We Visited Death Row for the Super Bowl. You Can Help Save This Fan's Life. (PTFO Vault)

The reason for this re-air is dire: A wrongfully convicted football fan is running out of time — and legal avenues to pursue. When Pablo sat down with Cowboys superfan Charles Flores in January, Flores’ legal team was working on a Hail Mary: petitioning the U. S. Supreme Court to review his case — and to consider whether the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals had violated his right to due process. On June 15, that effort failed. Public pressure is all that remains. Which means that the power of Charles’ story is more important than ever. As is the urgency to sign the petition to encourage the Dallas County DA to stop his execution. • Sign the petition to stop the execution of Charles Flores https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/charles • Previously on PTFO: Watching the Dallas Cowboys on Death Row https://pod.link/1685093486/episode/OTUzMDRiNzItODRkZC0xMWYwLWFjNDUtMTcyY2UwMGQ0OGVj "The Road Goes On Forever" written and performed by Robert Earl Keen, with permissions from Songs of Universal, Inc., and Keen Productions. (Pablo Torre Finds Out is independently produced by Meadowlark Media and distributed by The Athletic. The views, research and reporting expressed in this episode are solely those of Pablo Torre Finds Out and do not reflect the work or editorial input of The Athletic or its journalists.) (edited) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Pablo Torre?

  Hey, Pablo here. And I just need to tell you that today, we're re-airing what might be the most important episode we've ever done on this show, which is the story of Charles Flores. And the reason we're re-airing this episode with this new intro that you're listening to from me is out of a truly desperate sense of urgency. Because on June 15th, the US Supreme Court released the results of its June conference. And the Supreme Court officially denied the petition filed by Charles and his attorneys, and effectively refused to review his case without any comment. Which means that Charles and his attorneys have exhausted all available legal avenues on both the state and federal levels, which we'll explain more about in this episode and in the postscript afterwards.

• 0:46Pablo Torre?

  But the thing I need you to know right now is that there is a very different petition that you can sign that would be extremely helpful to Charles Flores. And so we're going to link it in the show notes right now. It's not going to take very long for you to check out. And of course, time is of the essence, as you'll see.

• 1:07Pablo Torre?

  Welcome to Pablo Torre Finds Out. I am Pablo Torre, and today, we're going to find out what this sound is.

• 1:14Speaker 01

  Sooner or later, the truth's going to come out. And I'm going to have that opportunity.

• 1:23Pablo Torre?

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• 2:07Pablo Torre?

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• 2:27Speaker 01

  To see life after this.

• 2:47Pablo Torre?

  Back when I was a magazine reporter, and this was many years before I locked myself inside the PTFO studio in New York City, I loved spending time on the road, just driving around this country. But one place I had never been before is a town in East Texas called Livingston. Livingston is the home of the Polanski Unit, a supermax prison that is otherwise known as Texas's death row.

• 3:17Pablo Torre?

  You may recall that we sent PTFO correspondent Dave Fleming to this place back in October 2024 because we wanted Dave to find out about the apparently enormous role that football fandom plays for the inmates here. The men whose last words before state execution sometimes even wind up being shout-outs to their favorite NFL team, which, in a sense, says everything.

• 3:41Pablo Torre?

  But today, more than a year later and ahead of Super Bowl Sunday, it is my turn to meet our guide to a fandom that is truly unlike any other: A remarkable inmate by the name of Charles Don Flores. A person you can hear right now as he's walking down the hall to the Polanski Unit's visitation room. This surreal place with a painting of Cookie Monster on the wall behind me, an eerie Star Wars mural across the way, and a thick pane of glass which forever separates the inmates from their kids, their family, their visitors.

• 4:23Pablo Torre?

  Charles Flores spends almost all of his life at the Polanski Unit in solitary confinement. How you doing, brother?

• 4:32Pablo Torre?

  I'm good. Charles.

• 4:36Pablo Torre?

  But now, as we'll explain, he is running out of time, even though he never should have ended up in here at all.

• 4:52Pablo Torre?

  It occurs to me that you spend 23 hours a day in solitary.

• 4:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:56Pablo Torre?

  And so you have an hour with me and I am really grateful that you're taking the time.

• 5:02Speaker 01

  Thanks so much for caring and for coming down here and for taking interest in my situation. And you know, because it's not just about me, it's about all the guys down here, right? I'm just one person out of, you know, almost 200 people down here.

• 5:19Pablo Torre?

  But the other reason I'm here, of course, is you're the Pablo Torre Finds Out official Dallas Cowboys correspondent.

• 5:25Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 5:26Pablo Torre?

  And so the first question that I have for you is how about them Cowboys?

• 5:31Speaker 01

  Oh man, how about them Cowboys?

• 5:34Pablo Torre?

  What happened?

• 5:37Speaker 01

  I think that they weren't able to adjust on defense. I think it come down to they had some good players,

• 5:48Speaker 01

  but they didn't have the right players to fit the scheme that Eberfluss was running. And then when they realized that and they tried to change it, it was like the position coaches didn't have them ready. And in the biggest moments, they failed against Detroit, you know?

• 6:04Pablo Torre?

  Yeah.

• 6:05Speaker 01

  They were playing 10 yards off the wide receiver, off of Jamison Williams, the fastest dude on the field. You're gonna give him 10 yards? He was gone. They were covering him with the safety. Come on, man. That'd be like me trying to cover.

• 6:22Pablo Torre?

  Well, can I, can I read you, can I read you the e-message that you sent us? Because I need to hold you to account as a guy with takes.

• 6:29Speaker 01

  All right.

• 6:29Pablo Torre?

  You're referencing Jamison Williams, referencing Matt Eberfluss, you're referencing the coaches. This is what you said, May 2025.

• 6:34Speaker 01

  Uh oh.

• 6:35Pablo Torre?

  Quote, "So in case you didn't hear, this is the year the Cowboys win another Super Bowl." Exclamation point. You heard it here first. And what happens, remember I predicted it. "I'm so pumped about the upcoming NFL season and college football too," end quote.

• 6:49Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 6:51Pablo Torre?

  And then some stuff happened. I was thinking about you on January 4th.

• 6:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:56Pablo Torre?

  How did you feel in truth about playing the Giants, last game of the season, and what you wanted?

• 7:03Speaker 01

  After the Detroit game, I didn't want them to win another game. Because I wanted a top 10 pick, a top 8 pick, you know? To be able to get the player that they need. And if you ask me what they need, they need a big defensive end that can rush. You know what I'm saying? So them don't grow on trees, them are at the top 10.

