HOUSTON (AP) - A federal appeals court says a Texas death row inmate may appeal his conviction for killing a mother and her two children at their Texas Panhandle home more than 15 years ago.

Henry Watkins Skinner is now 46. The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals says he may pursue arguments that a blood-spatter report should have been used by his lawyers at his capital murder trial to bolster his defense.

The New Orleans-based court also agreed Skinner's trial lawyers should have called a woman as a defense witness to support his insistence that another man was responsible for the slayings.

Skinner was convicted in 1995 of fatally bludgeoning his 40-year-old girlfriend, Twila Jean Busby, with an ax handle at her Pampa home on New Year's Eve 1993. Her two mentally impaired sons, 22-year-old Elwin Caler and 20-year-old Randy Busby, were then fatally stabbed.

Several other appeals claims submitted to the court were rejected, including one that sought additional DNA testing.

(Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

AP-NY-05-15-08 1221EDT