(left to right: Hank Skinner, Andre Thomas, Jeff Wood)THREE CONDEMNED TEXANS
HANK SKINNER'S LAST WISH: A DNA TEST to prove his innocence. But Texas refuses. It has been several weeks since the last Texas execution, and it is almost show time! Wednesday, March 24, is the big day when guilty or innocent, Hank Skinner is intended to take his turn in Texas' execution chamber. At the end of this blog is an excerpt from an article on the likely innocent man's last wish published by LA Times that has a summary of Hank Skinner's case.
NOVEMBER 2011 UPDATE: The U.S. Supreme Court gave Hank Skinner a last-minute stay of execution in March 2010. However, Texas continued to deny Skinner any opportunity to test his DNA against the evidence in the 20 months since the High Court spared his life. The 1% periodically kills potentially innocent people from the 99% like Troy Davis and Hank Skinner in order to keep the 99% feeling intimidated by their power. Guilt is not the issue; power is - the power to pull 99ers from America's slave pool and execute them. September 21 was Troy Davis' turn. Wednesday, November 9, 2011, is the day the elite will show their power over the 99% by killing Hank Skinner with his guilt unproved. This is what slave masters did in the 1700s to keep slaves subservient to their masters. Periodic executions of sick or potentially innocent Americans is a part of LYNCHING AMERICA. Willie Lynch, a successful slave owner from the West Indies, taught Virginia Colony plantation owners the art of slave mastery. It takes displays of power like MURDERS by the gentry to keep slaves meek and obedient under conditions where the slaves vastly outnumber their "owners." See "LYNCHING AMERICA" at this link - http://maryneal.hubpages.com/hub/Lynching-America
I read that Hank Skinner was a prisoner activist before his conviction for a crime that decision makers are afraid a DNA test would prove he did not do. I know from my own experiences that people who advocate for HUMAN RIGHTS FOR PRISONERS are monitored, censored, lied on, and plotted against. Wealthy, unscrupulous people have made crime and punishment one of the most flourishing businesses in America, where 2.3 million people are prisoners and 1 in every 30 people is either behind bars or living under the threat of arrest as parolees and probationers. See PRISON LABOR PROFITS at YouTube for a sample of the cybercensorship that my publishing is subject to on a daily basis.
If Hank Skinner's work as a prisoner activist threatened prison profiteers' income like college students at Medill Innocence Project at Northwestern University, a decent defense and full investigation when he became a murder suspect may have been deliberately withheld. The Northwestern University students did a valuable service by investigating wrongful convictions and they helped to free innocent people from prison over the years. In fact, they uncovered numerous wrongful convictions involving some condemned men like Hank. The students recently became targets for harassment by the D.A.'s office. Their college was required to surrender the students' grades as part of their investigation for being civic-minded humanitarians. That is a dangerous thing to be in 21st century America. I hope none of the students will ever be caught speeding. They might be Tasered and arrested like a 72-year-old great grandmother was in 2009 when she was stopped by traffic police in Texas. I wonder if the great grandmother is involved in some community action project or if she advocates for prisoners. Those activities are grounds for being labeled an “extremist” and subject citizens to having their web sites listed on “dangerous-for-your-PC” lists. I tried to open my Care2 Sharebook last night, and my new anti-virus program refused to open it in order to “protect my computer.” (Google "Mary Neal Sharebook" and see if they let you see my articles there.) ASSISTANCE TO THE INCARCERATED MENTALLY ILL may also be falsely listed as “dangerous” at this link: http://www.Care2.com/c2c/group/AIMI - Numerous other Internet sites have been listed as “dangerous for your computers.” This is not done to protect Americans' PCs, but to prevent the flow of information from certain individuals, independent news sites like IndyMedia, and human/civil rights groups like AIMI. AIMI members merely ask that mental illness be decriminalized in America and for all prisoners to be treated humanely according to Hebrews 13:3. In Nazi Germany, authorities burned books. In 21st century America, people are subjected to censorship, terrorism, arrest, and even execution like Hank Skinner faces, although he is likely innocent.