• 7:26Pablo Torre?

  You had one, you had one of those.

• 7:30Speaker 01

  He wasn't big enough.

• 7:31Pablo Torre?

  Micah Parsons wasn't big enough.

• 7:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, if you ever watch, like for instance, whenever they would play the San Francisco 49ers, Trent Williams would put his handles on him and it was over. He'd eliminate him. And whenever he would play an elite defensive tackle like that, that happens to him. Because he's a linebacker, he's linebacker size, right? 6'3", 250.

• 7:52Pablo Torre?

  Yeah.

• 7:53Speaker 01

  You need 6'5", 290 coming off that end, right? And so, I love Micah Parsons, but paying half of your salary to three guys would have been insane.

• 8:05Pablo Torre?

  We're just, now we're doing, now we're doing-

• 8:07Speaker 01

  Well, it would have been insane, so, so-

• 8:09Pablo Torre?

  We're doing PTI now, we're debating now. You're on pardon interruption, Charles, you and me.

• 8:13Speaker 01

  Alright, alright, alright.

• 8:14Pablo Torre?

  Are you kidding me? Are you ki- Micah Parsons wasn't big enough. He's the best player on the team. The best player- Okay, hold on, hold on, hold on.

• 8:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, he was, he was.

• 8:23Pablo Torre?

  I want to point out that you guys have the number 12 pick, the number 20 pick now.

• 8:27Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 8:28Pablo Torre?

  And you have a priority that you're placing on the future, on the long view of the next generation of Cowboys star.

• 8:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:38Pablo Torre?

  If you could tell the Dallas Cowboys a specific thing, give them a take, what do you want to tell them?

• 8:45Speaker 01

  I think they've got to stay on defense. They can't get enamored with another offensive player, no matter who it is. You have to draft defense. And you have to build from the inside out. You gotta put that defensive end, that big guy, you gotta find him, you gotta put him on there. And then with the 20th pick, get a linebacker. And then Jerry Jones, you have to spend some money in free agency. You got it, yep.

• 9:09Pablo Torre?

  Charles, Charles, it's a remarkable thing. It's a remarkable thing.

• 9:14Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 9:15Pablo Torre?

  How much faith you have in this team despite it all.

• 9:36Pablo Torre?

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• 10:20Pablo Torre?

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• 11:05Pablo Torre?

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• 12:14Pablo Torre?

  So if you missed our original interview with Charles Flores, this is where I need to jump in to tell you why the state of Texas has plans to execute him and how I got interested in his case in the first place. In 1999, Charles got sentenced to death for the murder of Betty Black, a 64-year-old woman who was shot and killed during a break-in at her home just outside of Dallas. But Charles, is worth noting, was never accused of being the person who shot Betty Black, or even carrying a weapon. In fact, there has never been any physical evidence linking him to the crime at all. What Charles was accused of, instead, was being a knowing participant in the murder and attempted robbery, to which Charles pleaded not guilty,

• 12:58Pablo Torre?

  maintaining, to this day, that he wasn't at the house in question at all. But how Charles Flores was still found guilty of capital murder despite all of that is what really blew my mind about his case. Because it involves this video.

• 13:17Speaker 03

  The first thing I remember is when I looked out the window and I saw a car pulled up into the driveway. I remember it was a VW Veyron. And I remember seeing two guys get out. And I remember looking at the passenger as he got out and remembering his dark hair, but basically the same as the driver's.

• 13:46Pablo Torre?

  In the absence of physical evidence, what the state of Texas did was use a tactic called forensic hypnosis on the eyewitness in this video. This is the victim's neighbor, a woman named Jill Bargneer. Jill Bargneer had initially told police that she saw two white men, both with long, dark hair, step out of a multicolored Volkswagen and head toward her neighbor's house. And in a photo lineup, Bargneer picked out a tall, white guy with long, dark hair named Richard Childs as the driver. But Bargneer did not identify Charles Flores, not initially. And then the forensic hypnosis happened.

• 14:26Speaker 04

  Have you ever seen the documentary film, like, on TV, like the... with the Animal Kings and show, or, you know? What we're gonna do is, is when we get you into a deep state of hypnosis, we're gonna take you to a theater. It's gonna be your own private theater. And basically what it is, you're gonna be seeing in the documentary. And you're gonna be seeing the film of the events that occurred on that day, on that morning. Go ahead. I'm gonna ask you to verbalize.

• 14:55Pablo Torre?

  I'll tell you more about the scientific absurdity of this tactic in a bit. But what you need to know right now is that at the trial of Charles Flores, more than a year later, Jill Bargneer finally identified him as the passenger Richard Childs had been driving, even though Charles, of course, has never looked like a tall, white guy with long, dark hair. And here's the kicker. In the state of Texas, there is something called the Law of Parties, which punishes knowing participants in a capital murder as if they, themselves, had fired the gun. Which is all to say that Charles Flores got sentenced to death in 1999 because a forensically hypnotized witness belatedly identified him

• 15:39Pablo Torre?

  as the passenger of the actual gunman, Richard Childs. Who, by the way, proceeded to strike a plea bargain, admitting to being the killer once Charles got convicted. Which is how Richard Childs eventually got released, on parole, back in 2016, 10 years ago now. While Charles remains trapped here, one of 161 men awaiting execution.

• 16:10Pablo Torre?

  Can you describe the surroundings for people who are just hearing us talk?

• 16:14Speaker 01

  Well, I'm a Texas death row prisoner. And we're at Polanski Unit in the visitation room.

• 16:22Pablo Torre?

  Yeah, I mean, you've been here for how long now?

• 16:24Speaker 01

  Twenty-six years.

• 16:26Pablo Torre?

  Since 99?

• 16:27Speaker 01

  Since 99.

• 16:29Pablo Torre?

  And among the 161, are you one of the elder statesmen by now? Are you one of the vets?

• 16:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, you know, I don't, I don't wanna...

• 16:40Speaker 01

  Nothing to be proud of, I guess, but yeah, I've been here a long time. And so I am one of the, one of the old school, old school cats here. And it's kind of funny because I've read that people are often, they stay the aids that they were inside their head when they were locked up.

• 17:02Speaker 01

  So I, you know, I got here, I was what, 28, I think, I believe. And, and then a lot of times I still think I'm 28, you know? And then when people, "Hey, old school, who the hell's that fool talking to?" You know what I'm saying? But it's me. I'm 56 years old now. You know what I'm saying? So that is surreal. It's kind of, it's kind of hard to comprehend, I guess.

