Hank Skinner

I believe that the case involving Hank Skinner will never truly be solved.  There are so many things left to speculation because of what state Skinner was in when the murder took place.  I do however believe that an injustice was averted with the last stay of execution in November 2011.  I think that every piece of evidence should be tested and analyzed to ensure that Twilia and her two sons get justice and to make sure that an innocent man is not executed.  Regardless of whether or not Skinner is just trying to put off his execution, the evidence should be tested.  The decision that was made at the beginning of the trial to not test the evidence not only by the defense, but also by the prosecutors, was a bad one.  The prosecutors may have just wanted to put Skinner behind bars, but it should be more important that someone innocent not be punished.  It seems that law enforcement decided who they wanted to have committed the crime within the first 48 hours.  Whether or not Skinner actually committed the crime should be proven without a doubt by the evidence present on the scene.  The technology we have now is much more advanced than the 1990's and could be used to test the evidence and maybe piece together the story of what really happened that night.

The dueling websites about Skinner's case show just how much we as a society are fascinated by murder and criminals.  I can only imagine the media firestorm that was surrounding this case at the beginning.  The fact that people spend time trying to mock someone's claim of innocence by stealing the same website design and layout  is ridiculous.  Skinner was already convicted and put on death row and that fact will never change.  The odds are not in his favor when it comes to overturning his conviction.  The amount of evidence that it will take to prove his innocence is huge.  The people on the website that believe he is guilty should spend less time on mocking Skinner's claims and more time trying to get the evidence tested as fast as possible.  After all, if he is guilty the evidence should prove that even more so.

I think that the media is more in favor of Skinner being innocent.  Then the law enforcement who was involved with his case would have made multiple errors and be under extreme scrutiny for arresting an innocent man, which makes for a better news story.  If it turns out Skinner did actually brutally murder three people and he is executed, the law enforcement did their jobs which is a pretty boring story.  The media seems to only want to report when people make mistakes, especially ones that potentially can cost someone his or her life, so the media is leaving that as a possibility when covering this story.