I have been censored, cyberstalked, and followed by up to four vehicles and a USDOT truck for asking WHAT HAPPENED TO LARRY NEAL, my mentally and physically disabled brother who was secretly arrested and murdered in Memphis/Shelby County Jail on August 3, 2003. Neither the jail nor the USDOj (small “j” on purpose) appreciate my family asking how and why Larry was murdered. Folks over the justice system consider it to be their prerogative to arrest and murder any one of us. Middle-class and indigent citizens are all in the "slave class" without regard to their race or ethnicity, including police officers, but most of them do not realize it. I am actually whitelisted (or blacklisted) because I tell people about the elite's attitude toward working class Americans, especially mentally challenged people like Larry was. When I called 911 to rescue my grandson and me from the Chevron station where I took cover around 10:00 p.m. on Friday, September 27, 2008, police did not respond to the emergency call. What would have happened if my family had not come in two cars to save us? Duanna Johnson, who also planned to sue Shelby County Jail after police brutality, was murdered a few blocks from her Memphis home a just weeks after my narrow escape from the USDOT truck driver and others. That is why my 87-year-old mother and I mostly stay in the house now like runaway slaves. Asking the justice system for justice is apparently a dangerous undertaking. Human rights and civil rights are not honored for select citizens, and others will follow later. But that is supposed to be a secret. If Hank Skinner had known that standing up for people's human rights marked him as an enemy of the State, things might be different for him today. Then he might not be on death row to be KILLED ON WEDNESDAY, DENIED A DNA TEST TO PROVE HE DID NOT DO THE CRIME. SORRY, HANK. THE ELITE USE REGULAR EXECUTIONS TO JUSTIFY THE EXTRA $90,000 PER YEAR TAXPAYERS ARE CHARGED FOR EACH CONDEMNED MAN.
HANK, PLEASE SAY HELLO TO CAMERON TODD WILLINGHAM FOR US. Also, give a fond hello to Timothy Cole, another wrongly convicted Texan who was imprisoned for 13 years for a rape that a DNA test proved he never did. Gov. Perry issued a pardon to Cole on March 19, 2010. The only problem is that Cole he died in 1999 while imprisoned. Governor Rick Perry claimed to be proud to deliver the postpartum pardon to Cole's mother at the Omni Hotel in Ft. Worth. Having recently evidenced the fallibility of the justice system, the governor should be careful to guarantee Hank Skinner's guilt before execution. Instead, Governor Perry and various justices refuse to allow Skinner to have a DNA test. See information about Tim Cole in a Prison Weblog article at the link below, entitled: “Justice Comes Too Late for Timothy Cole.” http://prisonmovement.wordpress.com/2010/03/20/justice-comes-too-late-for-timothy-cole/
The article at the link above states, “To date, 40 Texas men have become members of a growing group known as “the exonerated,” former prisoners who, like Cole, were convicted of crimes they did not commit and later released from prison after DNA evidence proved their innocence.”
Hank, please consider using your last words to ask, “What happened to Larry Neal?” Obviously, "I am innocent; I didn't do it" are not working for you. They might tell you how they killed my brother, a harmless mental patient police were tired of singing loud outside, although USDOJ illegally refuses to give my family any records of Larry's arrest or investigate his murder. My elderly mother is plagued by nightmares of how Larry was killed while secretly incarcerated in a jail that was under DOJ supervision after years of prisoner abuse. The elite justice system does not have to answer for murder. But they may not mind telling you how Larry died, Hank, since you will not be around to blog about the cover-up that was facilitated by The Johnnie Cochran Firm and is censored by the media, which is the origin of ASSISTANCE TO THE INCARCERATED MENTALLY ILL, an online advocacy organization that stands up for human and civil rights, especially those who are sick, naked, and imprisoned (Matthew 25:36). I had no notion before Larry's secret incarceration and murder that middle-class and indigent people were in a “slave class” in America and can be killed like Larry Neal, Cameron Willingham, and you, Hank Skinner. I am very grateful that mainstream news is reporting that TEXAS IS ABOUT TO DO IT AGAIN – KILL ANOTHER MAN WITHOUT HIS GUILT BEING PROVED.