• 17:27Pablo Torre?

  What do you remember about America, the outside world in 1999? What are the last things you remember?

• 17:33Speaker 01

  I'll tell you, I'll tell you an interesting story. In 1998, okay, that was the last time I was free. I had a cellphone, and it was the first digital cellphone that had come out. Because before then, they were analog, okay? There wasn't no text, there wasn't no pictures, much less internet or anything. It was just clear, you know what I'm saying? And that was like state of the art. So imagine that.

• 18:01Pablo Torre?

  But now, how aware are you of all the things that have happened?

• 18:04Speaker 01

  Oh, man, it's just, it's just so, you know, remember, we, we didn't have TV.

• 18:09Pablo Torre?

  Here?

• 18:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, for, until what, 20, 2023?

• 18:15Pablo Torre?

  TVs were only available in the Polanski Unit starting three, two, three years ago.

• 18:19Speaker 01

  Exactly, yes. Just so you know how much of a football fan I am. The first thing that we got to watch was the Chiefs beating the Eagles and the Super Bowl.

• 18:30Pablo Torre?

  What did it feel like to watch the Super Bowl?

• 18:32Speaker 01

  It was amazing because back in the gap in 98, they didn't have all the angles and all the ways to see the game. And to have that camera jumping around like that, it was just, it was almost like disconcerting. We'd never seen it, right? Now everybody's used to it, yeah, but wow, it's amazing.

• 18:53Pablo Torre?

  I mean, you tune back in and suddenly this is the thing that is the only thing that everyone can gather around is football. That's what's happened out here, is that football's only become the most important thing in America.

• 19:07Speaker 01

  That's right, that's right.

• 19:08Pablo Torre?

  And so we're talking, by the way, ahead of the Super Bowl.

• 19:11Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 19:12Pablo Torre?

  And so can you explain where the Super Bowl now ranks among events here?

• 19:18Speaker 01

  Okay, so it's probably a revolving thing. Christmas, Thanksgiving, Super Bowl. But let me tell you, if the Texans make it, Super Bowl's gonna be number one. You know, because the biggest population back there are the guys from Houston.

• 19:36Pablo Torre?

  Yeah.

• 19:36Speaker 01

  I don't know about C.J. Stroud, but man, that defense is scary. And you remember the Baltimore team that won the Super Bowl with Trent Dilfer?

• 19:44Pablo Torre?

  Yeah.

• 19:45Speaker 01

  They remind me of that. Didn't watch it, but I listened to it, right?

• 19:48Pablo Torre?

  I was gonna say, you were listening to these things.

• 19:50Speaker 01

  I listened to it, yeah. And they had Jamal, what was it? Jamal Anderson was the running back?

• 19:54Pablo Torre?

  Uh, it was Jamal Lewis.

• 19:56Speaker 01

  Lewis? Okay, I knew it was a Jamal.

• 19:57Pablo Torre?

  Jamal Anderson Falcons running back, Jamal Lewis Ravens running back.

• 20:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, you remember, they had a run game.

• 20:02Pablo Torre?

  Yeah?

• 20:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, that was good.

• 20:04Pablo Torre?

  And they had a quarterback who was just eh.

• 20:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:07Pablo Torre?

  Yeah, you could hear that. You could hear him just being eh as you were following the game.

• 20:12Speaker 01

  That's right, that's right.

• 20:13Pablo Torre?

  So can you remind us just like how you watch the game? There's a TV now.

• 20:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:18Pablo Torre?

  And so just you're, again, in solid three, 23 hours a day, and you have these, I mean, you're in a cement box.

• 20:25Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 20:25Pablo Torre?

  Tiny cement box, steel doors, but there's like an opening where you're just like watching the communal television out in the hall, basically.

• 20:33Speaker 01

  Yes, yeah. So I'm at, the cell is nine foot wide, 12 foot long.

• 20:43Speaker 01

  At the front of the cell, I have a door that's about waist height. They have two cutouts.

• 20:51Pablo Torre?

  Mm hmm.

• 20:51Speaker 01

  Three inches wide and then about three foot tall.

• 20:54Pablo Torre?

  I see.

• 20:54Speaker 01

  And it's not glass, it's this wire. Okay, they don't have glass in it. So that allows the sound to come in a lot better and, and you know, we can talk and, and all that.

• 21:05Pablo Torre?

  But you're watching through the little diamonds on like the chain link wire, basically.

• 21:09Speaker 01

  Exactly. So I have some legal work that I make a makeshift like stool. And it's about the size of the chair or this stool that I'm sitting on.

• 21:17Pablo Torre?

  Your papers from your case now decades long is now big enough to be.

• 21:21Speaker 01

  This tall.

• 21:24Pablo Torre?

  Yeah, right. Gosh, I believe it.

• 21:26Speaker 01

  So when I'm watching TV, when I'm watching football.

• 21:31Speaker 01

  I have my, my, my stool at the, at, at the front of the cell. And I'm sitting, you know, about this close. And I usually have a book that I put on the sink and that's my like end table.

• 21:44Pablo Torre?

  Hmm.

• 21:44Speaker 01

  So I have my drink there, maybe if I have chips or whatever, nachos or whatever, you know what I'm saying? They're there. And then like, some of the plays, first down and you know, and they run the ball, I'm just sitting here. But like if it's third and 10 or whatever, I get up.

• 22:00Pablo Torre?

  Yeah.

• 22:00Speaker 01

  I get up and, and I'm looking, I'm looking through that diamond. I'm watching, cause I have to get as close as I can get.

• 22:07Pablo Torre?

  Right, you can get on the stack of papers now.

• 22:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, but, but, but when it's time to really watch, you gotta get up there close.

• 22:12Pablo Torre?

  You're putting your eye, you're making a diamond shape with your hands and you're looking right through it.

• 22:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I'm actually looking through one of these squares.

• 22:19Pablo Torre?

  You're picking one and then.

• 22:21Speaker 01

  Yes, yeah, yeah, focusing and all that.

• 22:23Pablo Torre?

  Yeah.

• 22:23Speaker 01

  And the TV, the TV is probably, ah, more or less from here to the blue wall on the, behind the machines.

• 22:31Pablo Torre?

  Uh huh.

• 22:31Speaker 01

  So what's that?

• 22:32Pablo Torre?

  There's a row of vending machines behind me, there's a blue wall right there.

• 22:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, 25, 30, 30 foot away, something like that.

