Court to review inmate DNA requests

WASHINGTON, May 24 (UPI) -- The U.S. Supreme Court Monday agreed to decide whether inmates, including death row inmates, can ask for DNA testing under federal civil rights law.

The question is raised by lawyers for Texas death row inmate Henry W. Skinner, who has consistently maintained his innocence and whose imminent execution was stayed at the last hour by the Supreme Court in March. The justices Monday agreed to hear the case -- probably next term -- without comment.

Skinner, 47, was sentenced to execution for the 1993 murders of his girlfriend and her two adult sons in the Texas Panhandle city of Pampa on New Year's Eve. The girlfriend, Twila Busby, was strangled and beaten with an ax handle and her sons, Elwin Caler and Randy Busby, were stabbed, the Houson Chronicle reported.

Texas has blocked DNA testing in the case.

Skinner, who worked as a paralegal at the time of his arrest, has asked for DNA testing on blood found on knives at the murder scene and material beneath the victim's fingernails, as well as rape kit samples, the Chronicle said.

The newspaper said the federal appeals courts are split on whether an inmate can request DNA testing under civil rights states, a simple matter of law, or whether such requests must come as part of a habeas, or constitutional, review -- a much more difficult undertaking.