OUR JUST AND LOVING GOD HAS PUT SOME DECENT PEOPLE IN HIGH POSITIONS IN TEXAS, SO ALL HOPE IS NOT LOST. He positioned judges like Judge Kevin Fine, who ruled the death penalty unconstitutional a few weeks ago. God also positioned another righteous Texas judge, Judge Orlando Luis Garcia, who gave Jeff Wood a stay of execution. Jeff was scheduled for execution although the State of Texas acknowledges that Jeff was not present when the murder happened. He was convicted under the law of parties in a trial that was delayed while Jeff spent weeks in a mental hospital getting “trial ready.” The mentally challenged young man was tricked into accompanying someone to a robbery/murder. Poor Jeff dutifully sat in a truck as he had been instructed, and had no knowledge that a murder was even happening. He forbade his lawyers from pleading his case at trial, thinking that the prosecutors were aliens. Texas still intends to kill Jeff although the actual murderer was already executed. Jeff makes two for one - a good score if execution is a sport. Texas also gave us Rep. Eddie Johnson, who introduced H.R.619 on January 22, 2009. The former psychiatric nurse's bill proposes resuming Medicaid funding for inpatient psychiatric treatment to provide an alternative to prisons for people with mental disorders during crises or for long-term care, if needed. That is a provision that should have been included in the thousand-page national health care bill somewhere, but it was not. Pray with me that God also puts on some official's heart to give Hank Skinner a 30-day stay of execution to test his DNA and ensure that a likely innocent man is not executed AGAIN. A lab has offered to perform the DNA test for free if Texas will only be fair. There are good people everywhere, and some merciful person in a position of public trust who cares about justice and righteousness may yet step into the arena before Wednesday and say, “In the name of Almighty God, PLEASE STOP Hank Skinner's execution for 30 days and let us make sure.”
Even people who do not believe in God the Father should recognize that karma is real. You reap what you sew. Potentially innocent people should not be executed for unproved crimes. In fact, no one at all should be executed in America at least until the USDOJ and Shelby County Jail start obeying the Freedom of Information Act and tell Larry Neal's elderly mother and 130 close relatives how Larry came to be secretly arrested for 18 days and murdered in the Memphis jail. Accountability in a democracy is supposed to be a goose and gander thing. No one should be above the law, especially when the law demands the lives of potentially innocent people like Hank Skinner, humanitarian, American citizen, and a human being who was made in the image of God.
Please voice your objections before it is too late. Do not be like World War II-era German citizens who remained silent while their neighbors were marched away to death camps. Taxpayers bought the lethal injection bed and the poison that is frequently injected into condemned men's throbbing veins. That makes it YOUR injustice if Hank is executed. Remember that while Hank and other death row inmates face execution in the absence of a DNA tests, their “inalienable right” to life is equal to your own. Consider how tenacious and alienable YOUR civil and human rights really are in the USA, slave class citizens, while you watch another working class man being led to the gallows by an elitist government that says, “Innocence doesn't matter.”
Thanks in advance, Governor Perry, President Obama, Texas judges, Supreme Court justices, or whomever God sends to stop this atrocity. Thanks, fellow Americans, who call and write emails to people over our “justice” system who should care enough to be fair to Hank Skinner and see that his constitutional right to life is not violated because judges say they are satisfied with "ample evidence of his guilt," when more absolute evidence is at hand. While our nation's leaders are meeting in Washington regarding a health care bill to protect Americans' health (except for millions of mentally ill people), they should be mindful that execution would be very unhealthy for Hank Skinner. Capital punishment without irrefutable evidence of guilt is unhealthy for democracy, I BELIEVE.
See an article published by LA Times regarding Hank Skinner's justice quest.
LA TIMES - Reporting from Washington – March 19, 2010
HANK SKINNER'S LAST WISH - A DNA TEST
Texas death row inmate Hank Skinner, convicted of murdering his girlfriend and her two sons 16 years ago, has only one request before he is executed next week. He says the state should be required to do DNA tests of evidence from the victim, such as semen and blood under her fingernails, that could prove, once and for all, who was the real killer .... no one should be put to death without testing crucial evidence that could show the wrong man was convicted.
Skinner has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to block the execution, set for Wednesday, to permit time for the testing.
Skinner was an obvious suspect in the murder of Twila Busby on New Year's Eve 1993. He had been drunk and asleep on her couch shortly before she was strangled and clubbed to death in the same room. Her blood as well as that of one of her dead sons was found on his clothes. Skinner insists he awoke in a stupor to find his girlfriend murdered, and he maintains that her uncle was the killer.
"The state of Texas is trying to kill me for something I didn't do," Skinner said in a recent taped interview from prison. "We are asking to test all the evidence they identified as important."
In any investigation today, all of this evidence would have been tested for DNA," said Rob Owen, a University of Texas law professor who now represents Skinner. "But why not do the testing now?"
Prosecutors declined to comment. But they, and some of the judges who have ruled on his appeals, said that because Skinner's trial lawyer did not ask for the extra DNA testing, it was too late now [another example of procedure over justice]. Other judges said that because they saw "ample evidence" of his guilt, no further testing was required. In January, a magistrate rejected Skinner's final appeal.
