Texas Court Halts Execution in Dallas Murder

Article publishes on "The Texas Tribune" on May 27, 2016 ... Read More

The execution of a man whose original trial included a hypnotized eyewitness was stopped by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals Friday evening.

The execution of a man whose original trial included a hypnotized eyewitness was stopped by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals Friday evening.

Charles Don Flores, 46, was convicted in the 1998 murder of 64-year-old Elizabeth “Betty” Black during a home burglary in a Dallas suburb. He was scheduled to die next Thursday after 17 years on death row.

In his latest appeal, filed to the state’s high court about two weeks ago, his attorneys argued that Flores should get a new trial because the linchpin of the state’s original case was based on the “fundamentally flawed” hypnosis of Black’s neighbor Jill Bargainer, who testified as an eyewitness in Flores‘ trial. [Read more on “The Texas Tribune]