• 22:37Pablo Torre?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 22:38Speaker 01

  Yeah. But where I'm at, I'm in the face to face program and we got a 50 inch TV. It's like one of the perks, it's on the wall. So I can see it pretty good.

• 22:47Pablo Torre?

  Right, through that little diamond you can see.

• 22:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm blessed. To me, that's a blessing.

• 22:53Pablo Torre?

  Well, it's this thing that sports allows.

• 22:57Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 22:58Pablo Torre?

  That I really wanna like understand because the Super Bowl comes around and it's this holiday. And I imagine there are rituals here.

• 23:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:07Pablo Torre?

  Like food, like how does that work on Super Bowl Sunday?

• 23:10Speaker 01

  Remember, when you're sent to prison, you're taken away from your people. You're taken away from your clan. You're taken away from everything that you know and you love and you agree with. And then you're put here. And then so like, being a fan of something, that's part of being in society. And even though we're locked away, being a fan, me being a Cowboy fan or the brothers back there, you know, being super hype about the Houston Texans, that's their connection to, one of the connections to the free world, right? And so that's why everybody is so invested in it because it's not just them. It's mom at home, it's dad at home, it's the brothers when you call home. That's all they're talking about, that's all we're talking about.

• 23:54Speaker 01

  And you were just so hype, you know what I'm saying? So the Super Bowl is a big deal. And so everybody will make some type of Super Bowl feast, some type of big meal, right? And for me, remember the, the Super Bowl is in, is in the late afternoon. So, you know, it starts about 5:30, 6 o'clock, right? So I'll, I'll probably make some appetizer, nachos or something, you know? Um, and we buy everything that we cook, it's already pre-cooked from the prison commissary.

• 24:37Speaker 01

  And the prison commissary, just imagine it, that's our grocery store. You buy a big bag of tortilla chips, alright? You buy a bottle of squeeze cheese. And you buy a chili with bean that's in a, like a microwaveable pack.

• 24:55Speaker 01

  And the key is you gotta know how to mix them.

• 24:58Pablo Torre?

  What's Charles Flores's secret to mixing all that stuff?

• 25:04Speaker 01

  If I tell you, I might have to charge you.

• 25:09Pablo Torre?

  I can tell that you're the guy who knows the, you know, the secret recipe here.

• 25:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, by my size, I'm sure you can tell.

• 25:16Pablo Torre?

  I wasn't gonna say it. But the idea that you guys are all celebrating the Super Bowl individually, but together.

• 25:22Speaker 01

  But together, because remember, imagine, imagine like you see these, these booths here. You imagine there's a dude in each one.

• 25:29Pablo Torre?

  Yeah, and right.

• 25:30Speaker 01

  But we're all at the, at the, at the front. We're all there, so I can talk to the guy here, I can talk to the guy next to me, I can talk to the guy at the end if I, if I, if I shout loud enough.

• 25:40Pablo Torre?

  Yeah.

• 25:41Speaker 01

  It's just like if you're at home, because when the commercial comes on or whatever, you know, that's where like, man, did you see this play? How about, you know, that guy's playing good and, or CJ Stroud, man, don't throw the ball again, just run, you know?

• 25:56Speaker 01

  When they're gonna sack you, just go down, you know?

• 25:59Pablo Torre?

  But the idea that you're hearing stuff, I wanna actually understand, like, you know, listening to the radio when you first get in here.

• 26:08Pablo Torre?

  You know, I, I think about this because the World Cup's coming up this year.

• 26:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, oh, yeah.

• 26:12Pablo Torre?

  And I know you're a soccer guy.

• 26:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:14Pablo Torre?

  And so can you explain, like, uh, how soccer fandom has worked in here and how you first started, like, you know, tuning in?

• 26:21Speaker 01

  You know, that's amazing, because in, in, in the free world, I really, soccer wasn't a thing. And so, I really didn't pay attention to it. But when I got here, when you come to prison, bro.

• 26:37Speaker 01

  When you come in, and it's a new environment, and it's potentially dangerous. You're looking for the people that look like you. The white guy doesn't go sit with the black guys. No, the white guy goes over there and sits with the, with the white guys, right? When the Mexican guy comes in, he's not going to the white guys, he's not going to the black guys, he's going to the Mexican guy, you know, the Latinos that look like him. You know? And I've always been the type of, type of guy that I'm, I'm proud of being Latino. I'm proud that my people are, you know, Americans of Mexican descent. I'm proud that I know Spanish.

• 27:17Speaker 01

  And, and being able to communicate with the brothers that might not know English very well.

• 27:23Pablo Torre?

  Well, it also means you could listen to the better version of the broadcast.

• 27:28Speaker 01

  Exactly. And so that's where I was going. That's where I'm going. And so with them, them talking about it, we used to listen to the Mexican national team on a scratchy little AM station out of Houston. And, and they broadcasted all the games and especially the World Cup, the Gold Cup, you know, Cup of Americas, all that, in Spanish. And when I listened to that, oh man, it blew my mind, right? And I loved it. I loved it. And I got, I got into following the sport, right?

• 28:01Pablo Torre?

  Well, they're having so much more fun.

• 28:02Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 28:03Pablo Torre?

  The Spanish language broadcasters are enjoying their lives.

• 28:08Speaker 01

  Without a doubt, yeah. And I was just wondering, are they, are they drinking beer up there? Or what's going on? Because they're having too much fun.

• 28:18Pablo Torre?

  Once you hear it, it's hard to, it's hard to go, it's hard to go back.

• 28:22Speaker 01

  It's interesting, right? Because for the most part, not a lot of guys follow soccer here. But I think it's gonna, it's, that's gonna change when we're gonna finally get to watch it. We didn't get to watch the last World Cup.

• 28:34Pablo Torre?

  Of course, right?

• 28:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:36Pablo Torre?

  Right, right, right. Yeah, yeah, every four years, right?

• 28:38Speaker 01

  But now this time, we will.

• 28:41Pablo Torre?

  Well, I know one of your dreams was to get to see the World Cup.

• 28:45Speaker 01

  Oh, man, yeah.

• 28:47Pablo Torre?

  Because finally, in North America.

• 28:49Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 29:24Pablo Torre?

  The question of what you're hoping for, what you're dreaming about, I want to establish that you specifically are the reason that I've been tracking this practice that I didn't know existed, called forensic hypnosis. And so the fact that this thing existed for so long, and the fact that you have been a name and a face that has popped up in the coverage of this story over time.

• 29:54Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 29:55Pablo Torre?

  Like, the last decade of the practice of police hypnosis, which is a real thing that exists in America.

