Death Penalty News

Charles Flores argued that his conviction was improperly based on testimony from a witness who changed her recollection after hypnosis by an investigator. The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday rejected Texas death row inmate Charles Flores’ efforts to force the state’s highest criminal court to reconsider his appeal. The Supreme Court denied the petition without comment. Flores argued that his 1999 conviction should be overturned under the Texas “junk science” law because testimony from a key witness was improperly influenced by hypnosis performed by a police officer who was investigating the murder of 64-year-old Elizabeth “Betty” Black in Dallas County.

A Texas man sentenced to death row with the help of “hypnotized” witness testimony is asking a Dallas County judge not to set his execution date as his attorneys try to prove he was wrongfully convicted with junk science. The move from Charles Don Flores’ attorneys comes in response to the Texas Attorney General’s Office request that a Dallas judge set an execution date for Flores in a letter Monday. Tomee Heining, chief of the AG’s Criminal Appeals Division, offered several dates in November as available for Flores’ execution.

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.

Conservative super-majority especially unwilling to consider appeals, in stance that has flown under the radar On Monday, the US supreme court issued an order in the pending execution of Robert Fratta, a former police officer from Houston who was sentenced to death for the 1994 murder-for-hire of his estranged wife. Lawyers for the condemned man had petitioned the court in a last-ditch effort to save his life. They argued that critical evidence at his trial given by a key witness had been tainted, as she had been encouraged under hypnosis to change her testimony.

A former suburban Houston police officer was executed Tuesday for hiring two people to kill his estranged wife nearly 30 years ago amid a contentious divorce and custody battle. Robert Fratta, 65, received a lethal injection at the state penitentiary in Huntsville for the November 1994 fatal shooting of his wife, Farah. He was pronounced dead at 7:49 p.m., 24 minutes after the lethal dose of the powerful sedative pentobarbital began flowing into his arms.

Robert Fratta set to die Tuesday night Texas prison officials have already scheduled 9 executions for 2023, more than in all of last year. The first 3 prisoners facing death – Robert Fratta (tonight, Jan. 10), Wesley Ruiz, and John Balentine – are asking that the state investigate whether the drugs Texas uses in its lethal injections are expired and could cause pain and suffering in the execution process. So far, no court has granted the request.

Texas executes Kosoul Chanthakoummane for the 2006 murder of a real estate agent DNA evidence tied Chanthakoummane to Sarah Walker’s murder at a model home in Collin County. In last-minute appeals, his attorneys argue the evidence was not conclusive. Texas executed Kosoul Chanthakoummane on Wednesday for the 2006 murder of a real estate agent in a Collin County model home. It was the second execution this year in a state that typically puts more people to death than any other. Chanthakoummane, 41, was sentenced to death for the murder of Sarah Walker, who was brutally beaten and stabbed to death while showing a home in a McKinney subdivision. The 40-year-old’s Rolex watch and ring were missing when police arrived. Witnesses placed Chanthakoummane at the model home, and a bite mark on Walker’s back and blood under her fingernails and at the scene were linked to him, according to court records. The death row prisoner long claimed he was innocent. No one from Walker’s family attended Wedn...

The victim's father opposed the execution and said he forgave his daughter's killer. HOUSTON (AP) — A man who fatally stabbed a real estate agent inside a model home in suburban Dallas faces execution Wednesday evening, more than 16 years after the slaying. Kosoul Chanthakoummane was on parole when he was condemned for killing 40-year-old Sarah Walker in July 2006. She was found stabbed more than 30 times in the model home in McKinney, about 30 miles (48 km) north of Dallas. Prosecutors say Chanthakoummane entered the model home and then beat Walker with a wooden plant stand and stabbed her before stealing her Rolex watch and a silver ring, which were never found.  DNA evidence showed Chanthakoummane’s blood was found in various places inside the model home, including under Walker’s fingernails. Walker had been a top-seller for home builder D.R. Horton. She had been recently divorced and had two children. Chanthakoummane, 41, the son of immigrants from Laos, has acknowledged he...