Doubt arose about Skinner's guilt 10 years ago after an investigation by students from the Medill Innocence Project at Northwestern University. They found another ex-girlfriend who had seen Skinner shortly after the murders and said he was too drunk and disoriented to have killed three people, including one son who stood 6-feet-6 and weighed 225 pounds. She also said Skinner did not have cuts or scratch marks, as would have been expected after a struggle.
The students also found a neighbor of the uncle who said he had cleaned his van and removed the carpet a day after the killings. The uncle did not come under investigation, and later died in an auto accident.
Skinner's current lawyers have asked Gov. Rick Perry to postpone the execution for a month to allow for the testing. They also asked the high court for an emergency order to block the execution. Owen said that if blood or skin from the victim's fingernails has DNA matching Skinner's, it would confirm his guilt. If the test finds the DNA of another man, "I think that exonerates him," he said.
Skinner's appeals run squarely into a 5-4 ruling from the Supreme Court last year saying the Constitution does not give convicts the right to demand DNA testing of crime-scene evidence. But that case involved a paroled rapist in Alaska, not a prisoner facing execution with evidence still untested.
LA Times at this link: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-court-dna20-2010mar20,0,632491.story .
*****
Let us not repeat tragic mistakes from Texas' execution chambers or from 1940's Germany. "As a dog returneth to his vomit, so a fool returneth to his folly." Proverbs 26:11
Please take a stand for righteousness. Everyone is someone in the Lord. No country should ever kill its citizens, especially without clear and present evidence of wrongdoing. A 30-day stay of execution is not too much to ask for the sake of justice. God, help.
When you write and call YOUR PUBLIC SERVANTS about Hank Skinner, please make mention of Andre Thomas, who is so mentally ill he is eating his own body parts on Texas' death row - both his eyes were eaten so far. A petition for mercy for Andre is at this link: http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/No-Executing-Mental-Patients . Also, please mention Jeff Wood. Texas admits Jeff never murdered anyone, yet he is on death row. Read and share more information about Jeff Wood and capital punishment at this link: SCHEDULED FOR TEXAS EXECUTION: JEFF WOOD, A MENTALLY CHALLENGED YOUNG MAN http://www.nowpublic.com/world/scheduled-texas-execution-jeff-wood-mentally-challenged-young-man - The "slave class" must stick together and help one another. Jesus said, "Love ye one another as I have loved you."
Mary NealAssistance to the Incarcerated Mentally Ill
NOVEMBER 2011 UPDATE: The U.S. Supreme Court gave Hank Skinner a last-minute stay of execution in March 2010. However, Texas continued to deny Skinner any opportunity to test his DNA against the evidence in the 20 months since the High Court spared his life. The 1% periodically kills potentially innocent people from the 99% like Troy Davis and Hank Skinner in order to keep the 99% feeling intimidated by their power. Guilt is not the issue; power is - the power to pull 99ers from America's slave pool and execute them. September 21 was Troy Davis' turn. Wednesday, November 9, 2011, is the day the elite will show their power over the 99% by killing Hank Skinner with his guilt unproved. This is what slave masters did in the 1700s to keep slaves subservient to their masters. Periodic executions of sick or potentially innocent Americans is a part of LYNCHING AMERICA. Willie Lynch, a successful slave owner from the West Indies, taught Virginia Colony plantation owners the art of slave mastery. It takes displays of power like MURDERS by the gentry to keep slaves meek and obedient under conditions where the slaves vastly outnumber their "owners." See "LYNCHING AMERICA" at this link - http://maryneal.hubpages.com/hub/Lynching-America
I read that Hank Skinner was a prisoner activist before his conviction for a crime that decision makers are afraid a DNA test would prove he did not do. I know from my own experiences that people who advocate for HUMAN RIGHTS FOR PRISONERS are monitored, censored, lied on, and plotted against. Wealthy, unscrupulous people have made crime and punishment one of the most flourishing businesses in America, where 2.3 million people are prisoners and 1 in every 30 people is either behind bars or living under the threat of arrest as parolees and probationers. See PRISON LABOR PROFITS at YouTube for a sample of the cybercensorship that my publishing is subject to on a daily basis.
