Charles Flores: Texas: Fusion Magazine story on how hypnosis put Charles Flores on Texas death row: "Meth, hypnosis, and murder: An incredible true story of race and punishment on Texas’ death row."..."Flores’ defense attorneys scrambled to throw her testimony out based on the hypnosis. As they pointed out, the hypnosis session violated several standards laid out in a Texas case called Zani v. State. Under that case decision, hypnosis sessions were supposed to be conducted independent of the investigating police department, held outside a law enforcement atmosphere, and conducted in a room that was empty except for the subject and hypnotizer. The videotape of any hypnosis session was also supposed to show everyone present in the room where the session took place. Barganier was hypnotized by a Farmers Branch police officer, in a room in the Farmers Branch police department, while another investigator sat in the room. And the videotape only shows her, and neither of the two officers. It’s also not clear how much Barganier could have seen on the day of the murder. The sun didn’t rise that day didn’t until 7:25 a.m., according to an almanac submitted as evidence in the trial, while she claimed to have seen the men at 6:45 a.m. The house where the murder took place. And the fact that she had suddenly identified Flores after 13 months raised questions of bias. Barganier admitted that she had seen photos of Flores in the news in the months before the trial. Judge Nelms pointed out that everyone sitting at the prosecution and defense benches was white, except for Flores. “Honestly you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to pick out who is the Hispanic individual in the courtroom,” he said. But he concluded that Barganier’s testimony was reliable. The next day, she told the jury that she had seen Flores get out of the car and go into Black’s house. A prosecutor asked how sure she was. “100 percent sure,” she responded."" (Must, Must Read. HL);

GIST: Bill Black found the body of his wife Betty in their living room. The bullet had gone through her wrists and her chest—she had been holding her hands up to defend herself. A few yards away, in another room, her doberman Santana was also lying on the floor dead, a bullet through her back. The killing of 64-year-old Elizabeth “Betty” Black, on Thursday, January 29, 1998, shook the tranquil Dallas suburb of Farmers Branch. Within days, police charged two drug dealers with Black’s murder: Richard Lynn Childs, who’s white, and Charles Flores, who’s Latino. Flores claimed he was innocent. He went to trial and a jury sentenced him to death. A year later, Childs pled guilty to the murder. He was sentenced to 35 years in prison, eligible for parole after 17. Today, almost two decades after Black’s murder, the two defendants are in very different situations. Flores is set to be executed on June 2. Childs was released on parole in April. No physical or DNA evidence placed Flores at the scene of the crime. The only eyewitness who testified that she saw him there was hypnotized by police officers—yes, actually hypnotized—to help her recover her memory, in a procedure that violated state standards on hypnosis by law enforcement. Meanwhile, Flores’ court-appointed trial attorneys didn’t present a single witness in his favor during his sentencing. I met Flores last month at the Allan B. Polunsky prison in West Livingston, Texas, a grey, boxy building where almost all of the state’s 263 death row inmates are held. Flores, who’s big and bald, speaks with a slight Texas drawl. “I’m innocent,” he told me. “They were looking for someone to blame.”.........His appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court was rejected in January, but Flores’ lawyers are still working to find a way to postpone the execution date. Bruce Anton, his federal appeals attorney, said he was planning to file several new appeals in the coming days. Anton told me he thinks the case is an example of a lack of adequate counsel. “His attorneys at trial failed him, his attorneys on appeal failed him, his original federal attorneys failed him,” Anton said. “He did not have the opportunity to present his case in the right light.” (Flores’ lead trial attorney did not respond to a request for an interview.)