Posted on 03/07/2011 8:27:03 AM PST by Hawk720
The Supreme Court has given another legal reprieve to a Texas death row inmate who says DNA testing of crime scene evidence will prove his "actual innocence."
It was unclear how the ruling will apply to similar legal challenges.
The justices by a 6-3 vote on Monday said Henry "Hank" Skinner does have a basic civil right to press for analysis of biological evidence not tested at the time of his trial.
The very narrow ruling does not yet get Skinner off death row for the murders of his girlfriend and her two sons, but it gives him another legal avenue to pursue to press his claims he did not commit the crimes.
Skinner came within 45 minutes of lethal injection before the justices stepped in and agreed to hear his constitutional claims.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
I wonder if he has a brother named Richard................
I don’t why in this day and age DNA testing isn’t mandatory for crimes in which it could determine innocence or guilt.
This should be SOP for every case in which DNA evidence exists.
I can’t understand the reluctance to these tests. It’s almost as though the courts just don’t want to let go of a suspect, even if the suspect is innocent. I’m all for punishing the perps, but only if they’re really the perps. It does no good to imprison—or execute—innocent people.
The legal costs involved in a death penalty case (on the prosecution/appeal side) are probably a million times the costs of DNA testing.
So there’s no rational justification for not DNA testing if there is evidence that can be DNA tested.
I can’t understand the reluctance to these tests. It’s almost as though the courts just don’t want to let go of a suspect, even if the suspect is innocent. I’m all for punishing the perps, but only if they’re really the perps. It does no good to imprison—or execute—innocent people.If they "get" the wrong man, don't they realize that they are, in a sense, working for the real perp? Doing they realize they are doing his "job" for him of covering up his guilt? Doesn't that bother them?
Not just the courts, but the STATE. The last thing ANY governor wants to admit is, “Sorry, but we screwed up, big time. My attorneys were wrong, and you’re free to go. I apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you. Have a nice day!”
;)
I agree. But there should be some risk to the inmate involved as in “If the DNA proves you are guilty, then are no more appeals and you get a quick date with the hangman.”
“I can’t understand the reluctance to these tests. It’s almost as though the courts just don’t want to let go of a suspect, even if the suspect is innocent.”
Some prosecutors tend to see a conviction not as justice, but as some sort of ‘victory’ and they take it personally when their convictions are overturned. Thus you get people who’ve been found *factually innocent* of a crime requiring a US Federal Magistrate to send US Marshals to a prison to enforce a release order when prosecutors won’t let go of someone.
The reluctance of prosecutors to allow a defendant to have DNA tested, or to have ballistic evidence examined makes you wonder just how many innocent people we have in our prisons. I recall a few years ago there was some fellow who was tried and convicted of a murder he said he never committed and when video showed up of the man at a baseball game at the same time as the murder the damnable prosecutors STILL insisted they had the right guy! It took a bunch of legal wrangling to get the man out of jail.
I have no clue why things work this way but one thing I know for sure is that I won’t ever talk to the police in any serious matter without a lawyer present.
Cost. While it has come down, it is still Gawdawful expensive.
Time. There is a long line of materials waiting for testing, and the process probably denies Americans their right to a speedy trial as it is.
There are probably more reasons than those.
Thread winner.
To many prosecutors the criminal justice system is simply a game and a conviction is how they obtain a win; to them justice is irrelevant. Remember Nifong.
While the need to pass a legal gauntlet surely drives up the cost and down the availability of gold standard tests, come on folks you can now buy a DNA-based paternity test at a drugstore for only a little folding money. It appears the gravamen of the prisoner’s case is that blood and gore were spread about at the killing scene, none of which were the prisoner’s and some of which was not the victims’. A “quick and dirty” test with little or no legal weight ought to exist, whereby an important result from the “quick and dirty” test ought to push the priority way up in the queue for the legally bulletproof test.
A DNA test is neither prohibitively expensive or time consuming - IF you are willing to devote adequate resources to it.
They sell over the counter DNA paternity tests that cost a couple hundred dollars with a turn around time of two weeks.
Admittedly this is a PRIVATE company - so no doubt once the government gets involved the price and time goes up - but again - most capital trials take YEARS.
A backlog of DNA analysis should never be a backlog to any Law Enforcement group that is actually serious - not Keystone Cops.
The days of building simplistic ‘circumstantial’ case for anything serious and getting a conviction are fast coming to a close.
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“Authorities followed a blood trail from the crime scene to the female friend’s home and found Skinner in the closet, authorities said. He was “wearing heavily blood-stained jeans and socks and bearing a gash on the palm of his right hand,” according to the Texas attorney general’s summary of the case.”
for most prosecutors, the win is more important than justice.
The prosecutors live by “everyone is guilty of something” and so any, literally any, conviction is correct despite being for the wrong crime.
Would seem to be difficult to explain away, unless somebody else’s blood, not a victim’s, not his, happens to be at the crime scene, and (possibly) most or all the blood on his clothes is his own. Now the technology exists to answer such questions and they deserve to be answered.
“Would seem to be difficult to explain away, unless somebody else’s blood, not a victim’s, not his, happens to be at the crime scene, and (possibly) most or all the blood on his clothes is his own. Now the technology exists to answer such questions and they deserve to be answered.”
Most advocates for DNA testing say that this case was not at all an ideal test case to go to the Supreme Court, since this guy is likely guilty as sin, and is grasping at any legal maneuver to delay his death sentence. Nevertheless, if the physical evidence is there, I say test it!
Skinner's defense attorney didn't want them tested.
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