Supreme Court Rejects Texas Death-Row Bid Over Hypnosis

The U.S. Supreme Court on June 15 declined to hear an appeal by Texas death-row inmate Charles Flores, whose lawyers argued that “investigative hypnosis” tainted eyewitness identification. The case drew support from Penn & Teller, who told the court that such

The U.S. Supreme Court on June 15 rejected an appeal by a Texas death-row inmate whose case had been taken up by the famous magician duo Penn & Teller.

The justices declined to hear a challenge from Charles Flores. convicted of shooting a suburban Dallas woman in 1998 during an attempted robbery of her home. Flores’ lawyers argued that his trial was “irreparably tainted by junk science and official misconduct. ” and they pointed to the way police questioned a key witness.

That witness testified she saw Flores enter the woman’s house after police used “investigative hypnosis.” In a brief filed in support of Flores. Penn & Teller urged the court to treat the technique as “flim-flam. ” describing themselves as “master manipulators of perception” who. in their view. have an obligation to “expose flim-flam when they see it.”.

“Penn & Teller acknowledge that they are experts in magic, not law,” their lawyer wrote. “But they believe there is something fundamentally amiss in the justice system if flim-flam like investigative hypnosis can be used by law enforcement to reconfigure the gap-laden memory of a key witness in a capital prosecution.”.

A neighbor of the murdered woman initially described seeing two White men with long hair enter the home. She did not select Flores—described as a Hispanic man with short, shaved hair—in a photo lineup. A composite computer drawing she later produced also did not resemble Flores.

Flores’ attorneys argued that the witness was then primed to alter her memory through a hypnosis session that included questions about details like hair length and grooming. They cited the kind of leading prompt used: “Does he have it neatly cut or is it trimmed. ” the witness was asked of the man she had earlier said had long. dirty hair.

Near the end of the session, the officer told the witness she would “be able to recall more of these events as time goes on.”

At trial 13 months later, after Flores’ photograph had appeared in news stories, the witness testified that she was “100%” sure she saw Flores enter the house. Prosecutors argued Flores has had multiple opportunities to challenge his conviction.

Two weeks before Flores was scheduled to be executed in 2016, he was given a chance to raise new concerns about the witnesses’ identification. After an evidentiary hearing, Flores was denied a new trial.

The Supreme Court declined to hear appeals from Flores in 2021 and again in 2022. In response to his most recent petition. prosecutors told the court that Flores’ filing “essentially repackaged and reasserted the same claims.” Flores’ attorneys countered that he was raising new information. including a “new consensus in the scientific study of eyewitness memory.”.

They also emphasized that Texas passed a law in 2013 to help defendants show that since-discredited science contributed to wrongful convictions. In their telling, the state’s highest criminal court has ruled against every death-sentence prisoner who has invoked that law.

“There is a Texas-sized due process problem burdening death-sentenced individuals like Flores with credible claims of innocence,” Flores’ attorneys wrote to the court.

The decision means the Supreme Court will not review the argument that investigative hypnosis distorted a pivotal identification in a capital case—leaving Penn & Teller’s appeal for reform of eyewitness evidence without a ruling from the nation’s highest court.

Supreme Court Charles Flores Penn & Teller death penalty investigative hypnosis eyewitness identification Texas due process junk science