If Hank Skinner's work as a prisoner activist threatened prison profiteers' income like college students at Medill Innocence Project at Northwestern University, a decent defense and full investigation when he became a murder suspect may have been deliberately withheld. The Northwestern University students did a valuable service by investigating wrongful convictions and they helped to free innocent people from prison over the years. In fact, they uncovered numerous wrongful convictions involving some condemned men like Hank. The students recently became targets for harassment by the D.A.'s office. Their college was required to surrender the students' grades as part of their investigation for being civic-minded humanitarians. That is a dangerous thing to be in 21st century America. I hope none of the students will ever be caught speeding. They might be Tasered and arrested like a 72-year-old great grandmother was in 2009 when she was stopped by traffic police in Texas. I wonder if the great grandmother is involved in some community action project or if she advocates for prisoners. Those activities are grounds for being labeled an “extremist” and subject citizens to having their web sites listed on “dangerous-for-your-PC” lists. I tried to open my Care2 Sharebook last night, and my new anti-virus program refused to open it in order to “protect my computer.” (Google "Mary Neal Sharebook" and see if they let you see my articles there.) ASSISTANCE TO THE INCARCERATED MENTALLY ILL may also be falsely listed as “dangerous” at this link: http://www.Care2.com/c2c/group/AIMI - Numerous other Internet sites have been listed as “dangerous for your computers.” This is not done to protect Americans' PCs, but to prevent the flow of information from certain individuals, independent news sites like IndyMedia, and human/civil rights groups like AIMI. AIMI members merely ask that mental illness be decriminalized in America and for all prisoners to be treated humanely according to Hebrews 13:3. In Nazi Germany, authorities burned books. In 21st century America, people are subjected to censorship, terrorism, arrest, and even execution like Hank Skinner faces, although he is likely innocent.
I have been censored, cyberstalked, and followed by up to four vehicles and a USDOT truck for asking WHAT HAPPENED TO LARRY NEAL, my mentally and physically disabled brother who was secretly arrested and murdered in Memphis/Shelby County Jail on August 3, 2003. Neither the jail nor the USDOj (small “j” on purpose) appreciate my family asking how and why Larry was murdered. Folks over the justice system consider it to be their prerogative to arrest and murder any one of us. Middle-class and indigent citizens are all in the "slave class" without regard to their race or ethnicity, including police officers, but most of them do not realize it. I am actually whitelisted (or blacklisted) because I tell people about the elite's attitude toward working class Americans, especially mentally challenged people like Larry was. When I called 911 to rescue my grandson and me from the Chevron station where I took cover around 10:00 p.m. on Friday, September 27, 2008, police did not respond to the emergency call. What would have happened if my family had not come in two cars to save us? Duanna Johnson, who also planned to sue Shelby County Jail after police brutality, was murdered a few blocks from her Memphis home a just weeks after my narrow escape from the USDOT truck driver and others. That is why my 87-year-old mother and I mostly stay in the house now like runaway slaves. Asking the justice system for justice is apparently a dangerous undertaking. Human rights and civil rights are not honored for select citizens, and others will follow later. But that is supposed to be a secret. If Hank Skinner had known that standing up for people's human rights marked him as an enemy of the State, things might be different for him today. Then he might not be on death row to be KILLED ON WEDNESDAY, DENIED A DNA TEST TO PROVE HE DID NOT DO THE CRIME. SORRY, HANK. THE ELITE USE REGULAR EXECUTIONS TO JUSTIFY THE EXTRA $90,000 PER YEAR TAXPAYERS ARE CHARGED FOR EACH CONDEMNED MAN.
HANK, PLEASE SAY HELLO TO CAMERON TODD WILLINGHAM FOR US. Also, give a fond hello to Timothy Cole, another wrongly convicted Texan who was imprisoned for 13 years for a rape that a DNA test proved he never did. Gov. Perry issued a pardon to Cole on March 19, 2010. The only problem is that Cole he died in 1999 while imprisoned. Governor Rick Perry claimed to be proud to deliver the postpartum pardon to Cole's mother at the Omni Hotel in Ft. Worth. Having recently evidenced the fallibility of the justice system, the governor should be careful to guarantee Hank Skinner's guilt before execution. Instead, Governor Perry and various justices refuse to allow Skinner to have a DNA test. See information about Tim Cole in a Prison Weblog article at the link below, entitled: “Justice Comes Too Late for Timothy Cole.” http://prisonmovement.wordpress.com/2010/03/20/justice-comes-too-late-for-timothy-cole/
The article at the link above states, “To date, 40 Texas men have become members of a growing group known as “the exonerated,” former prisoners who, like Cole, were convicted of crimes they did not commit and later released from prison after DNA evidence proved their innocence.”