• 30:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:03Pablo Torre?

  The last decade, it tracks alongside your last decade of hoping and appealing and trying to see if you could actually get out of here.

• 30:13Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 30:14Pablo Torre?

  And so I just want to go back to 2016. Because in 2016, I'm just looking at the notes I've written down here.

• 30:21Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 30:21Pablo Torre?

  I mean, you were days away from execution.

• 30:24Speaker 01

  Five days.

• 30:26Pablo Torre?

  Could you just describe what it was like to be five days away from the day?

• 30:34Speaker 01

  It was surreal. So it's one of those situations, you gotta be there. You gotta be in a cell next to me to experience that, right? But I'll do my best. I remember the last visit before I got my stay of execution, because I got five days away. And it was a Friday. And my mom and my brother had come to visit me. And if that wasn't enough, my father had died two weeks before my scheduled execution. And so I was so traumatized, I wasn't numb. I couldn't feel no more. You know, it was up there. I couldn't feel that. But I remember that I had...

• 31:21Speaker 01

  To be strong for my mother. I had to be the one that encouraged and gave hope. And so, instead of having a bunch of people console me, I was, I was the one that was, was talking about, "Well, man, it's not over yet. It's not over yet." Because that's how I felt. That's what it was. And I remember telling her

• 31:46Speaker 01

  that the, the, the appeal that was filed on the hypnosis stuff, because I'd had a whole string of attorneys before that, telling me that that was not a claim. I, I couldn't, I couldn't use it. It had been settled in the court before, yada, yada, yada, yada, yada, right? And essentially, they're telling me, "No, your ass is dead. You're fixing to die. All you got left is, uh, mitigation." And in Texas, it's a rap. You know what I'm saying? If you're, if you're counting on hypnosis to, to save you, it's, it's over. But we had this claim. It came up at the last minute. And I had a new attorney that was helping me. He was, he was a professor at American University.

• 32:29Speaker 01

  And so, it was him and a class of third-year law students that were able to put this appeal together in about 45 days and file it. Bam! And I remember when I got it, I sat down and I read it.

• 32:46Speaker 01

  Then I read it again. Then I read it a third time. And I knew that it was the best appeal that had been filed for me. And if the court heard it, I'd get a stay. And I might walk out this place, you know? And at that time, I thought, I thought that would be, that would be the one that would, that would get me out of here. And so, fast forward to that visit. And I told my mother. I said, "Mom, just imagine like we're at the casino in Las Vegas. And we're betting the farm. We're gonna bet everything that we got on this appeal.

• 33:25Speaker 01

  And if we, if we win, I'm gonna get out of here."

• 33:29Speaker 01

  And if we lose, well, I'll see you in heaven, you know? But believe me, I've got hope because this is the best appeal that was ever filed. I mean, so that was, that was the mindset. That's what I had in my, my mind. I wasn't so much thinking about myself. I was thinking about my, my parent, my mom, who had just lost my dad. I knew if, if they executed me, it's gonna kill her. You know what I'm saying? That was the, the level, the stakes in my situation.

• 34:03Pablo Torre?

  And what happened next on May 27th, 2016, five days before the state of Texas was scheduled to kill Charles Flores, really needs to be heard to be believed. Because what Charles just said is true. His legal team had filed an appeal with newfound hope. The practice of forensic hypnosis had long been criticized as fundamentally flawed, if not just outright absurd, given that it really is what it sounds like. The police hypnotizing a person, like the previously mentioned eyewitness Jill Bargneer, so that they can supposedly recall traumatic events with supposedly greater clarity.

• 34:41Speaker 04

  Just relax. I'm gonna ask you to concentrate and focus on the tiny, on the hundred tiny little muscles that are on the bottom of your feet. Three. Two. One. And zero.

• 34:59Pablo Torre?

  But what Charles's lawyers did, with the clock ticking down, was build their case around the state's 2013 junk science law, Texas State Article 11.073. And they had this memory expert named Dr. Stephen Lynn testify that the hypnosis of Jill Bargneer was done horribly wrong, likely creating a false memory of a person, Charles Flores, whose face had been plastered all over the news in the months after he got arrested. Which now brings us back to what happened on Friday, May 27th, 2016. This was hours after Charles's mom, who had just been visiting him, maybe for the last time, had driven away.

• 35:43Speaker 01

  I didn't find out about about it till like nine o'clock. And I found out about it on the radio.

• 35:50Pablo Torre?

  The exact same radio that he had used to listen to NFL broadcasts and soccer games in Spanish.

• 35:57Speaker 01

  And that's surreal when you hear, hey, you know, Pablo Torre, death row prisoner, has been given a stay of execution. You're like, whoa, you know, it's like, is this a movie? What the, what, what's going on?

• 36:13Pablo Torre?

  You heard it in your cell?

• 36:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, heard on the radio.

• 36:16Pablo Torre?

  On the...

• 36:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 36:20Pablo Torre?

  And thanks to the archive of KPFT 90.1 FM in Houston, which broadcasts a program every Friday called The Prison Show, where the hosts give updates on inmates' cases, you can now hear this too.

• 36:35Speaker 05

  I am so excited, guys, so excited. Get up and jump up. Charles gotta stay. Charles got a stay. Get up and tell everyone. I'm gonna read what Greg and I put out. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals stayed Charles's execution date based on Dr. Stephen Lynn's affidavit that the only eyewitness identification of Charles was tainted by a hypnosis session that was performed with outdated science. The hypnosis session likely caused a false memory of Charles and a false identification. Because the information is newly discovered

• 37:20Speaker 05

  and likely would have resulted in an acquittal if Charles was tried today, the Court of Criminal Appeals remanded the case back to the trial court for further hearings on the junk science used to admit the hypnosis altered memory of Charles. Charles will seek to get a new trial through these hearings. He gotta stay, guys. We're happy. Thanks, Dave.

• 37:47Speaker 01

  And I wouldn't the only one. Everybody heard it. Everybody's cheering, everybody's happy.

• 37:55Pablo Torre?

  But that happiness, that cinematically joyous hope that Charles's case would finally get a retrial, it did not last. In 2017, the state rejected the appeal of Charles Don Flores. And in 2020, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals upheld the ruling. And this is the point in the story where things get even crazier. Because in 2023, in recognition of all of the criticisms we've already mentioned here, which were extensively investigated, incidentally, by the Dallas Morning News, Texas passed a new law, a law specifically banning hypnosis-induced evidence from being used in criminal trials.

