TX: Hank Skinner's Execution Scheduled for the 4th time

A new execution date of November 9th has been set for Texas death row inmate Henry 'Hank' Skinner. This is the 4th time that Skinner has been scheduled for execution, but still some DNA tests (which he claims will prove his innocence) have not been carried out.

Skinner was sentenced to death for the 1993 murders of his girlfriend Twila Busby and her two sons. He maintains that he could not have committed the crimes because he was unconscious during the murders after taking alcohol and drugs (toxicology tests indicated this). For over ten years, prosecutors and state courts have refused to allow blood, fingernail scrapings, and hair found at the crime scene to be tested. However, a new state law that allows increased access to post-conviction DNA testing could help Skinner to have the evidence finally tested. The execution date will make this more difficult. Furthermore, a federal court ruling on whether prosecutors must turn over DNA evidence for testing is still being awaited, and Skinner's lawyers believe that the setting of an execution date is a tactic designed to make it tougher for the court to adequately weigh the matter. 

At Skinner's trial, the prosecution presented DNA evidence showing Skinner's blood at the scene. An ex-girlfriend also told jurors that he confessed to her (she later recanted her testimony by the way). However, other available DNA evidence, including a rape kit, biological material from under Twila Busby's fingernails, sweat from a man's jacket resembling one that another potential suspect often wore, a bloody towel, and knives, have never even been tested. 

I don't know if Skinner is innocent. But to even consider carrying out such an irreversible punishment as execution before all the evidence has been tested is unthinkable. Surely, if the state is so certain that Skinner is guilty, it won't hurt to double-check. All this shying away from untested evidence suggests to me that they're worried what the results might be. So, like in the Todd Willingham case, is this another instance of Texas sweeping the ugly truths about the death penalty under the rug - that capital punishment is so precious that anything which might show death row inmates to be innocent must be ignored?

If Skinner is guilty, the untested DNA evidence should only further prove this. But there is chance that they might prove Skinner to be innocent, and until we know which one it is, executing the man is another example of the death penalty gambling with innocent lives.