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Sam Millsap on the Skinner Case

By Steve Hall

Today's Houston Chronicle carries an OpEd, "DNA testing works, but not if we fail to utilize it," written by Sam Millsap, the former Bexar County District Attorney.  Here's an extended excerpt from this must-read:Last week, Gov. Rick Perry granted the state's first posthumous pardon to a man who was innocent of a crime for which he had spent 13 years in prison. DNA testing cleared Tim Cole of a rape he did not commit, but unfortunately it came too late ? nine years after he had died in prison. The state must do everything it can to prevent this kind of tragedy from happening again.On March 24, Texas plans to execute Henry Watkins Skinner even though untested DNA evidence could show we've got the wrong man. DNA testing could resolve doubts about Skinner's guilt in the 1993 Pampa slayings of his girlfriend and her two sons, but the state inexplicably has blocked that testing for more than a decade...continue to full post

Full post as published by StandDown Texas Project on March 10, 2010 (boomark / email).