Texas death row inmate Charles Flores is currently seeking to compel the state’s highest criminal court to evaluate whether his murder conviction was compromised due to witness testimony that may have been improperly influenced by hypnosis.
In 1999, Flores was sentenced to death for the robbery and murder of 64-year-old Betty Black, who, along with her dog, was shot dead in her Dallas County home. The crime scene was reportedly ransacked in search of a significant amount of money that Black’s son, a drug dealer, was rumored to have kept in the residence.
During the trial, prosecutors heavily relied on the testimony of Jill Barganier, a neighbor who confidently identified Flores as “100 percent” one of the two men she observed entering Black’s home on the morning of the murder.
Flores has now presented his case to the U.S. Supreme Court, contending that Barganier’s identification was significantly affected by hypnosis conducted by investigators after her initial descriptions did not align with Flores’ appearance. According to Flores, this procedure undermined the integrity of her testimony.
Barganier testified that she requested hypnosis from the police to improve her description of the two men she had seen. This hypnosis session was conducted by Farmers Branch police officer Alfredo Roen Serna, who had no prior experience in administering hypnosis, as outlined in Flores’ petition to the Supreme Court.
Initially, Barganier described the suspects as two white men with long hair. At the time, Flores was a Hispanic man with short hair, which raised concerns about the reliability of her identification. During the hypnosis session, Serna allegedly prompted Barganier twice about whether one of the suspects had short hair, even as she maintained that both men had shoulder-length hair.
Following the hypnosis session, Barganier did not identify Flores when presented with a photo lineup. It was only while she was on the witness stand that she identified him as one of the men she had seen near Black’s home, according to the petition.
Interestingly, the trial judge noted that Flores was the only Hispanic individual present in the courtroom but dismissed concerns raised by Flores’ defense attorney. The attorney argued that both the hypnosis process and media coverage surrounding Flores’ trial had influenced Barganier’s memory. The trial did not present any material evidence linking Flores to the crime, such as DNA or fingerprints.
Flores’ petition asserts that Serna’s inquiries regarding trimmed hair during the hypnosis session, coupled with the investigators’ apparent preference for Flores as a suspect, led Barganier to mistakenly believe she had seen him.
He is asking the Supreme Court to direct the nine judges on the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals to assess whether the use of police hypnosis violated the state’s “junk science” law. This law permits inmates to challenge convictions that were based on discredited scientific methods or procedures. To comply with the law, defendants must provide scientific evidence that was unavailable at trial and that would have likely influenced the outcome of their conviction.
Previously, the Court of Criminal Appeals rejected three of Flores’ appeals under this junk science law, most recently arguing that he failed to meet the requirement for new evidence or evidence indicating a constitutional violation.
“[In] these narrow circumstances, where a state has created a liberty interest specifically to avoid executing the innocent, due process demands more than unexplained summary dismissal in response to a substantial threshold showing of actual innocence,” Flores’ attorney, Gretchen Sween, argued.
Flores was initially scheduled for execution in 2016, but this was halted by the Texas court to review scientific evidence regarding the hypnosis of Barganier. However, the court ultimately declined to overturn Flores’ conviction based on the junk science claim.
The Dallas County district attorney’s office has defended the conviction, asserting that Flores has not introduced sufficient new evidence to satisfy the requirements of the law.
“Simply because Flores did not prevail does not mean he was not given the opportunity to be heard,” state attorneys stated in their opposition brief.
Notably, Barganier’s initial descriptions of the suspects matched Robert Childs, a Flores associate whose photo she identified in two separate lineups before the hypnosis session. Childs pleaded guilty to killing Black in 2000 after Flores’ trial and was released on parole in 2016.
The Supreme Court is set to consider Flores’ petition at its Thursday conference, with a decision on whether to take action on his request expected as early as Monday.
