If there is not a stay of execution for Hank Skinner today either from the Supreme Court or by Rick Perry, then there will be a protest in Austin at the Texas Capitol starting at 5:30. Call the governor at 512 463 2000 and urge him to issue a stay.

We will be at the Capitol protest with a video camera and attempt to stream video of the protest here to the Texas Moratorium Network blog. The pictures may not be perfect and it may not work at all or we may run out of battery, because we will be streaming from a smartphone using 3G over ustream.tv. But we will give it a try. If it does not work, at least we will have tried.

Our channel on Ustream is here.

Part one

Part Two (In part two we received a phone update live from Huntsville from Gloria Rubac)

CNN is reporting that Texas lawmakers have written letters to Rick Perry urging him to stop the execution of Hank Skinner today. Last Thursday, students participating in the Anti Death Penalty Alternative Spring Break visited several offices of Texas legislators in Austin with information on Hank Skinner and asked legislators to write clemency letters for Skinner to Perry. The students visited both Senator Ellis and Representative Naishtat, both of whom are mentioned in the CNN article as having written letters.

The students were trained in how to lobby last Wednesday in a workshop held by Alison Brock chief of staff to Rep. Sylvester Turner. James Tate, one of the students, reported on the lobbying training on the Dallas Morning News blog. The next day they put into action what they learned. They had intended to lobby for a moratorium on executions, but Thursday morning the plan was changed to lobby legislators to write clemency letters for Hank Skinner.

Thank you to the students for making a difference!

Read Rep Naishtat’s letter.

Read letter by Senator Ellis.

If you have not yet called Rick Perry to urge him to stay the execution of Hank Skinner so that thee DNA evidence can be tested, call now!.

Rick Perry’s Phone Number 512 463 2000.

(CNN) — Texas state lawmakers are among those calling for a last-minute reprieve for a condemned inmate who is requesting DNA testing of evidence, even as he is set to die Wednesday night.

Henry “Hank” Skinner, 47, is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection at 6 p.m. (7 p.m. ET) for the New Year’s Eve 1993 murder of his live-in girlfriend, Twila Busby, and her two sons, Elwin Caler, 22, and Randy Busby, 20, in Pampa, Texas.

“Since his arrest in the early morning hours of January 1, 1994, Mr. Skinner has always and consistently maintained that he did not commit the crimes for which he was convicted,” defense attorney Robert Owen wrote this month in a 30-page letter to Texas Gov. Rick Perry, seeking a 30-day reprieve of Skinner’s execution.

Skinner’s attorneys maintain that DNA testing of the evidence could establish his innocence and determine the real killer.

The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to issue a ruling on a stay of execution in the case Wednesday. If the high court denies Skinner’s request to review the case, the decision falls to Perry, according to David Protess, a Northwestern University professor and director of the university’s Medill Innocence Project, which has investigated Skinner’s case.

On Monday, the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles recommended Perry reject a reprieve for Skinner on a unanimous vote and also voted against granting Skinner’s request for a commutation of his death sentence.

State Sen. Rodney Ellis and state Rep. Elliott Naishtat both sent letters to Perry on Tuesday urging him to issue the reprieve.

“It has come to my attention that there are numerous problems with Mr. Skinner’s case that raise serious questions regarding the fairness of his trial and whether or not he is guilty,” Ellis wrote.

Perry has received more than 8,000 letters from Skinner’s advocates urging a stay, according to the Innocence Project and Change.org, whose members and supporters have sent the letters through their Web sites.

Word about the case has spread as far as France, where demonstrations are planned Wednesday at the U.S. Embassy in Paris by supporters of Skinner’s French wife, Sandrine Ageorges.
Since Skinner’s conviction in 1995, he “has tirelessly pursued access to the untested physical evidence,” according to court documents filed with the Supreme Court in February.

That evidence includes vaginal swabs and fingernail clippings from Twila Busby, hairs found in her hand and two knives found at the scene, along with a dishtowel and a windbreaker jacket, according to the filing.

Skinner has never denied being in the home when Busby and her sons were killed. However, he maintains he was incapacitated because of the “extreme quantities of alcohol and codeine” that he had consumed earlier that evening, according to the documents.

Prosecutors maintain forensic evidence gathered at the scene and witness statements point to Skinner. A female friend of Skinner’s who lived four blocks away testified at Skinner’s trial that he walked to her trailer and told her that he may have kicked Twila Busby to death, although evidence did not show she had been kicked. The neighbor has since recanted parts of her testimony.

Authorities followed a blood trail from the crime scene to the female friend’s trailer 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.

In addition, authorities said cuts on Skinner’s hand came from the knife used to stab the men. Skinner claimed he cut it on glass. Some DNA testing was done, which implicated Skinner, but not on the items he now wants tested.

“DNA testing showed that blood on the shirt Skinner was wearing at the time of his arrest was Twila’s blood, and blood on Skinner’s jeans was a mixture of blood from Elwin and Twila,” authorities said.
However, Owen wrote in the Supreme Court filing, “the victims’ injuries show that whoever murdered them must have possessed considerable strength, balance and coordination.” Twila Busby was manually strangled — so forcefully that her larynx and the hyoid bone in her throat were broken. She then was struck with an axe or pick handle 14 times, hard enough to drive fragments of her “unusually thick skull” into her brain,” the court documents said.

“While attacking Ms. Busby, the perpetrator had to contend with the presence of her six-foot-six-inch, 225-pound son, Elwin Caler, who blood spatter analysis showed was in the immediate vicinity of his mother as she was being beaten,” the court filing said.