Hank, please consider using your last words to ask, “What happened to Larry Neal?” Obviously, "I am innocent; I didn't do it" are not working for you. They might tell you how they killed my brother, a harmless mental patient police were tired of singing loud outside, although USDOJ illegally refuses to give my family any records of Larry's arrest or investigate his murder. My elderly mother is plagued by nightmares of how Larry was killed while secretly incarcerated in a jail that was under DOJ supervision after years of prisoner abuse. The elite justice system does not have to answer for murder. But they may not mind telling you how Larry died, Hank, since you will not be around to blog about the cover-up that was facilitated by The Johnnie Cochran Firm and is censored by the media, which is the origin of ASSISTANCE TO THE INCARCERATED MENTALLY ILL, an online advocacy organization that stands up for human and civil rights, especially those who are sick, naked, and imprisoned (Matthew 25:36). I had no notion before Larry's secret incarceration and murder that middle-class and indigent people were in a “slave class” in America and can be killed like Larry Neal, Cameron Willingham, and you, Hank Skinner. I am very grateful that mainstream news is reporting that TEXAS IS ABOUT TO DO IT AGAIN – KILL ANOTHER MAN WITHOUT HIS GUILT BEING PROVED.
OUR JUST AND LOVING GOD HAS PUT SOME DECENT PEOPLE IN HIGH POSITIONS IN TEXAS, SO ALL HOPE IS NOT LOST. He positioned judges like Judge Kevin Fine, who ruled the death penalty unconstitutional a few weeks ago. God also positioned another righteous Texas judge, Judge Orlando Luis Garcia, who gave Jeff Wood a stay of execution. Jeff was scheduled for execution although the State of Texas acknowledges that Jeff was not present when the murder happened. He was convicted under the law of parties in a trial that was delayed while Jeff spent weeks in a mental hospital getting “trial ready.” The mentally challenged young man was tricked into accompanying someone to a robbery/murder. Poor Jeff dutifully sat in a truck as he had been instructed, and had no knowledge that a murder was even happening. He forbade his lawyers from pleading his case at trial, thinking that the prosecutors were aliens. Texas still intends to kill Jeff although the actual murderer was already executed. Jeff makes two for one - a good score if execution is a sport. Texas also gave us Rep. Eddie Johnson, who introduced H.R.619 on January 22, 2009. The former psychiatric nurse's bill proposes resuming Medicaid funding for inpatient psychiatric treatment to provide an alternative to prisons for people with mental disorders during crises or for long-term care, if needed. That is a provision that should have been included in the thousand-page national health care bill somewhere, but it was not. Pray with me that God also puts on some official's heart to give Hank Skinner a 30-day stay of execution to test his DNA and ensure that a likely innocent man is not executed AGAIN. A lab has offered to perform the DNA test for free if Texas will only be fair. There are good people everywhere, and some merciful person in a position of public trust who cares about justice and righteousness may yet step into the arena before Wednesday and say, “In the name of Almighty God, PLEASE STOP Hank Skinner's execution for 30 days and let us make sure.”
Even people who do not believe in God the Father should recognize that karma is real. You reap what you sew. Potentially innocent people should not be executed for unproved crimes. In fact, no one at all should be executed in America at least until the USDOJ and Shelby County Jail start obeying the Freedom of Information Act and tell Larry Neal's elderly mother and 130 close relatives how Larry came to be secretly arrested for 18 days and murdered in the Memphis jail. Accountability in a democracy is supposed to be a goose and gander thing. No one should be above the law, especially when the law demands the lives of potentially innocent people like Hank Skinner, humanitarian, American citizen, and a human being who was made in the image of God.
Please voice your objections before it is too late. Do not be like World War II-era German citizens who remained silent while their neighbors were marched away to death camps. Taxpayers bought the lethal injection bed and the poison that is frequently injected into condemned men's throbbing veins. That makes it YOUR injustice if Hank is executed. Remember that while Hank and other death row inmates face execution in the absence of a DNA tests, their “inalienable right” to life is equal to your own. Consider how tenacious and alienable YOUR civil and human rights really are in the USA, slave class citizens, while you watch another working class man being led to the gallows by an elitist government that says, “Innocence doesn't matter.”
