The Supreme Court halts execution of convicted murderer in Texas

With only an hour to spare, the Supreme Court blocked the execution in Texas on Wednesday night Hank Skinner convicted murderer who maintains his innocence and to require DNA testing on key elements of a decade.
The judges issued a stay of execution and said they wanted more time to consider the appeal of Skinner. Probably be several weeks before the court decides whether to hear the case.
Last year, autumn Court 5 against 4 that the Constitution does not give the prisoner the right to require DNA testing on evidence from the crime scene. The case, however, does not mean a prisoner facing execution.
Skinner had sued the district attorney of the county to seek DNA testing on semen and skin samples and two knives with blood and the jacket of a man, all taken from the scene of a triple murder City north of Pampa, Texas for 16 years.
Last week, a crime lab in Phoenix, has offered to conduct free tests.
Skinner was convicted and sentenced to death for killing Twila Busby, his wife and their two adult children at home the day before New Year 1993. Skinner was drunk and asleep on the couch the night before, when Busby went to a party. After midnight, he staggered out of the house with the blood of both victims on their clothing.
Skinner has always protested his innocence and contends that Busby's uncle was the murderer. Busby had left the party after his uncle, now deceased, made crude sexual advances. It seemed as if he had been raped and had struggled with her attacker.
Police and prosecutors said the blood on the clothing Skinner came from two victims and left traces of blood in the palm of your home.
Skinner said he awoke in a stupor and cut his hand on a broken bottle.
His lawyer, a former county prosecutor, did not seek DNA testing on evidence from the crime scene.
Since then, federal judges and state have rejected calls for Skinner, a decision that had no right to test evidence that could be tested at trial.
Ten years ago, the Medill Innocence Project at Northwestern University, has raised doubts about the guilt of Skinner. Researchers have found a neighbor who said the uncle had cleaned his truck and replaced the carpet the day after the murders.
They also found an old girlfriend who had seen Skinner, shortly after the murders. She said she was too drunk and disoriented that killed three people, including a son who was 6 feet 6 and weighs 225 pounds.