Texas Death Row Inmates More DNA Testing.
A man condemned for the New Year's Eve slayings of his girlfriend and her two sons will get new DNA testing after the Texas attorney general's office on Friday withdrew its objections.
Hank Skinner was sentenced to death and once came within an hour of execution for the 1993 slayings of Twila Busby and her two grown sons in Pampa, in the Texas Panhandle. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals granted its last stay of execution Nov. 7.
Prosecutors had consistently dismissed Skinner's request for DNA testing as a ploy to delay his execution. They reversed course Friday in a one-paragraph advisory filed with the Court of Criminal Appeals.
"Upon further consideration, the State believes that the interest of justice would best be served in this case by DNA testing the evidence requested by Skinner and by testing additional items identified by the State," prosecutors said.
A spokesman for Attorney General Greg Abbott did not say what led to his office's new stance on testing.
Skinner, 50, has acknowledged being inside the house where Busby and her sons were found. But he insists he couldn't be the killer because he was passed out on a couch from a mix of vodka and cocaine.
