Case Summary - Henry Watkins Skinner v. State

Henry Skinner lived with his girlfriend and her two adult, mentally-retarded sons. On New Year's Eve, his girlfriend went to a party after leaving him passed out drunk on the couch. She returned home early to escape the lecherous advances of her uncle. Around midnight, one of the son's appeared on a neighbor's porch with multiple stab wounds. He later died. Police found Skinner's girlfriend strangled and beaten to death and her other son stabbed to death. Three bloody palm prints belonging to Appellant were found at the scene, one in the deceased son's room, and two on the door knob to the back door. Police found Skinner at three in the morning in a house three-to-four blocks away standing in a closet and wearing a shirt covered in blood. [R. Kelly was not with him.] The owner of the residence testified that Skinner gave multiple explanations including claims that a Mexican came to the door and pulled a knife, that he'd gotten into a fist-fight with his girlfriend's ex-husband, and that drug dealers were looking for his girlfriend and wanted her bad.

DNA testing of the blood on the shirt matched Skinner's girlfriend and one of her sons. Skinner advanced three defensive theories: 1) that the State's failure to test some of the DNA evidence was sloppy investigation; 2) the real culprit was the lecherous uncle; and 3) Skinner was took intoxicated to pull this off. The jury convicted him of capital murder and sentenced him to death.

In 2000, post-conviction testing of some items at the request of the District Attorney revealed DNA from an unknown male on some bloodstained gauze and two unknown individuals in some blood on a cassette tape. However, several items remained untested because the DA didn't request it or GeneScreen just didn't do it. Skinner moved to have some of those items tested, including two knives found at the scene, a rape kit from the defendant's girlfriend, a blood-like substance found on a cup-towel at the scene, blood from under the girlfriend's fingernails, and hair and blood from a jacket found in the house. The trial court denied the motion, which the CCA affirmed on direct appeal. Skinner also lost his federal habeas claims, and he filed a second request for DNA testing based upon new facts from the federal habeas claim and new legal developments. The trial court denied relief again.

The Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed the trial court's denial of DNA testing because Skinner's trial counsel's decision not to test the items was reasonable trial strategy, and therefore, Skinner could not show that it wasn't his fault that testing had not been done. Presiding Judge Keller, writing for an eight-judge majority, explained that a showing that trial counsel was ineffective for failing to have items tested might satisfy the "not his fault" provision of Article 64.01 that entitles a defendant to DNA testing if the evidence in question was not previously tested. However, there was no showing that trial counsel was ineffective in this case. Trial counsel indicated he decided not to pursue testing because he feared that it would come out adversely to Skinner.

The Court also rejected Skinner's argument that testing was required "in the interests of justice." At the federal habeas hearing the woman whose house Skinner hid out in recanted her testimony. Presiding Judge Keller leaves open the possibility that a subsequent recantation of testimony might change the analysis on whether trial strategy was reasonable such that DNA testing was required "in the interests of justice." But this was not such a circumstance because the recantation lacked credibility according to the federal habeas court.

The Court also rejected Skinner's argument that trial counsel's allegedly deficient performance for failing to inform their testifying expert that Skinner (who had been on codeine that night) was actually allergic to codeine. Even if this deficiency in a non-DNA arena could impact the need for DNA testing in the interests of justice, Skinner was not prejudiced by this alleged deficiency. [Nice to see both ineffective assistance prongs being met rather than watered down by the "interests of justice" standard.] And the fact that blood-spatter evidence could've suggested that Skinner killed his girlfriend while her son was in the room didn't undermine the evidence that suggested he was more than capable of committing the crime. Finally, even if the first post-conviction testing done by the DA could cast doubt on trial counsel's strategy, it did not in this case.

Judge Womack concurred without an opinion. Here's a link to the CCA case info. Because the appeal was direct to the CCA, there's no lower court opinion for linkage.

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Whenever Presiding Judge Keller finds a legal issue interesting, my eyes reflexively roll back in my head. It's wrong of me, I know. This is, ultimately, a pretty good little opinion that basically ports the "ineffective assistance" doctrine into the "through no fault of the convicted person" section of Article 64.01. Unfortunately, that doesn't make it interesting for me. The opinion does spend a lot of time leaving open the possibility that non-DNA evidence factors could be considered as creating a need for DNA testing "in the interests of justice." As someone who has seen the use of "interests of justice" relax standards for other grounds for motions for new trial, I kind of expected this. However, the opinion does seem to apply the two-prong, ineffective assistance standard rigorously throughout even though it seems to leave open the possibility that post-trial revelations could impact the reasonableness of trial strategy under an "interest of justice" standard in a way completely antithetical to a proper ineffective assistance analysis. But foreclosing those possibilities would have been overreaching given that the facts made it unnecessary to decide that issue. And the result isn't surprising after the SCOTUS opinion in District Attorney's Office v. Osborne. On the whole, I don't think this case makes obtaining DNA testing easier or harder for defendants, it just clarifies how courts should regard trial counsel's conduct in not seizing the opportunity for testing during trial.