The U.S. Supreme Court has dismissed the appeal of Charles Flores, a death row inmate in Texas, who sought to compel the state’s highest criminal court to reconsider his case. The court denied his petition without providing any commentary.
Flores contended that his 1999 conviction should be overturned under Texas’s “junk science” law. He claimed that the testimony from a critical witness was inappropriately influenced by hypnosis conducted by a police officer investigating the murder of 64-year-old Elizabeth “Betty” Black in Dallas County.
The Texas junk science law allows inmates to contest convictions that relied on outdated or disproven scientific methods. However, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals declined to review Flores’ claims, stating that he did not fulfill the legal requirement of presenting new evidence that was previously unavailable, among other stipulations. Consequently, the Supreme Court rejected his request for the Texas court to reexamine the matter.
On the morning of the murder, Jill Barganier, a neighbor of Black, reported seeing two men enter Black’s home. To enhance her memory, she requested to undergo hypnosis, which was performed by Farmers Branch police officer Alfredo Roen Serna, who had no prior experience with hypnosis, according to Flores’ assertions to the Supreme Court.
Prior to the hypnosis, Barganier described the two men as white with long hair. Flores, a Hispanic man, had short hair at the time of the incident. Additionally, she did not identify Flores during a photo lineup; it was only when she testified in court that she identified him as one of the suspects.
A law enacted by the Texas Legislature in 2023 renders evidence obtained through “investigative hypnosis performed by a law enforcement agency” inadmissible in court. In 2016, the Court of Criminal Appeals temporarily halted Flores’ execution due to concerns regarding the hypnosis process, but his attempt to overturn the conviction through the junk science law was ultimately unsuccessful.
Flores’ attorney, Gretchen Sween, emphasized that his conviction is based on testimony that is now prohibited in Texas courts. She remarked, “The new science surrounding memory indicates that the initial evaluations of an eyewitness’s memory are the only dependable ones—not the compromised testimony of a witness who was hypnotized and made an identification 13 months after the crime.”
Sween criticized the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals for establishing arbitrary barriers that hinder death-sentenced individuals with legitimate claims of innocence from having their cases heard. “For too long, these inmates, like Charles Flores, have been denied the opportunity to present their evidence of innocence before facing execution,” she stated.
She pledged to continue pursuing all avenues to establish Flores’ innocence, asserting, “All he desires is a fair trial free from unreliable testimony and official misconduct.”
