Bevorstehende Hinrichtung

[Weiter auf Englisch:]

At around midnight on 31 December 1993, police in Pampa, Texas, found Elwin Caler, 22, sitting on the porch of his neighbour’s house with a fatal stab wound. He died without identifying his assailant. Next door, the police found the body of Elwin Caler’s mother, Twila Busby, who had had been strangled and bludgeoned to death. Her other son, Randy Busby, 20, had been stabbed in his bed. About three hours later, police arrested Twila Busby’s boyfriend, Henry Skinner, in the home of his former girlfriend, Andrea Reed, a short distance away. He had a deep cut on his hand, and had blood on his clothes, including blood which was found to be from Twila Busby and Elwin Caler.

Henry Skinner pleaded not guilty at his 1995 trial, with his lawyers presenting the theory that he had been physically unable to commit the crimes and that the police had ignored a plausible alternative suspect. The defence presented a toxicologist who testified that, in his opinion, it was highly improbable that Henry Skinner could have committed the murders because of his level of intoxication with alcohol and codeine on the night in question. The state presented no expert evidence to rebut this testimony, suggesting instead that his history of drug and alcohol abuse made him tolerant to such substances. The defence also presented expert testimony that a hand injury Henry Skinner had sustained a few months earlier had left him without the strength required to have inflicted Twila Busby’s severe injuries. Nevertheless, the jury voted to convict Henry Skinner and sentence him to death.

The case against Henry Skinner remains circumstantial, showing only that he was present at the scene of the murders, a fact that he has never disputed. Since the trial, further evidence pointing to the possible alternative suspect has emerged, and Andrea Reed, whom the state used as a key prosecution witness, has recanted parts of her trial testimony (see overleaf). The nationally-renowned Medill Innocence Project at Northwestern University in Illinois – whose work has contributed to the release of 11 wrongfully convicted prisoners in the USA, including five on death row – has investigated the case and concluded that Henry Skinner’s "guilt is questionable at best, and in fact he may well be innocent". The Project’s Director, Professor David Protess, has written to the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles that "in more than twenty years of investigating and researching possible wrongful convictions, I have rarely seen a case this circumstantial and shaky in which the prisoner was actually guilty".

Henry Skinner continues to seek DNA testing of evidence from the crime which he maintains could point to another person as the murderer. The items include vaginal swabs and fingernail clippings taken from Twila Busby, biological material on a windbreaker jacket that was found next to her body and on two knives found at the scene.

[ADDITIONAL INFORMATION]

According to evidence at the 1995 trial, at about 10.30pm on 31 December 1993, Howard Mitchell went to the home of Twila Busby and Henry ("Hank") Skinner to take them to a party. Howard Mitchell was unable to wake Henry Skinner, who had passed out intoxicated on a sofa. At the trial, Howard Mitchell described Henry Skinner as having been "completely unconscious" and "kind of comatose" (that is, within an hour and a half of the murders). Howard Mitchell and Twila Busby went to the party, but he dropped her home within an hour, after she complained of being sexually harassed at the party by her uncle, Robert Donnell.

At the trial, the defence argued that Robert Donnell (who was killed in a car crash in 1997) was a plausible alternative suspect who was never investigated by the police due to the focus on Henry Skinner. In 1997 Howard Mitchell made a sworn statement saying that about four months before her death, Twila Busby had told him that Robert Donnell had been making "sexual advances towards her and that he had even tried to rape her". At a federal court hearing in 2005, a neighbour of Robert Donnell testified that a couple of days after the murders, she had seen him thoroughly clean the inside of his truck and then paint the outside of it. She said that this conduct was out of the ordinary, as she had never seen him clean the vehicle before. She said that Robert Donnell wore a windbreaker jacket all the time (apparently similar to that found at the crime scene), and she and other witnesses at the hearing testified that he always carried a knife, and had threatened people with it.