Kosoul Chanthakoummane is set to be executed August 17 for the murder of a Dallas realtor in a case built on hypnosis and faulty evidence. Kosoul Chanthakoummane, the son of Laotian immigrants, is set to be executed on Aug. 17 in Texas for the murder of Dallas-area realtor Sarah Walker. On the afternoon of July 8, 2006, Walker’s body was discovered by a couple visiting a model home in the Craig Ranch subdivision in McKinney. She had been stabbed 33 times, but the Collin County Medical Examiner noted that ten knife wounds had punctured vital organs or blood vessels—any one would have been fatal. She had put up a fight. She had a broken nose and fractured teeth. And—a point that would later prove critical at the trial—she had a bite mark on the back of her neck. Discredited forensic techniques were subsequently used to help convict Chanthakoummane of capital murder, including long-debunked bite mark evidence and hypnosis of witnesses. Forensic dentistry consultant Brent Hutson was broug...

The high court denied Charles Don Flores’ petition for review without comment, leaving it up to Texas legislators to determine whether police should continue the controversial practice. AUSTIN — The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal from a Texas death row inmate who argued that hypnosis helped convict him of murder. The decision was a blow to inmate Charles Don Flores, who was sentenced to death for the murder of Farmers Branch resident Elizabeth “Betty” Black in 1998. It was also a setback for critics of the use of hypnosis by Texas law enforcement officers, who had hoped the Supreme Court would rule that investigative hypnosis is junk science that has no place in U.S. courts. Flores’ lawyer, Gretchen Sween, said she will continue to fight for her client’s release from prison, but she wished the high court had taken a look at how hypnosis helped put him there. “I do think one of the positive things that has come out of this litigation is that Charles’ case has unsettled a ...

Ruling did not weigh merits of controversial tactic in death row case A Texas court has denied the death row appeal of inmate Charles Don Flores, who argued he was improperly convicted in part due to evidence gleaned through hypnosis. In an order issued Wednesday, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals did not weigh the merits of investigative hypnosis, the controversial tactic used for decades by law enforcement in the Lone Star State. Instead, the court agreed with a lower court's ruling that Flores could not challenge the use of hypnosis in his case under the state's "junk science law," which allows people to contest their convictions if new scientific findings contradict evidence presented in their case. Opponents saw the case as a chance to ban the longtime practice of presenting at trial evidence gleaned through a hypnosis session. Top Texas courts have not broached the topic since 2004 and the state's investigative hypnosis guidelines, first lai...

AUSTIN — For many people, the word “hypnosis” evokes images of swinging pocket watches, swirling vortexes and impressionable subjects mesmerized by movie villains. They think of Get Out, The Manchurian Candidate, even Office Space. But in the Lone Star State, it isn’t a parlor trick or Hollywood ploy. Here, hypnosis is a matter of life and death. Texas has the most robust forensic hypnosis program in the country, training police officers across the state to sharpen or recall crime witnesses’ lost memories. As more and more states ban the practice, law enforcement here turns to it at least a dozen times a year. Now, two Dallas-area death row inmates are arguing it’s time to stop. Their executions have been delayed as they fight their convictions, which they claim were based on “junk science.” “Once you have, at a minimum, serious questions that a technique sent a man to death row, you need to change the way you use that technique,” Gregory Gardner, an attorney who...

Charles Flores Charles Flores, a Texas death row inmate who was scheduled to be executed next week June 2, was granted a stay of execution late Friday afternoon. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals stayed Flores’ execution date and sent his case back to the trial court for a hearing based on his claim that improper hypnosis was used on the main eyewitness in his murder trial. As Fusion reported earlier this month , Flores was convicted for the 1998 murder of Elizabeth “Betty” Black in a Dallas suburb. A jury sentenced him to death the following year even though prosecutors presented no physical evidence linking him to the crime, and the only witness who saw him at the scene, Jill Barganier, was hypnotized by police. As part of Flores’ final appeal, which was filed last week , psychology professor Steven Lynn said in an affidavit that recent research shows the hypnosis could have made Barganier create false memories. “Clearly, the techniques that were used to refresh Ms...

Charles Flores The next person in America scheduled to be executed has filed his final appeal, arguing that his conviction for murder was based on "flimsy" evidence and was racially motivated. Charles Flores, a Texas inmate who is schedule to receive a lethal injection on June 2, filed a legal brief to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals late Thursday afternoon. He currently has 13 days to live. As Fusion reported earlier this month, Flores was convicted for the 1998 murder of Elizabeth "Betty" Black in a Dallas suburb. He was sentenced to death even though the prosecution presented no physical evidence linking him to the crime, and the only witness who saw him at the scene was improperly hypnotized by police. Meanwhile, Flores' white co-defendant, who was also charged with the murder, pled guilty, received a 35-year prison sentence, and is now out on parole. The brief Flores' lawyers filed Thursday is an application for a writ of habeas cor...