Is Texas about to execute another innocent man by ignoring contemporary science?

In a case fraught with all the hallmarks of a wrongful conviction, Charles has been denied a new trial.

Tell Texas authorities: Do not kill this innocent man!

The shocking “Hypnotized Witness” Case of Charles Don Flores:

Charles Don Flores’s wrongful conviction is a result of an identification made long after the crime by a witness who had repeatedly failed to identify Mr. Flores and described seeing two perpetrators who looked nothing like him. Her identification of Mr. Flores was made for the first time mid-trial, after she had been subjected to “investigative hypnosis” and after she had been exposed, on multiple occasions, to Mr. Flores’s photo.

The fruits of investigative hypnosis are now banned from Texas criminal trials because it is junk science. But Mr. Flores remains on death row and is at serious risk of execution because no court has yet considered the evidence of a profoundly corrupted trial.

February 2026 case update:

A petition for writ of certiorari was filed with the United State Supreme Court on behalf of Charles Don Flores, an innocent man sentenced to death in Texas in 1999 on the basis of the in-court identification by a witness who had been subjected to a highly suggestive “investigative hypnosis” session conducted by police involved in the murder investigation.

Mr. Flores’s petition explains that the Texas Legislature has passed statutory provisions specifically designed to protect innocent people from wrongful execution. Those include a provision allowing prisoners to return to court with a subsequent application for writ of habeas corpus to present evidence of their innocence and a law establishing a lower standard of proof in cases involving changes in scientific understanding since the time of the trial. The petition also cites a law, inspired in part by Mr. Flores’s own case, that now bans the use of testimony affected by “investigative hypnosis” in criminal proceedings. Yet despite these legislative safeguards, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has repeatedly denied Mr. Flores even the opportunity to present the evidence of his innocence. The Court of Criminal Appeals has never granted relief to a death-sentenced prisoner under Article 11.073, the “changed science” writ, though it has done so in several factually similar cases that did not involve a death sentence.

Mr. Flores’s petition asks the United States Supreme Court to consider the following question presented:

“Where a state has created liberty interests that give death-sentenced prisoners with credible claims of innocence vehicles for proving their innocence in subsequent habeas proceedings, is the federal right to due process violated when the putatively innocent is arbitrarily denied permission to exercise the right to prove his innocence?”

We need your help!

Organized by Charles’ longtime friends and supporters, a new fundraising campaign comes from a place of deep urgency and love. Every dollar raised will fund critical investigative work in an effort to prevent the execution of someone who merely wants a chance to prove his innocence.

Please donate today and help give Charles the chance he’s been denied for far too long.