• 38:36Speaker 06

  There was sort of a, you know, a shockwave that went through Texas about, wait, are we really allowing law enforcement to hypnotize witnesses?

• 38:46Pablo Torre?

  This is the person who's represented Charles pro bono since 2016. His lawyer, Gretchen Swen.

• 38:53Speaker 06

  And it was a big embarrassment for the Texas Rangers, who were sort of the biggest trainers in this technique. And now the law has changed. It is no longer lawful to admit the fruits of a hypnosis session. So if you want to do that, fine, but you're not going to get then what comes out of that in front of the jury. And that is true in most jurisdictions in this country.

• 39:21Pablo Torre?

  But as tremendous as this news seemed for Charles Flores, there was a confounding and infuriating catch.

• 39:28Speaker 06

  Charles wasn't able to benefit from this law. There's no retroactive provision here. So a law inspired by his case, reflecting a clear sense of outrage, hasn't benefited a guy on death row.

• 39:45Pablo Torre?

  All of which, in our view, is profoundly, profoundly [BLEEP].

• 39:57Speaker 01

  It's not an retract. It didn't apply. It doesn't apply to the past. So it gets even worse. You know, we had an emergency situation where Attorney General wanted to set an execution date this last spring. And it was a miracle. We were able to file an appeal. And then that appeal had, for the first time, all of the hypnosis information in it.

• 40:32Pablo Torre?

  You heard that right. In May 2025, about seven months after our original episode with Charles aired, the state of Texas attempted to set an execution date for him. A legal letter even circulated, listing several available dates in November 2025. And Gretchen, at this point, his lawyer, immediately filed a petition claiming that this move was unlawful. And then, in June, she filed a new set of affidavits with the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. And this included new expert declarations that cast even more doubt on the integrity of the original conviction.

• 41:09Speaker 06

  So we had new claims, new evidence. We also had a great sworn statement from his original trial lawyer, who basically said, "If I had known any of this, I would have been outraged." And describing just the pressures he was under, the what was kept from him, how they weren't even given any discovery until they were already, you know, in the middle of trial, and this was standard practice. And that he looked back on his own reaction to this and took responsibility for some of his own choices that were harmful to his client. And also expressed just real outrage that this case is where it is

• 41:52Speaker 06

  and that Charles has not been given a new trial. And that's pretty amazing stuff.

• 41:58Pablo Torre?

  Except that by October of 2025, several months later, that petition got dismissed, procedurally barred.

• 42:08Speaker 06

  Without explanation. So what this decision was, was that we're not going to look at the merits of this claim,

• 42:17Speaker 06

  not even look at it. And, you know, it's devastating. I get a notice, it's what's called a postcard notice. So there's not even an opinion. It's just you get a notice saying that something was denied. And it's really hard thing to convey to a client that they brought very sincerely all this stuff to a court that is just saying we're not looking at that.

• 42:49Pablo Torre?

  And what I really came here to hear from you was what it's like to feel like you're not being heard.

• 42:59Speaker 01

  That almost killed me.

• 43:02Speaker 01

  Again, it was like,

• 43:07Speaker 01

  I think that the danger, right? That a guy on death row has to deal with is allowing himself to believe

• 43:19Speaker 01

  that he might get out of here. And so you set yourself up for a fall. You know, you set yourself up for a disappointment. And again, because it's like, it's like Groundhog Day. Because I get these appeal and I read it and I'm like, man, this is amazing.

• 43:35Pablo Torre?

  I'm reading it and I'm thinking the same thing. Like this makes a ton of sense.

• 43:38Speaker 01

  And then when you think about it, again, Gretchen, my attorney, she wrote that in like about two weeks. And it was like, everything fell. So it was like, it was like a blessing from the good Lord. I mean, how else can all of this stuff just fall online? We've been working for five years to try to find an issue so we can file another appeal. Right? I've been in limbo back and forth. And so bam, it happens. And I allow myself to, to, to hope. And I allow myself to think about, man, I might just get to see that World Cup. I might just get to be watching Dallas Cowboys.

• 44:20Speaker 01

  You know, I'm allowing myself to imagine my life after death row.

• 44:27Speaker 01

  I actually allowed myself to think about what I wanted to do when I get out of here. What I want to do is I want to take an extended trip. And what kind of music would I be listening to when I'm on the trip? So I let myself think about that. I let myself go there, right? And then in October, on October 4th, you know, bam, it was, it was, the dream was, was destroyed. And like I said, it almost killed me. I'm still not over it. You know what I'm saying? I got a smile on my face, I'm laughing, but man, you know, I'm just.

• 45:03Pablo Torre?

  And I didn't know about the playlist. Do you know what song is the first song? Do you have, do you have a specific song you're trying to, that you, that you've imagined?

• 45:16Speaker 01

  The first one that I put down was the song, "The Road Goes On Forever and the Party Never Ends." And it's a story song, and it's about a guy and a girl. You know the song?

• 45:30Pablo Torre?

  Could you, could you give me a little?

• 45:33Speaker 01

  Now you're putting me on the spot.

• 45:37Speaker 01

  And what, what, what the song is about, let me, let me try to give you the background. It's, it's a guy and a girl, they meet in a bar. And he was kind of a, a mess up like me.

• 45:55Speaker 01

  Tried to go to the Navy, but he couldn't pass the test. So he started, he got involved in dealing contraband. And then the cops got on him and they sent him to the pen. When he got back out, he was back at it again.

• 46:19Speaker 01

  So he meets the girl, they drive to, to Miami and they run out of money. The guy has an idea, he knows some other guys that deal in contraband. So he goes to make the deal. He's got the money, they've got the product.

• 46:39Speaker 01

  And as that's going down, the cops run in. When he's getting away, he runs to the bathroom, jumps out the back window. There's a cop. And as he's reading him his rights, this girl comes around in his truck with a single shot 14. And the road goes on forever, and the party never ends.

• 47:03Speaker 01

  And later on that night, he gives her all the money. And he tells her, when the cops catch up to you, tell them that I put you up to this. And then the story ends 20, I think it's 21 months later. She reads that he's going to the chair.

• 47:40Speaker 01

  As she gets in her brand new Mercedes Benz, the road goes on forever and the party never ends. So yeah, it's a, it's a pretty, it's a pretty, pretty dramatic song. It's great though, right? Yeah, it's great. It's great. It's great.

• 48:08Pablo Torre?