Thanks in advance, Governor Perry, President Obama, Texas judges, Supreme Court justices, or whomever God sends to stop this atrocity. Thanks, fellow Americans, who call and write emails to people over our “justice” system who should care enough to be fair to Hank Skinner and see that his constitutional right to life is not violated because judges say they are satisfied with "ample evidence of his guilt," when more absolute evidence is at hand. While our nation's leaders are meeting in Washington regarding a health care bill to protect Americans' health (except for millions of mentally ill people), they should be mindful that execution would be very unhealthy for Hank Skinner. Capital punishment without irrefutable evidence of guilt is unhealthy for democracy, I BELIEVE.
See an article published by LA Times regarding Hank Skinner's justice quest.
LA TIMES - Reporting from Washington – March 19, 2010
HANK SKINNER'S LAST WISH - A DNA TEST
Texas death row inmate Hank Skinner, convicted of murdering his girlfriend and her two sons 16 years ago, has only one request before he is executed next week. He says the state should be required to do DNA tests of evidence from the victim, such as semen and blood under her fingernails, that could prove, once and for all, who was the real killer .... no one should be put to death without testing crucial evidence that could show the wrong man was convicted.
Skinner has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to block the execution, set for Wednesday, to permit time for the testing.
Skinner was an obvious suspect in the murder of Twila Busby on New Year's Eve 1993. He had been drunk and asleep on her couch shortly before she was strangled and clubbed to death in the same room. Her blood as well as that of one of her dead sons was found on his clothes. Skinner insists he awoke in a stupor to find his girlfriend murdered, and he maintains that her uncle was the killer.
"The state of Texas is trying to kill me for something I didn't do," Skinner said in a recent taped interview from prison. "We are asking to test all the evidence they identified as important."
In any investigation today, all of this evidence would have been tested for DNA," said Rob Owen, a University of Texas law professor who now represents Skinner. "But why not do the testing now?"
Prosecutors declined to comment. But they, and some of the judges who have ruled on his appeals, said that because Skinner's trial lawyer did not ask for the extra DNA testing, it was too late now [another example of procedure over justice]. Other judges said that because they saw "ample evidence" of his guilt, no further testing was required. In January, a magistrate rejected Skinner's final appeal.
Doubt arose about Skinner's guilt 10 years ago after an investigation by students from the Medill Innocence Project at Northwestern University. They found another ex-girlfriend who had seen Skinner shortly after the murders and said he was too drunk and disoriented to have killed three people, including one son who stood 6-feet-6 and weighed 225 pounds. She also said Skinner did not have cuts or scratch marks, as would have been expected after a struggle.
The students also found a neighbor of the uncle who said he had cleaned his van and removed the carpet a day after the killings. The uncle did not come under investigation, and later died in an auto accident.
Skinner's current lawyers have asked Gov. Rick Perry to postpone the execution for a month to allow for the testing. They also asked the high court for an emergency order to block the execution. Owen said that if blood or skin from the victim's fingernails has DNA matching Skinner's, it would confirm his guilt. If the test finds the DNA of another man, "I think that exonerates him," he said.
Skinner's appeals run squarely into a 5-4 ruling from the Supreme Court last year saying the Constitution does not give convicts the right to demand DNA testing of crime-scene evidence. But that case involved a paroled rapist in Alaska, not a prisoner facing execution with evidence still untested.
LA Times at this link: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-court-dna20-2010mar20,0,632491.story .
*****
Let us not repeat tragic mistakes from Texas' execution chambers or from 1940's Germany. "As a dog returneth to his vomit, so a fool returneth to his folly." Proverbs 26:11
Please take a stand for righteousness. Everyone is someone in the Lord. No country should ever kill its citizens, especially without clear and present evidence of wrongdoing. A 30-day stay of execution is not too much to ask for the sake of justice. God, help.
When you write and call YOUR PUBLIC SERVANTS about Hank Skinner, please make mention of Andre Thomas, who is so mentally ill he is eating his own body parts on Texas' death row - both his eyes were eaten so far. A petition for mercy for Andre is at this link: http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/No-Executing-Mental-Patients . Also, please mention Jeff Wood. Texas admits Jeff never murdered anyone, yet he is on death row. Read and share more information about Jeff Wood and capital punishment at this link: SCHEDULED FOR TEXAS EXECUTION: JEFF WOOD, A MENTALLY CHALLENGED YOUNG MAN http://www.nowpublic.com/world/scheduled-texas-execution-jeff-wood-mentally-challenged-young-man - The "slave class" must stick together and help one another. Jesus said, "Love ye one another as I have loved you."
