Texas Releases Partial DNA Test Results in Hank Skinner Case

The Texas Attorney General’s Office has released par­tial results of DNA test­ing long request­ed by attor­neys for death row inmate Hank Skinner. Although the results are incom­plete and reveal the pres­ence of anoth­er unknown per­son, the state is claim­ing the tests con­firm Skinner’s involve­ment in the mur­der of his live-in girl­friend, Twila Busby, and her two adult sons in 1993. Skinner had been seek­ing addi­tion­al DNA test­ing since 2000 even while exe­cu­tion dates had been sched­uled, but his requests had been denied until the defense attor­neys and the state final­ly reached an agree­ment in 2012. According to a state­ment from Skinner’s attor­ney, Rob Owen, ​“We will remain unable to draw any strong con­clu­sions about whether the DNA test­ing has resolved the stub­born ques­tions about Hank Skinner’s guilt or inno­cence until addi­tion­al DNA test­ing has been com­plet­ed, and the data under­ly­ing that DNA test­ing has been made avail­able to our experts for a detailed review,” he said. A jack­et found at the scene of the crime con­tain­ing blood spat­ter­ing was lost by the police and DNA test­ing could not be done on this piece of evi­dence. DNA test­ing after con­vic­tion has con­tributed to 300 exon­er­a­tions in the United States, includ­ing 18 from death row. There have been 44 DNA exon­er­a­tions in Texas alone.

Skinner’s attor­ney fur­ther not­ed, ​“We have request­ed addi­tion­al DNA test­ing that could improve the qual­i­ty of the unknown DNA pro­file from the car­pet sam­ple, to allow author­i­ties to sub­mit it to CODIS, the nation­al law enforce­ment DNA data­base, to search for match­es there. We have also request­ed addi­tion­al DNA test­ing of the stains from the knife, like­wise hop­ing to devel­op fur­ther the DNA pro­file of the third con­trib­u­tor. All the par­ties must do every­thing in their pow­er to make sure Texas does not make an irreversible mistake.”

(B. Grissom, ​“AG Says DNA Tests Implicate Hank Skinner in ​’93 Murders,” Texas Tribune, November 14, 2012; R. Owen, ​“Statement from Attorney for Hank Skinner in Response to Initial DNA Test Results in Hank Skinner Case,” Press Release, November 14, 2012). See fur­ther infor­ma­tion on Hank Skinner.

Texas and Defense File Joint Motion for DNA Testing in Death Penalty Case

But State Has Lost Key Piece of Evidence

(UPDATE: On July 15, 2014, a Texas District Court judge held that even if new DNA test results had been sub­mit­ted at Skinner’s orig­i­nal tri­al, he prob­a­bly still would have been con­vict­ed.) On June 12, 2012 the state of Texas joined with defense attor­neys for Henry Skinner in fil­ing a motion with the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals to over­turn a pri­or court deci­sion deny­ing DNA test­ing of evi­dence from the crime scene in Skinner’s case. Skinner was con­vict­ed of mur­der and sen­tenced to death in 1995. He has repeat­ed­ly sought DNA test­ing of blood found on items near the vic­tim. The state con­duct­ed test­ing on some items pri­or to Skinner’s tri­al, but refused test­ing on oth­er mate­ri­als dur­ing the appeals. These refusals were recent­ly upheld by a Texas District Court in 2011.

Robert Owen, an attor­ney for Skinner, expressed con­cern about the state’s los­ing a bloody jack­et (see pho­to) found near the victim’s body:

We are pleased to have reached an agree­ment that final­ly secures DNA test­ing in this case, but there remains rea­son for grave con­cern. It appears that no DNA test­ing will be per­formed on per­haps the key piece of evi­dence col­lect­ed by the police at the crime scene — the sweat-stained, blood-spat­tered men’s wind­break­er jack­et found next to Twila Busby’s body. From the ear­li­est days of his fight for DNA test­ing, Mr. Skinner has insist­ed that this jack­et should be test­ed because it may have been worn by the assailant. Moreover, since tri­al, a wit­ness has pos­i­tive­ly iden­ti­fied the jack­et from a pho­to­graph as one reg­u­lar­ly worn by Twila Busby’s uncle Robert Donnell who was seen stalk­ing Twila at a par­ty short­ly before her death. It is beyond rea­son­able dis­pute that DNA test­ing on this jack­et is crit­i­cal­ly impor­tant to the reli­able deter­mi­na­tion of guilt in this case.

(See Skinner v. Texas, No. AP-76,675 (Tx. Ct. Crim. App. June 12, 2012) (Joint Motion for Order of DNA Testing)).