SCOTUS Denies Last-Minute Death Row Plea

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A Texas man sits on death row today because a hypnotized witness — who twice failed to pick him out of a photo lineup — suddenly remembered his face after a police officer with zero hypnosis training put her under.

Story Snapshot

The U.S. Supreme Court denied Charles Flores’ appeal on June 15, 2026, without a single word of explanation.
The only evidence linking Flores to the 1998 murder came from a witness hypnotized by an untrained police officer — after she failed two photo lineups.
The man who admitted to pulling the trigger pleaded guilty, served 17 years, and walked free in 2016. Flores is still waiting to be executed.
Texas banned hypnosis testimony in 2023 — but the law does not apply retroactively to Flores’ 1999 conviction.
Even the prosecutors on the case filed a motion supporting Flores’ appeal. The Supreme Court still said no.

One Witness, Two Failed Lineups, and Then a Hypnotist

On the morning of January 29, 1998, Betty Black was murdered during a home burglary in Farmers Branch, Texas. A neighbor named Jill Bargainer saw two men near the scene. She described the passenger as a tall white man with long hair. Charles Flores is Hispanic, short, and stocky, with a shaved head. Bargainer could not pick Flores out of two separate photo lineups. Then police hypnotized her. After that session, conducted by an officer with no hypnosis training, she identified Flores with confidence.^[4]

Forensic psychologists have a name for what likely happened. Hypnosis does not sharpen memory — it inflates confidence in whatever memory the subject already holds, accurate or not. Research going back decades shows that hypnotized witnesses are highly open to suggestion, often filling in memory gaps with details planted — sometimes unintentionally — by the person running the session.^[18] A witness who is uncertain before hypnosis frequently becomes certain afterward, and juries tend to believe certain witnesses. That is a dangerous combination when a man’s life is on the line.

The Admitted Shooter Went Home. Flores Did Not.

Richard Childs admitted he was the one who shot Betty Black. He pleaded guilty, served 17 years in prison, and was released in 2016.^[3] Flores, convicted under Texas’ “law of parties” — which holds a person responsible for a crime committed by someone else during a joint criminal act — never fired a weapon and was never physically placed at the scene by any forensic evidence. No fingerprints, no DNA, no fibers, no footprints linked Flores to the crime.^[4] The entire case against him rested on Bargainer’s post-hypnosis identification.

Penn and Teller, Prosecutors, and a Law That Came Too Late

The legal fight around Flores has drawn some unusual allies. Magicians Penn and Teller filed a formal legal brief with the U.S. Supreme Court on March 12, 2024, arguing that investigative hypnosis is junk science that manufactures false memories rather than recovering real ones.^[3] The Innocence Project joined the effort. Even the Dallas County prosecutors who originally handled the case filed a motion supporting Flores’ appeal — a remarkable move that signals serious doubt about the conviction’s foundation.^[1] Texas itself passed a law in 2023 banning hypnosis testimony in criminal trials.^[1] The problem is that law does not reach back to 1999.

The Supreme Court’s Silence Says Everything and Nothing

On June 15, 2026, the Supreme Court denied Flores’ petition without comment.^[1] The Court does this routinely — it is not a ruling on the merits. But the practical effect is the same: Flores stays on death row. Courts have repeatedly dismissed his appeals without examining the substance of the hypnosis evidence.^[4] That pattern of procedural rejection, rather than factual review, is exactly what troubles legal experts most about this case. The system is not saying Flores is guilty beyond doubt. It is saying the deadline to argue otherwise has passed.

Charles 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. The Supreme Court denied the petition without comment.https://t.co/AYB7bsIKyd

— myparistexas.com (@myparistexas1) June 16, 2026

There is a reasonable conservative argument for finality in criminal convictions — courts cannot relitigate every case forever, and the law of parties exists for good reason. But finality only carries moral weight when the original trial was fair. When the sole identification witness failed every lineup before being hypnotized by an untrained officer, when zero physical evidence exists, and when the man who pulled the trigger has been free for nearly a decade, the foundation of that finality deserves hard scrutiny. Science has moved on. Texas law has moved on. Charles Flores has not.