Lawmakers try again to bar hypnosis-induced evidence from Texas criminal trials

Despite its tendency to distort memories, hypnosis has been used on witnesses in numerous investigations, including death penalty cases. Gov. Greg Abbott vetoed a similar bill in 2021.

For the second session in a row, the Texas Legislature has passed a bill that would ban hypnosis-induced statements from being introduced as evidence in criminal trials. Lawmakers are hopeful the governor won’t veto it again this year.

Despite scientific evidence that hypnosis can distort memories, Texas police and prosecutors have routinely relied on witnesses who identify suspects after being hypnotized by a police officer. The controversial policing practice was used close to 1,800 times in Texas over the course of 40 years, according to a 2020 Dallas Morning News investigation, and played a role in sending numerous people to death row, including a man who was executed last year.

By prohibiting the courtroom use of statements made during or after a police-led hypnosis session, Senate Bill 338 would largely ban the practice altogether. The Texas Rangers, who according to the News performed the lion’s share of the state’s police hypnosis sessions, stopped using the technique in 2021, citing “more advanced interview and interrogation techniques that yield better results.”

After receiving unanimous support in the Senate last month, the House initially passed the bill Monday and gave its final approval Tuesday on a 128-10 vote.

The bill now heads to Gov. Greg Abbott’s desk, where supporters believe it will clear the final hurdle.

Two years ago, Abbott vetoed nearly identical legislation, saying it was too broad. Under the final version of that bill, the governor said any statement given by a person who had ever been hypnotized by police would be inadmissible, no matter how long ago it was given and if it was even related to the same case.

“The House sponsor’s amendment would grant lifetime immunity, for everyone who undergoes this type of hypnosis, from having any subsequent statements used in a criminal trial,” Abbott said in his veto statement in 2021.

This year, bill authors said they addressed the governor’s concerns by tweaking the bill’s language to specify that post-hypnosis statements would only be inadmissible in court if the hypnosis was conducted for the case at hand. State Rep. Jeff Leach, the Plano Republican leading the bill in the House, assured his colleagues Tuesday that he has been working with the governor’s office.

“We’re not just thumbing our nose at the governor and sending back the same language,” state Rep. Joe Moody, an El Paso Democrat and chair of the House Criminal Jurisprudence Committee reiterated on the chamber floor. “This is directly and narrowly tailored to the exact message that we received two years ago.”

Abbott’s office did not respond to questions about his support for the bill Monday.

In legislative reports, the bill’s supporters said scientific studies have shown that hypnosis does not increase the accuracy of eyewitness recall or recognition, but it can lead witnesses to be more confident about their memories, even false ones. Concerns about the unreliability of such testimony intensify when police officers perform the hypnosis.

Still, police hypnosis sessions have been major factors in life-and-death cases, including that of Charles Flores.

Flores, 53, has been on death row for nearly a quarter century for the murder of Elizabeth “Betty” Black during a home burglary in a Dallas suburb. His lawyers have long argued for a new trial, saying the linchpin of the state’s original case was the hypnosis of Black’s neighbor, who testified as an eyewitness in Flores’ trial.

The neighbor, Jill Barganier, originally told police she saw two men arrive at Black’s house in a car shortly before the murder. She was able to identify the driver but not the passenger, who she originally described as a white man with long hair, according to Flores’ court filings. Flores, who police believed to be the passenger, is Hispanic and had buzzed hair at the time.

Barganier agreed to be hypnotized by a local police officer, and she again described the passenger as a white man with long hair, despite being asked questions about whether the man had short, shaved hair, according to Flores’ lawyers. Immediately after the session, she was shown Flores in a photo lineup of other Hispanic men with short hair, which a psychology professor and hypnosis expert hired by Flores said could have implanted a false memory. Barganier first identified Flores as the passenger on the witness stand.

Source: texastribune.org, Jolie McCullough, May 23, 2023

_____________________________________________________________________

FOLLOW US ON:

CONTACT: deathpenaltynews@gmail.com

"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted."

— Oscar Wilde

Florida executes Michael Tanzi

Florida on Tuesday executed a death row inmate described by one local detective as a "fledgling serial killer" for the murder of a beloved Miami Herald employee. Florida executed Michael Tanzi on Tuesday, 25 years after the murder of beloved Miami Herald employee Janet Acosta, who was attacked in broad daylight on her lunch break in 2000. Michael Tanzi, 48, was executed by lethal injection at the Florida State Prison in Raiford and pronounced dead at 6:12 p.m. ET.

South Carolina | Man who ambushed off-duty cop to face firing squad in second execution of its kind

Mikal Mahdi, 48, who was found guilty of killing an off-duty police officer and a convenience store worker, is the second inmate scheduled to executed by South Carolina's new firing squad A murderer who ambushed and shot an off duty police officer eight times before burning his body in a killing spree is set to become the second person to die by firing squad. South Carolina's highest court has rejected the last major appeal from Mikal Mahdi, 41, who is to be put to death with three bullets to the heart at 6pm on April 11 at the Broad River Correctional Institution in Columbia. Mahdi's lawyers said his original lawyers put on a shallow case trying to spare his life that didn't call on relatives, teachers or people who knew him and ignored the impact of weeks spent in solitary confinement in prison as a teen.

