The Guardian has a long article today on Dallas County District Attorney Craig Watkins: “Dallas chief prosecutor Craig Watkins fights injustice and racism“. It says:

He has won the release of 14 men serving long prison terms – one was freed after 27 years and another given a pardon after he died in prison – and is investigating hundreds more after concluding that Dallas was plagued by miscarriages of justice due to error, incompetence, racism and a culture among previous prosecutors of pursing conviction rates instead of justice.

and

The miscarriages of justice also raise the politically sticky issue of the death penalty. Texas executes more people than any other state by far. Watkins says that the pattern of exonerations mean it is inevitable that an innocent person has been executed.

“I think that any reasonable person would have to reach that conclusion that someone has been executed for a crime they didn’t commit. We’d have to conclude that based on what we’ve seen over the last three years,” he said.

Read the entire article here.

The U.S. Supreme Court has re-scheduled Hank Skinner’s case for private conference on April 23rd, so there “should” be a decision by Monday April 26th.

If the Court does accept Skinner’s writ, oral arguments would likely take place in the fall of 2010. If they do not accept to hear his petition, a new execution date could be set in 30 days.

The question before the court is what legal process prisoners can use when seeking DNA testing. In Texas the courts have ruled that those seeking DNA testing must ask for it in their Habeas petition, which is most unlikely to be granted by the courts governing Texas death row.

Skinner filed a civil law suit after the Gray County District Attorney in Pampa, Texas, after he requested she release the DNA evidence so he could have it tested. He was willing to pay for the testing—all he needed was the evidence. She refused and he took it to civil court. Since then, a testing lab in Arizona offered to do the testing and have results to Gov. Rick Perry in 30 days.

If Skinner wins—and the Supreme Court rules that he can use civil rights law to obtain DNA evidence—it would open the door for many other prisoners to obtain post-conviction DNA testing.

More information at hankskinner.org.

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From the Fort Worth Star-Telegram:

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday rejected appeals from five Texas Death Row inmates, including Charles Dean Hood, who was condemned even though his Collin County trial judge and the prosecutor were having an affair.

The justices did not comment in turning down Hood’s appeal.

The decision does not change the ruling by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals that Hood should get a new punishment trial.

The state court made that ruling on a legal point unrelated to the relationship between Judge Verla Sue Holland and Tom O’Connell, former district attorney in Collin County.

The state court denied Hood’s request that because of the affair, he should have a new trial.
Hood, 41, has insisted that he did not kill Tracie Lynn Wallace, 26, and her boyfriend, Ronald Williamson, 46, in 1989 at their home in Plano.

“No one should be prosecuted for a parking ticket let alone for capital murder by the district attorney who has had a sexual affair with the judge handling the case, and despite the court’s decision today, we will continue to zealously represent Mr. Hood, as we believe his case was marred by a fundamental injustice,” said Andrea Keilen, director of the Texas Defender Service, a legal group representing Hood.

The Collin County prosecutor’s office had no comment on the ruling.

In a second case Monday, the high court rejected an appeal from Delma Banks, 51, who has been on Death Row for nearly three decades. The court left in place his conviction for the shooting death of 16-year-old Wayne Whitehead at a park near Texarkana in April 1980.

Like Hood, Banks still is entitled to a new punishment trial. The high court threw out his death sentence in 2004, agreeing with his attorneys that Texas authorities withheld information that a witness testifying at his punishment trial was a paid police informant.

James Elliott, an assistant district attorney in Bowie County, said Monday that he was waiting for a federal judge’s instructions on when he can schedule a new punishment hearing.

In other Texas cases Monday, the justices:

Declined to review an appeal from Peter Cantu, the ringleader of a gang of teens who were convicted in the 1993 rape and killing of two Houston girls. Two of Cantu’s companions have been executed. Two others had their sentences commuted to life after the Supreme Court barred the execution of those under 18 at the time of their crimes. Cantu was 18.

Declined the appeal of Duane Buck, 46, who nears execution for gunning down his ex-girlfriend and her male friend in Houston in 1995.

Declined the appeal of Ruben Cardenas, 40, a Mexican national on Death Row since 1998 for the rape-slaying of 16-year-old Mayra Laguna, a cousin. She was abducted from her apartment in Edinburg in Hidalgo County in February 1997, and her body was discovered in a canal a day later.

From Bloomberg:

Texas Death Penalty Abolition Movement
PO Box 3454
Houston, TX 77253
Abolition.Movement@hotmail.com
713-503-2633
Meetings: 1st Tuesdays, S.H.A.P.E. Center, 3815 Live Oak, 7—9 PM

April 19, 2010
PRESS ADVISORY
Contact: Gloria Rubac, 713-503-2633

2:00 PM Press Conference re: Supreme Court Ruling on Texas Death Row Prisoner’s Cert Petition; Accepting Cert Could Validate Hank Skinner’s Innocence Claims

The Texas Death Penalty Abolition Movement will have a press conference today to discuss the Supreme Court decision whether or not to accept the cert petition of Hank Skinner. The press conference will be at 2:00 PM at S.H.A.P.E. Community Center, 3815 Live Oak at Alabama.

At 10:00 AM today , the U.S. Supreme Court will announce if they accepted a writ of certiorari from Texas death row prisoner Hank Skinner who received a stay of execution just minutes before he was to be put to death in Huntsville on March 24.

If the court does accept Skinner’s writ, oral arguments would likely take place in the fall of 2010. If they do not accept to hear his petition, a new execution date could be set in 30 days.

The question before the court is what legal process prisoners can use when seeking DNA testing. In Texas the courts have ruled that those seeking DNA testing must ask for it in their Habeas petition, which is most unlikely to be granted by the courts governing Texas death row.

Skinner filed a civil law suit after the Gray County District Attorney in Pampa, Texas, after he requested she release the DNA evidence so he could have it tested. He was willing to pay for the testing—all he needed was the evidence. She refused and he took it to civil court. Since then, a testing lab in Arizona offered to do the testing and have results to Gov. Rick Perry in 30 days.

If Skinner wins—and the Supreme Court rules that he can use civil rights law to obtain DNA evidence—it would open the door for many other prisoners to obtain post-conviction DNA testing.

Skinner’s advocate and wife, Sandrine Ageorges-Skinner, will participate in the press conference via telephone from her home in Paris, France.

Further information, including Skinner’s cert petition can be found at www.hankskinner.org

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