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The latest on the Key Bridge collapse, New York puts forth legislation to get clean energy projects on the grid and Wisconsin and other states join a federal summer food program to help feed kids across the country.

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Republicans float conspiracy theories on the collapse of Baltimore's Key Bridge, South Carolina's congressional elections will use a map ruled unconstitutional, and the Senate schedules an impeachment trial for Homeland Secretary Mayorkas.

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Historic wildfires could create housing and health issues for rural Texans, a Kentucky program helps prison parolees start a new life, and descendants of Nicodemus, Kansas celebrate the Black settlers who journeyed across the 1870s plains seeking self-governance.

Will New Texas Law Stop Skinner Execution?

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Friday, October 28, 2011   

CHICAGO - A Texas man scheduled for execution Nov. 9 is hoping a new state law will help save his life.

Lawyers for Hank Skinner say they've been fighting for a decade to persuade courts to allow DNA analysis of key pieces of previously untested evidence, which could prove he was wrongly convicted of a triple homicide in 1993. Lawmakers cited the Skinner case this year as one of the reasons to remove some of the procedural barriers to testing evidence after convictions.

Skinner attorney Rob Owen says the new legislation is the basis for asking state and federal courts to reconsider past objections.

"This opens the door for us to say to the courts, ‘The provision of the law that you said keeps us from getting DNA testing has been removed for the specific purpose of affecting this case.’ "

The new law was mentioned in a letter from 17 current and former lawmakers, judges and prosecutors, sent Thursday to Gov. Rick Perry, Atty. Gen. Greg Abbott and the district attorney in charge of the case. The letter says the state should "ensure certainty" before carrying out the "irreversible step" of execution.

Prosecutors have said Skinner is just trying to delay his death, and that the new testing law doesn't apply to his case. Owen, a visiting clinical professor at Northwestern Law School, says he can't imagine why anyone would be against learning the truth.

"Common sense would dictate that you'd do the DNA testing, since it can bring us closer to certainty about what happened. Why the DA would not want to remove these doubts is a mystery to me."

Earlier this year, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Skinner had a right to sue the district attorney in federal court to ask for untested evidence. In an earlier decision, the court indicated that, in most cases, convicted prisoners seeking DNA testing should do so in state courts.

If the courts refuse to intervene, public opinion could help sway other decision makers such as the governor, according to Owen, who acknowledges that the majority of Texans favor the death penalty...

"But Texans are also motivated by a very powerful sense of fundamental justice, and they want to make sure that somebody is guilty before you give them the ultimate punishment."

Owen points to surveys showing 85 percent of Texans believe inmates should have broad access to DNA testing if it possibly could exonerate them.

The letter is online at standdown.typepad.com.




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