  I want to fill people in on this, like, as time is wearing thin here, we, we have this place to ourselves, right? It's empty. And there are other people here who are, who are scheduled, who are on the docket for execution. When, I, I believe someone soon is scheduled.

• 48:30Pablo Torre?

  What's it like in here as that gets closer? Does the air change? Does, what, what, what does that feel like?

• 48:39Speaker 01

  When you get up, when you're given an active execution date, there's two death rows. There's the death row where the majority of the guys are there. And it's like suspended animation almost because you don't have the active execution day, right? So you're going through the appeals process, that's running. So you're kind of quote "safe." You're really, really never safe here, but you allow yourself to believe that. Because I'm not gonna die next month, or six months from now, or next year, you know. Whatever. Then, there's the other

• 49:13Speaker 01

  death row, which is the true death row, which is you have an active execution date. And when you have the execution date, you're put on Death Watch. And it's a section of cells, seven on the bottom, seven on the top, where all the guys that had this pending execution date are housed. And in these cells, they have a camera in the corner. So they're monitoring you, they're watching you 24 hours a day, seven days a week, to make sure you don't hurt yourself, so you'll be alive in time for them to murder you. You understand? And so, there, I think, what is it, five?

• 49:57Speaker 01

  Four or five guys over there right now.

• 50:01Speaker 01

  Death Watch is on my pod. This is A section. This is B section. This is C section. I live in C section, my cell is there. A section is Death Watch. So when I come through today, on the way up out here, Busby was in the dayroom. Eddie Lee is what we call him. So I hollered at him, "What's up Eddie Lee?" He's a Cowboy fan too, just so you know. So yeah, yeah, yeah, and

• 50:34Speaker 01

  that's always a reminder.

• 50:40Speaker 01

  He's over there, you know, because sometimes, you know, you you you get you get caught up in your own thing. You're doing your own thing, so that reality will slip away. When you're over there with them, you can't get away from it. You understand what I'm saying? You can't get away from that. Because you're the one with the date. You're, you know, everybody's around you's got the date. You look up, there's that camera watching. You can't get away from that.

• 51:02Pablo Torre?

  I want to be clear about this again for people. Um, the man who pled guilty, who confessed to shooting Betty Black.

• 51:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 51:12Pablo Torre?

  Is free.

• 51:14Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 51:15Pablo Torre?

  You got out on probation.

• 51:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, 10 years.

• 51:17Pablo Torre?

  And and you're still here. And I'm wondering if you ever imagine what he's doing now?

• 51:27Speaker 01

  I try not to think think about things that that upset me. I work real hard at staying peaceful and positive. And yeah, if I start thinking about that, I imagine that might upset me a little bit. Get angry and and it I used to, in my younger days, I think I used to enjoy getting angry and and acting out. Now, it's like the thing that that I dislike the most. I hate not being in control of myself. And so with the anger, because like for anger with me, man, once I start getting angry, it's like I'm hanging on to a rope and I can't, I can't, I can't grab it. And it's just slipping away, slipping away. And once I get angry, it's over.

• 52:08Speaker 01

  All right, so that's just something, something that I've I've learned in as I've matured in my in life. And so, yeah, no, I don't think about that kind of thing. I think about positive things instead, you know?

• 52:22Pablo Torre?

  I hadn't thought about how the thing you can control that you've worked on controlling for decades is the one thing you can, which is how you choose to feel.

• 52:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 52:35Pablo Torre?

  When did that occur to you, that this was going to be something that you take pride in being disciplined about?

• 52:41Speaker 01

  It's interesting because that that that goes with the spiritual journey that I started, man, 20 years ago, right? And just I had to, I knew that I had to learn to control myself. It took me about

• 52:59Speaker 01

  Five, maybe eight years to get to the point to where I was like, man, I had a problem. That problem led me to being in this cell. And I can't control, I can't control my reactions. And that's, that's emphasis on reactions. Something would happen and I would react. I couldn't, I wouldn't think of the consequences. I couldn't wait, well, man, if you do this, you know, you're gonna get in trouble. You know, and, and so, so wouldn't, couldn't able, wasn't able to do that. And, and it's, it's interesting because

• 53:34Speaker 01

  at that point in my life, I started hearing a bunch about meditation. I was reading about meditation. I was hearing about meditation on, on the radio. Everywhere I turned, it seemed like meditation was, was coming at me. And I was like,

• 53:49Speaker 01

  I wanna learn how to meditate. And I did. And I, and with, with the help of, of friends and people sending me books and that kind of thing. That was the key. That was the key of putting space between the awareness that is me and my ego, which is pride, which is anger, which is all of those things, right? And the more you meditate, the more the space is in, is in between that, right? And that was what gave me the, the handle on, on controlling. Does that, that make sense?

• 54:22Pablo Torre?

  Uh, it's, it's frankly, the only thing that explains how you could be a Cowboys fan this long.

• 54:34Speaker 01

  Well, see, I'm at a disadvantage. Who's your team? The Browns?

• 54:42Speaker 01

  The Steelers?

• 54:44Pablo Torre?

  Laughing.

• 54:47Pablo Torre?

  I grew up a Giants fan.

• 54:50Speaker 01

  The Cowboys whipping boy, okay.

• 54:53Pablo Torre?

  So, January 4th, by the way, the other side of that story, which I did not disclose until now, is that, of course, the New York Giants beat your ass. And for that reason, no longer have the number one overall pick in the NFL.

• 55:03Speaker 01

  Went from one to five. Congratulations.

• 55:08Pablo Torre?

  But this is the irony, right? The irony is that

• 55:12Speaker 01

  Yes, yes.

• 55:13Pablo Torre?

  Out here in the free world, as you've called it, the giants were like, "We gotta get this win now." And meanwhile, you in here have the right logical, but paradoxical view.

• 55:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 55:26Pablo Torre?

  If anyone were to have this view of like, "We're playing for the future."

• 55:31Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 55:32Pablo Torre?

  "We want these picks."

• 55:33Speaker 01

  You got it. You gotta have it like that.

• 55:37Pablo Torre?

  And I just want to make sure that I give you the opportunity to tell people what you wish for them to hear. Because you're still fighting this thing. There are some hail Marys left. There's also, hopefully, a conversation that keeps going about how it is that a guy who has always maintained his innocence, who had zero pieces of physical evidence, DNA or anything, at the scene of the crime, who was only put in to the Polanski unit because of a debunked forensic hypnosis procedure that you can watch on tape and is mind-blowing to revisit.

• 56:21Pablo Torre?

  What Charles Don Flores would like them to hear?