At the trial, the prosecution introduced a statement Henry Skinner gave to investigators three days after his arrest in which he said he remembered little after falling asleep on the sofa. It also presented Andrea Reed, who testified that at about midnight on the night in question, Skinner had come to her trailer and told her a series of inconsistent stories about what had happened, including that he thought that he might have "kicked" Twila Busby to death (there was no evidence that she had been kicked). She said that Henry Skinner had threatened to kill her if she called the police. In 1997, she recanted parts of her trial testimony. She said that he had not threatened to kill her, and that he had been far more intoxicated than her trial testimony indicated. She said that she had lied because she was afraid of being arrested herself and of her young daughter being forced to testify. She said: "The lies that I told to protect myself made it appear as if Hank broke into my house, held me hostage and confessed to the murders. The truth is that I invited a harmless drunk into my house and listened to three hours of meaningless gibberish".

The appeal courts have upheld the death sentence over a period of 15 years. In his letter to the Texas clemency board, Professor Protess recalls the case of Anthony Porter, another which the Medill Innocence Project investigated. Anthony Porter had been on death row for more than 16 years in Illinois, his conviction and sentence upheld by the courts. Fifty hours from execution in 1999, he received a stay. The Project then uncovered Anthony Porter’s wrongful conviction and he was subsequently released.

The US death penalty system has repeatedly been shown to be capable of error. Since 1976, more than 130 people have been released from death rows around the country on the grounds of innocence. Since 1989, DNA testing has contributed to the exoneration of more than more than 200 people convicted of criminal offences in the USA, including 17 on death row. Some prisoners have gone to their execution despite serious doubts about their guilt. They include Cameron Willingham, executed in Texas in 2004 despite expert evidence that the fire which killed the victims was accidental rather than the result of arson.

Amnesty International unconditionally opposes the execution of Henry Skinner, regardless of his guilt or innocence, as it does all executions. The USA has carried out 1,194 executions since resuming judicial killing in 1977. Texas accounts for 449 of these executions (see Too much cruelty, too little clemency: Texas nears 200th execution under current governor, April 2009, http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/info/AMR51/057/2009/en). There have been six executions in the USA this year, two of them in Texas.

[EMPFOHLENE AKTIONEN]

SCHREIBEN SIE BITTE E-MAILS, FAXE ODER LUFTPOSTBRIEFE

• Erklären Sie, dass Sie nicht die Absicht haben, mit Ihrem Schreiben die Ermordung von Twila Busgy und ihren beiden Söhnen zu verharmlosen.

• Verweisen Sie darauf, dass nach wie vor Zweifel an Henry Skinners Schuld bestehen (unter Angabe seiner Häftlingsnummer #999143).

• Fordern Sie, dass Henry Skinner begnadigt und sein Todesurteil umgewandelt wird.

• Bitten Sie die Behörden, den von Henry Skinner beantragten Test der am Tatort gefunden DNS-Spuren auszuführen.

[APPELLE AN]

GOUVERNEUR DES BUNDESSTAATES TEXAS
Governor Rick Perry
Office of the Governor
P.O. Box 12428
Austin, Texas 78711-2428
USA
(korrekte Anrede: Dear Governor)
Fax: (001) 512 463 1849

VORSITZENDE DES BEGNADIGUNGSAUSSCHUSSES
Rissie L. Owens
Presiding Officer, Board of Pardons and Paroles
Executive Clemency Section
8610 Shoal Creek Boulevard
Austin, TX 78757
USA
(korrekte Anrede: Dear Ms Owens)
Fax: (001) 512 467 0945

KOPIEN AN
BOTSCHAFT DER VEREINIGTEN STAATEN VON AMERIKA
S.E. Herrn Philip D. Murphy
Pariser Platz 2
10117 Berlin
Fax: 030-83 05 10 50
E-Mail: über
http://germany.usembassy.de/email/feedback.htm

Bitte schreiben Sie Ihre Appelle möglichst sofort, so dass sie noch vor dem 24. Februar 2010 eintreffen. Schreiben Sie in gutem Englisch oder auf Deutsch.

PLEASE WRITE IMMEDIATELY (INCLUDE INMATE NO: #999143)

• Explaining that you are not seeking to excuse the killing of Twila Busby and her two sons;

• Noting the serious doubts that remain about Henry Skinner’s guilt;

• Calling for clemency for Henry Skinner and for commutation of his death sentence;

• Calling on the state to grant Henry Skinner’s request for DNA testing of crime scene evidence.