Afghanistan | Four men publicly executed by Taliban with relatives of victims shooting them 'six or seven times' at sport stadium

Four men have been publicly executed by the Taliban, with relatives of their victims shooting them several times in front of spectators at a sport stadium. Two men were shot around six to seven times by a male relative of the victims in front of spectators in Qala-i-Naw, the centre of Afghanistan's Badghis province, witnesses told an AFP journalist in the city. The men had been 'sentenced to retaliatory punishment' for shooting other men, after their cases were 'examined very precisely and repeatedly', the statement said. 'The families of the victims were offered amnesty and peace but they refused.'

South Carolina executes Mikal Mahdi

Mikal Mahdi, 42, was executed for the 2004 murder of 56-year-old James Myers A man facing the death penalty for committing two murders was executed by firing squad on Friday, the second such execution in the US state of South Carolina this year. Mikal Mahdi, 42, was executed for the 2004 murder of 56-year-old James Myers, an off-duty police officer, and the murder of a convenience store employee three days earlier. According to a statement from the prison, "the execution was performed by a three-person firing squad at 6:01 pm (2201 GMT)," with Mahdi pronounced dead four minutes later.

USA | Why the firing squad may be making a comeback

South Carolina plans to execute Mikal Mahdi on Friday for the murder of a police officer, draping a hood over his head and firing three bullets into his heart. The choice to die by firing squad – rather than lethal injection or the electric chair – was Mahdi’s own, his attorney said last month: “Faced with barbaric and inhumane choices, Mikal Mahdi has chosen the lesser of three evils.” If it proceeds, Mahdi’s execution would be the latest in a recent string of events that have put the spotlight on the firing squad as a handful of US death penalty states explore alternatives to lethal injection, by far the nation’s dominant execution method.

I spent 16 years in solitary in South Carolina. This is what it did to me. | Opinion

South Carolinian Randy Poindexter writes about the effects 16 years of solitary confinement had on him ahead of South Carolina’s planned execution of Mikal Mahdi , who spent months in solitary as a young man. For 16 years, I lived in a concrete cell. Twenty-three hours a day, every day, for more than 3,000 days, South Carolina kept me in solitary confinement. I was a young man before I was sent to solitary — angry, untreated and unwell. I made mistakes. But I wasn’t sentenced to madness. That’s what solitary did to me. My mental health worsened with each passing day. At first, paranoia and depression set in. Then, hallucinations and self-mutilation. I talked to people who weren’t there. I cut myself to feel something besides despair. I could do nothing as four of my friends and fellow prisoners took their own lives rather than endure another day of torturous isolation.

Louisiana | Lawyers of Jessie Hoffman speak about their final moments before execution

As Louisiana prepared its first execution in 15 years, a team of lawyers from Loyola Law were working to save Jessie Hoffman’s life. “I was a young lawyer three years out of law school, and Jessie was almost finished with his appeals at that time, and my boss told me we needed to file something for Jessie because he’s in danger of being executed,” Kappel said. Kappel and her boss came up with a civil lawsuit to file that said since they wouldn’t give him a protocol for his execution, he was being deprived of due process, and the lawsuit was in the legal process for the next 10 years.

Lethal Injection, Electric Chair, or Firing Squad? An Inhumane Decision for Death Row Prisoners

South Carolina resumed executions with the firing squad killing of Brad Sigmon last month. Mikal Madhi’s execution date is days away. The curtain shrieked as it was yanked open to reveal a 67-year-old man tied to a chair. His arms were pulled uncomfortably behind his back. The red bull’s-eye target on his chest rose and fell as he desperately attempted to still his breathing. The man, Brad Sigmon, smiled at his attorney, Bo King, seated in the front row before guards placed a black bag over his head. King said Sigmon appeared to be trying his best to put on a brave face for those who had come to bear witness.

Arizona | The cruelty of isolation: There’s nothing ‘humane’ about how we treat the condemned

On March 19, I served as a witness to the execution of a man named Aaron Gunches, Arizona’s first since 2022. During his time on death row, he begged for death and was ultimately granted what is likely more appropriately described as an emotionless state-assisted suicide. This experience has profoundly impacted me, leading to deep reflection on the nature of death, humanity, and the role we play in our final moments. When someone is in the end stages of life, we talk about hospice care, comfort, care, easing suffering and humane death. We strive for a “good death” — a peaceful transition. I’ve seen good ones, and I’ve seen bad, unplanned ones.

Execution date set for prisoner transferred to Oklahoma to face death penalty

An inmate who was transferred to Oklahoma last month to face the death penalty now has an execution date. George John Hanson, also known as John Fitzgerald Hanson, is scheduled to die on June 12 for the 1999 murder of 77-year-old Mary Bowles. The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals on Tuesday set the execution date. The state’s Pardon and Parole Board has a tentative date of May 7 for Hanson’s clemency hearing, executive director Tom Bates said.

Death Penalty News

Search This Blog