‘Highly Technical’ Oral Arguments Downplay Drama in Inmate’s Quest for DNA
The U.S. Supreme Court considered Wednesday whether a Texas death row inmate has a right to DNA evidence in arguments so dry that several publications were compelled to comment.
“The drama was missing” in oral arguments on the DNA quest by inmate Hank Skinner, convicted of murdering his girlfriend and two sons in 1993, the Washington Post reports. Skinner maintains he passed out after guzzling vodka and codeine and he could not have committed the murders. His trial lawyer didn’t seek DNA evidence because he had feared it would be incriminating.
The Associated Press says the argument was “highly technical” as Skinner’s appellate lawyer, Robert Owen, pressed his claim for access to the evidence under the federal civil rights law, Section 1983. “A man’s life may have been on the line at the Supreme Court on Wednesday, but it was hard to tell that by listening to the argument,” the story says.
The Supreme Court ruled last year in District Attorney’s Office v. Osborne that inmates have no constitutional right to DNA evidence, but left open the question whether claims could be brought under the federal civil rights law, the New York Times reports. The arguments focused on whether Skinner “had located a path through a thicket of legal doctrines meant to limit postconviction challenges,” the Times says.
The case is Skinner v. Switzer.