“Somehow, the murderer was able to change weapons and stab Caler several times before he could fend off the attack or flee.” Randy Busby was then stabbed to death in the bedroom the two brothers shared, the documents said.

Evidence presented at trial suggested that Twila Busby’s uncle, Robert Donnell — who is now deceased — could have been the killer. At a New Year’s Eve party she attended for a short time on the last night of her life, Donnell stalked her, making crude sexual remarks, according to trial testimony. A friend who drove her home from the party testified she was “fidgety and worried” and that Donnell was no longer at the party when he returned.

“The defense presented evidence that Donnell was a hot-tempered ex-con who had sexually molested a girl, grabbed a pregnant woman by the throat and kept a knife in his car,” according to Owen’s letter to Perry.

An expert testified at trial Skinner would have been too intoxicated to commit the crimes, and a review of the evidence suggests that Skinner might have been even more intoxicated that initially thought, Owen writes.

Media outlets in Texas have been supportive of a reprieve for Skinner. “Before sending a man to die, we need to be absolutely sure of his guilt,” the Houston Chronicle wrote in an editorial Friday.

Skinner’s wife, Ageorges, told Radio France Internationale in a Tuesday interview that she began writing to Skinner in 1996 and they began visiting in 2000.

“They just need to do DNA and fingerprint comparison with that other suspect that was never investigated,” she said in an audio clip of the interview posted on RFI’s Web site. She does not name Donnell, but said the person died in a car accident in 1997.

Recently, questions have swirled in Texas regarding the 2004 execution of Cameron Todd Willingham for a fire that killed his three daughters. And on March 19, Perry issued a posthumous pardon to the family of Timothy Cole, who was serving a 25-year sentence for aggravated sexual assault when he died in prison from an asthma attack.

Texas State Capitol at 5:30 and at the Walls Unit in Huntsville
Wednesday, March 24th, if no stay of execution
11th and Congress in Austin

So far, no decision has been issued by the Supreme Court or Governor  Perry.  Time is running out, and Texas needs to do the right thing and  TEST THE DNA!
http://www.hankskinner.org

CALL, FAX OR EMAIL GOVERNOR RICK PERRY – DEMAND A STAY AND DNA 
TESTING FOR HANK SKINNER:

Governor Rick Perry

Fax: 512-463-1849

Main Phone number: 512-463-2000

Website email contact form/ http://www.governor.state.tx.us/contact/

Please call Gov Rick Perry at (512) 463-2000 and urge him to stop the execution of Hank Skinner on March 24, 2010 by granting a 30-day stay of execution so that DNA evidence can be tested. Call anytime day or night and leave message on voice mail.

The state’s determination to execute Hank Skinner tomorrow should make even death-penalty supporters go pale.

The Skinner case

The crime: Twila Busby, 40, was beaten to death in 1993, and her grown sons Elwin Caler and Randy Busby were stabbed to death, in her Pampa home.

Incrimination: Her boyfriend, Hank Skinner, 31, a petty criminal, had blood on his shirt the next morning and was charged with capital murder.

Defense: His attorneys said he had consumed too much alcohol and drugs to do the killings, and they pointed to another possible suspect.

Untested evidence: Appellate attorneys seek DNA tests on two knives found at the scene, a bloody dishtowel, hairs in Ms. Busby’s hands, her fingernail clippings, a vaginal swab and a windbreaker jacket.

What’s The Big Story? Find out atdallasnews.com/opinion

Blog: Opinion

Blog: Texas Death Penalty

Key evidence in the 1993 murder case has never undergone DNA analysis. Skinner may be guilty of a bloody triple slaying in Pampa, but every sliver of doubt must be eliminated before the state exercises its life-or-death authority.

We trust that Gov. Rick Perry agrees with that, and we urge him to use the power of his office to postpone tomorrow’s planned execution as insurance against miscarriage of justice. The TexasBoard of Pardons and Paroles decided against Skinner on Monday, which means a temporary reprieve by the governor may be the last chance to buy time to carry out critical forensic tests. State courts and the prosecution have thwarted proper DNA analysis, but Perry ought to send the message that Texas settles for nothing less than absolute certainty.

If Perry is concerned about appearing soft on crime during his re-election campaign, he could cite the example of his immediate predecessor.

It was June 2000, and Gov. George W. Bush was running for president. The national media and legal community were watching intently how he handled the case of death-row inmate Ricky McGinn, facing execution in the rape and murder of his stepdaughter in Brown County. McGinn, too, sought forensic tests on evidence in the case, and Bush granted a last-hour reprieve to allow for DNA analysis that was unavailable at the time of trial.

Bush said about his decision: “Any time DNA evidence can be used in its context and be relevant as to the guilt or innocence of a person on death row, we need to use it.”

As it turned out, test results backed up prosecutors in the McGinn case. Less than four months later, McGinn went to the death chamber with no questions of innocence hovering.

The Skinner appeal is more complicated; it involves credible charges of falsified trial testimony as well as post-trial evidence that allegedly points to a different suspect, a relative of the victim with a history of violence.

What’s more, there was no DNA testing of a long list of physical evidence, including hair found in the one of the victim’s hands and fingernail clippings, which could point to the identity of the killer.

Any responsible person asked to pass judgment on Skinner’s role in the slayings would want to see the results of tests on these items. Justice for the victims demands it as well.

The governor stands with the majority of Texans in support of the death penalty, a position this newspaper does not share. We think a fallible justice system should not be in the business of extinguishing life.

Despite that difference in philosophy, there must be common ground in one regard: The finality of Texas justice should be airtight.