• 56:29Speaker 01

  Well, I know this much.

• 56:32Speaker 01

  Suffering is universal. Victimhood is optional. Victimhood is being stuck...

• 56:42Speaker 01

  is rigor mortis of the mind. It's being stuck in past slights, past disrespects, past traumas. And it doesn't let you go.

• 56:57Speaker 01

  The reason that people embrace victimhood, that we embrace victimhood, is because it gives you the right to feel like, "You had the audacity to do that to me?"

• 57:10Speaker 01

  And I'm so grateful that I've gotten to the age and the maturity that I know the difference. And so, again, suffering is universal, stuff happens. And I keep taking these losses, I keep, I keep having these, these traumatic events happen to me. But in the end, I believe in good. I believe in a higher power. I believe in that sooner or later, the truth's gonna come out. And I'm gonna have that opportunity to see life after this.

• 57:55Speaker 01

  And in the meantime, I'm like, when these things happen, I'm just like, man, that hurt. Okay, what's next? And when I'm able to do that, they're not torturing me. They're not making me suffer in a way that I think some people who do support the death penalty want you to. Because it's not enough for them just to murder you, right? Take your life. They want you to suffer before. And so that's how I deal with that. And with regards to my case, man, I just want a fair review. I just want a fair shot. The Dallas County Prosecution Office, the Dallas DA, they have a convictions integrity unit.

• 58:38Speaker 01

  And I want them to look at my case. I want them to review the case. Give it a look. Let the evidence speak for itself. And you come to the conclusions. Because until now, they, they don't, they don't want to do that. You know, they refuse to, to look at it. And they are totally and completely in control on whose case they look at. It's my understanding that the head prosecutor in Dallas, he doesn't understand that I have an actual innocence claim. He doesn't know that. And I, I want him to know that. That this is not just a technicality thing, right? That I'm trying to just get off on, on some type of rule. No, I'm innocent. I can prove it. Let the evidence speak for that.

• 59:23Speaker 01

  Look at it, look at it. And I think if, if that, if we're able to get there, well then...

• 59:32Speaker 01

  I might be able to take that trip one day. What I'm looking forward to, brother.

• 59:37Pablo Torre?

  Um, Charles, I, I really hope that your road continues.

• 59:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 59:46Pablo Torre?

  And I hope to, to see you out there, man.

• 59:48Speaker 01

  Got it, got it. Maybe we can go to the Giant Cowboy game together.

• 59:54Pablo Torre?

  Oh, God, you're gonna be insufferable.

• 59:58Speaker 01

  Because I believe in my team.

• 1:00:06Pablo Torre?

  So if this were a normal episode of Pablo Torre Finds Out, that would be the ending.

• 1:00:12Pablo Torre?

  I think we would choose to go out on this laugh, yet another laugh from a guy who, who can find joy, apparently, who can control his emotions, as he explained, despite what his government is actively trying to do to him.

• 1:00:30Pablo Torre?

  But that's not exactly what happened as the clock on our hour together ticked down to zero. What I saw was the guards of the Polanski unit escorting Charles back into solitary, back into his cell in C-section, where this innocent man continues to await execution for a crime he did not commit. And I need to be clear. Charles has now exhausted all available avenues within the state of Texas now. His lawyer, Gretchen, she's gonna petition the United States Supreme Court tomorrow, February 6th.

• 1:01:10Pablo Torre?

  But things are looking bleak.

• 1:01:13Pablo Torre?

  And so what we have for you in the show notes of this episode is a petition. And we really hope you can sign it. It's at actionnetwork.org/petitions/charles or you can just click on that link. And our goal is to make sure that people continue to hear his story. That's all we can really ask for here

• 1:01:36Pablo Torre?

  is for people to give a [BLEEP].

• 1:01:57Pablo Torre?

  And there's also a song. It's a song by Robert Earl Keen. And I keep listening to it in honor of a superfan who is dreaming of finally queuing up a playlist and leaving the Polanski unit and driving away.

• 1:03:23Pablo Torre?

  So something I need you to know here at the end as a quick postscript is that the list of supporters who have stood up to speak on behalf of Charles Flores, it's been kind of astonishing. There is a brief from the American Psychology Association, which pointed out how deeply unreliable the eyewitness identification at the heart of this case happens to be. There's also a brief filed by the magicians Penn and Teller, who expressed their unequivocal belief that hypnosis is completely bogus.

• 1:03:53Pablo Torre?

  But because the US Supreme Court denied the petition filed by Charles and his attorneys, as we mentioned earlier, and because Charles cannot yet apply for clemency, which could grant not exoneration and freedom, but a life sentence instead of death, until after an execution date is set, what happens next lies mostly in the hands of the Dallas County District Attorney, a guy named John Cruzeau. It would be up to John Cruzeau, in other words, to formally request that the trial judge in Charles's case set an execution date. But there is something else under the control of the Dallas County DA, it turns out, something called the Conviction Integrity Unit, which is pretty much what it sounds

• 1:04:37Pablo Torre?

  like, a special division of the DA's office that is tasked with reviewing credible claims of innocence or official misconduct. And yet, somehow, through this point, the CIU has refused to review Charles's case. And so, what I need you to understand here is the glimmer of hope that still exists on the horizon. Because in January, a new Dallas County DA takes office, a woman named Amber Givens. Amber Givens won a decisive victory over John Cruzeau in the Democratic primaries back in March of this year. And this means that John Cruzeau now has about six months left to decide how he wants

• 1:05:19Pablo Torre?

  to leave the seat he has occupied since 2019, and whether he wants to request that the CIU finally review Charles's claims of innocence. And if he does not, it is possible that his replacement, Amber Givens, could. And so if you want to encourage Amber Givens or John Cruzeau to take action, we urge you to sign the petition we mentioned at the top, that is, in the show notes. Because public pressure of this kind is really all we have left.

• 1:05:56Pablo Torre?

  In the meantime, what I can tell you is that we have continued to exchange emails with Charles. He reached out, for instance, on June 17th, just two days after that news came down from the Supreme Court. But Charles did not mention that ruling, and he didn't ask us for anything. He never does. Instead, Charles congratulated the staff of PTFO on winning a Pulitzer. And he told us that he's been watching the World Cup. Because of course he has.

• 1:06:26Pablo Torre?

  He's been feeling connected to everyone in the outside world through sports. And he's been watching as many matches as he can.

• 1:06:46Pablo Torre?

  This has been Pablo Torre Finds Out, a Meadowlark Media production. And I'll talk to you next time.

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