HOUSTON — The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Monday for a Texas inmate sentenced to die for killing his girlfriend and her two adult sons nearly two decades ago, saying the man who came within about an hour of being executed last year can ask to test crime- scene evidence that he says may show he’s innocent.
By its 6-3 ruling, the court ensured that Hank Skinner won’t be put to death any time soon while his legal case continues. But the decision doesn’t necessarily result in Skinner’s winning the right to perform genetic testing on evidence found at the scene of the triple slayings in a home in Pampa in the Texas Panhandle on New Year’s Eve 1993.
Such a request would still have to go through the courts.
Edward Dawson, an attorney for Gray County District Attorney Lynn Switzer, whose office prosecuted Skinner’s capital- murder case, said he was disappointed with the ruling but described it as “a pretty narrow decision on the procedural point.”
Like nearly every other state, Texas has a law that allows prisoners to have DNA testing on evidence long after their conviction. Skinner tried and failed twice to invoke the state law to get at the evidence. He then filed the federal lawsuit, saying the state had deprived him of his rights by withholding access to the evidence.
Prosecutors have opposed the testing request, contending it wouldn’t prove anything, and branded the civil-rights action an effort by Skinner, on death row since 1995, to delay his punishment.
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, writing for the majority, said inmates may use a federal civil- rights law to seek DNA testing that was not performed before their conviction.
The case now will be returned to a federal district court to consider whether Skinner’s claim has any merit. Ginsburg also said it is by no means clear that Skinner can prevail in his lawsuit.
Skinner, 48, was convicted of killing his girlfriend, Twila Busby, 40, and her two sons, Elwin “Scooter” Caler, 22, and Randy Busby, 20.
About three hours after their bodies were discovered, police found Skinner hiding in a closet in the home of a woman he knew. Tests showed blood of at least two of the victims was on him and a trail of blood led police from the bodies to his hiding place a few blocks away.
But other evidence was not tested at the time of Skinner’s trial, on the advice of his lawyer who feared the results would be damaging. Skinner has acknowledged being inside the house where the killings took place but has insisted that he couldn’t be the murderer because he was passed out on a couch.
Other Supreme Court action
Obama eligibility: The Supreme Court rejected for the second time a challenge to Barack Obama’s eligibility to serve as president over the unsubstantiated claim that he was not born in the United States. The court did not comment Monday on its reasons, but it has turned away several similar appeals stretching back to shortly after Obama’s election in November 2008.
• Drug suit dropped: Rebuffing calls to scrutinize “pay for delay” drug settlements, the court refused to revive a suit accusing Bayer AG of paying almost $400 million to forestall competition to its Cipro antibiotic.
The court, without comment, rejected an appeal from drugstore chains that sought to press an antitrust suit over a 1997 settlement between Bayer and Barr Laboratories Inc., now part of Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. Under the accord, Bayer paid Barr $398 million, while Barr dropped its challenge to a Bayer patent and agreed not to sell a generic version of Cipro until June 2003.
• Exemption rejected: The court rejected the government’s broad use of an exemption in the federal Freedom of Information Act to withhold documents from the public, ruling for a Washington state resident who wants Navy maps relating to its main West Coast ammunition dump near Port Townsend.
• Atheist denied: Justices said they won’t hear an appeal from atheist Michael Newdow, who says government references to God are unconstitutional and infringe on his religious beliefs. The appeal dealt with the inscription of the national motto “In God We Trust” on U.S. coins and currency. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco says the phrase is ceremonial and patriotic and “has nothing whatsoever to do with the establishment of religion.”