Mary NealAssistance to the Incarcerated Mentally Ill
6 comments:
"Hank Skinner's Last Wish - Justice." That is what thousands of imprisoned Americans await, according to the Innocence Project. See this link for a poll to assess what Americans think about killing people without allowing post-conviction DNA tests:
http://www.votingcentral.com/VotingCentral/displayPoll.do?pollId=12205f3f-bf34-163d-b520-09c7ffffffad
The Innocence Project reports that thousands of inmates applied for the agency's help regarding alleged wrongful convictions. For many inmates, a simple DNA test would determine conclusively whether they are innocent or not. The State of Alaska holds that it would be too much paperwork to give post-conviction DNA tests before executions or lengthy incarcerations THAT COST TAXPAYERS MONEY TO PUNISH PEOPLE FOR CRIMES THAT THEY MAY NOT HAVE DONE. The U.S. Supreme Court agreed with Alaska in 2009. Therefore, Hank Skinner will die Wednesday, March 24, 2010, UNLESS God sends a righteous person with the authority to say, "No. Let us wait 30 days and give Skinner the opportunity to take a DNA test at his own expense." Sodom and Gomorrah needed ten righteous men to be saved. Hank Skinner only needs is ONE. Pray that in all of America, at least one person who has the ability to grant Skinner a stay of execution will do that, and give him a chance to take a DNA test to prove his innocence.
How say you?
Mary
HANK, PLEASE SAY HELLO TO CAMERON TODD WILLINGHAM FOR US. Also, give a fond hello to Timothy Cole
what a sad piece of 'journalism'....under the guise of advocacy...
Hank, please consider using your last words to ask, “What happened to Larry Neal?” Obviously, "I am innocent; I didn't do it" are not working...
Mary...you cannot be serious with the statement above! absurd ....you dont have very many readers do you?
carol
mary knows our system all too well. hank is screwed. i've been emailing and commenting for weeks to get that dna tested, and it's probably not going to happen because nobody will be held accountable afterwards. there's no incentive to be fair, thorough, and reasonable. every ounce of dna should be tested in every case... mandated in every state. i've read through the evidence and i think it's likely that he's guilty. but that doesn't matter. dna is the gold standard of proof. there is only one truth, and nobody knows what that is. TEST THE DNA.
Carol, whether 10 people read what I write or 100,000 read my opinion and news about capital punishment and other wrongdoing by the justice system is immaterial to me. Hank Skinner should not be executed, especially without irrefutable evidence of guilt. I mention my brother Larry Neal because I draw attention to the fact that our justice system is illegal and murderous itself. Therefore it cannot be trusted to make life and death decisions. Sometimes, I use shock value when I write in order to awaken people to what I perceive to be problems in the justice system. I was really shocked and disappointed myself to learn how things really are. Nothing can improve until people know there are serious problems. The Bible says people perish for lack of knowledge. Please don't adopt a "shoot the messenger" attitude. Things are really in a mess when handicapped Americans like Larry Neal can be secretly arrested, held for weeks while police deny having them, and then be returned to their families dead with no explanation or accountability. That is NOT the type of justice system I think should be making decisions about who deserves to live or die. Thanks for your comments, Carol.
Thank you for understanding, Catherine.
IN LESS THAN 18 MONTHS, WE ARE RIGHT WHERE WE WERE IN MARCH 2010 - HANK SKINNER FACING EXECUTION WITHOUT A DNA TEST. Can you believe it? I begin to think the stays of execution condemned people get just put the execution on hold until public support for justice lessens in a particular case. Otherwise, why was Skinner not given the DNA test after the U.S. Supreme Court stepped in and gave him a stay of execution in March 2010? Are temporary reprieves just more evidence of hypocrisy in the justice system? If an inmate gets a stay of execution, he should also get the DNA test he requests or a new trial on late-arriving evidence such as Troy Davis has. Is it MONEY? Are states afraid that exonerated inmates would sue them for decades of false imprisonment? Would they prefer to execute potentially innocent men without new trials or DNA tests than to risk paying such lawsuits? If so, then set reasonable limits on such lawsuits and PLEASE give inmates every opportunity to prove their innocence. Can any government official who could stop Skinner's execution for unproved crimes consider himself suitable for being over the Justice Dept. if he allows such an atrocity as Skinner's execution without absolute proof of guilt? May God bless Texas with compassion and dedication to justice.
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