the Appellant
Jonathan F. Mitchell for the State

TEXAS : Why Not Test The DNA?

May 1 Source : http://tal9000.tumblr.com

People always hold out DNA evidence as the magic bullet that will solve our criminal justice woes; though it’s not actually available in most cases, we can — when we do have it — scientifically determine the guilty from the innocent.

But not if we don’t test it.

Tomorrow, the State of Texas plans to execute Anthony Bartee for the 1996 murder of his friend David Cook in San Antonio.  Bartee has consistently maintained that although he was present at the house, he did not kill Cook.

Bartee was originally scheduled to be executed on February 28, 2012, even though DNA evidence collected at the crime scene had not been tested as ordered on at least two occasions by District Judge Mary Román. He received a reprieve on February 23, 2012 when Judge Román withdrew the execution warrant so that additional DNA testing could be conducted on strands of hair found in the hands of the victim, David Cook.  She also ordered the forensic lab to provide a detailed and comprehensive report to the court with an analysis of the results. Yet, before the testing occurred, Judge Román inexplicably set another execution date, for May 2, 2012.

According to Bartee’s attorneys, DNA testing was just conducted and indicated that hairs that were tested found in Cook’s hands belonged to Cook.  The jury never heard this evidence – and in fact wasn’t told about the hairs at all – which might have undermined the prosecution’s theory of the case that a violent struggle had ensued between Cook and his killer. Still, Judge Román entered the findings as unfavorable, opining that this evidence would not have made a difference in the outcome of the trial, had it been available to the jury. Under Article 64.05 of the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure, Bartee’s attorneys have the right to appeal the unfavorable findings. The fast-approaching execution date significantly impedes this right to due process, however.

In addition, there is still more evidence that has not been tested for DNA, including cigarette butts and at least three drinking glasses found at the crime scene. In 2010, the court ordered that all items that had not been tested be tested, but these items still have not been tested.

If the state is so certain that Bartee is guilty based on circumstantial evidence, what’s the harm in waiting a little while to finish testing all of the available DNA evidence? If the state turns out to be right, Bartee will almost certainly be executed in a couple of months; if the state turns out to be wrong, an innocent man is saved. Given those stakes, and the near-universal abhorrence of executing innocent people, it seems pretty clear what to do.

A petition is here. Please consider signing and passing it along.