Supreme Court Reverses Texas Court Decision Based on Prosecutor’s Admission About Flawed Forensic Evidence

The U.S. Supreme Court has reversed the denial of relief to a Texas death-row pris­on­er whose request for new tri­al is sup­port­ed by local pros­e­cu­tors. In a two-sen­tence deci­sion, the Court grant­ed cer­tio­rari to Areli Escobar, vacat­ed the judg­ment of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (TCCA), and sent the case back for recon­sid­er­a­tion. The Court’s sum­ma­ry rever­sal relied on Travis County pros­e­cu­tors’ admis­sion that Escobar’s con­vic­tion is based on ​“flawed and mis­lead­ing forensic evidence.”

Escobar was sen­tenced to death in 2011 for the rape and mur­der of a woman in his apart­ment com­plex. No eye­wit­ness­es linked him to the crime, and the prosecution’s case relied heav­i­ly on the Austin crime lab’s foren­sic test­ing of Escobar’s clothes and items found at the crime scene. After the Austin Police Department crime lab was shut down in 2016 for wide­spread issues with evi­dence han­dling and test­ing, Escobar sought relief in Texas courts. The Travis County District Attorney’s office ini­tial­ly opposed Escobar’s request, but it changed its posi­tion after evi­dence was pre­sent­ed to a Texas tri­al court. Despite the office’s sup­port of Escobar’s request, the TCCA denied all relief and the prosecution’s motion for recon­sid­er­a­tion. The U.S. Supreme Court’s rul­ing sends the case back to the TCCA for further proceedings.

Travis County District Attorney José Garza said the Supreme Court’s rul­ing on January 9^th made the day ​“an impor­tant day for jus­tice.” Garza said, ​“We believe it’s real­ly impor­tant for some­one accused of a crime to have a jury that has access to com­plete and accu­rate facts. We’re hope­ful that the Court of Criminal Appeals will share that per­spec­tive and review the facts of this case.”

Benjamin Wolff, the direc­tor of Texas’ Office of Capital and Forensic Writs and one of Escobar’s attor­neys, point­ed out the impor­tance of the case to the legit­i­ma­cy of the crim­i­nal legal sys­tem. Wolf said, ​“No one should be con­vict­ed or sen­tenced to death because of junk sci­ence. … And no one should ever be put to death when the pros­e­cu­tion that secured their con­vic­tion can’t stand behind it.”

At Escobar’s tri­al, pros­e­cu­tors pre­sent­ed DNA, shoeprint, and fin­ger­print analy­sis from the Austin Police Department crime lab that pur­port­ed to iden­ti­fy Escobar as the assailant in the rape and mur­der of 17-year-old Bianca Maldonado, who was stabbed 47 times. They also pre­sent­ed tes­ti­mo­ny from Escobar’s ex-girl­friend that she pur­port­ed­ly received a cell­phone call in which she heard a woman repeat­ed­ly scream­ing over the course of ten min­utes while being raped — although ini­tial­ly the girl­friend had told inves­ti­ga­tors only that she had heard Escobar hav­ing ​“con­sen­su­al sex” with a woman.

The Austin crime lab was shut down in 2016 after a state inves­ti­ga­tion found sev­er­al per­sis­tent and sys­temic issues that ren­dered results unre­li­able. Escobar request­ed state post-con­vic­tion relief based on these issues, and a state tri­al court ruled in his favor. The tri­al court found that the lab’s fail­ures were wide­spread and includ­ed a ​“fail­ure to adhere to sci­en­tif­i­cal­ly accept­ed prac­tices,” ​“sus­pect and vic­tim-dri­ven bias,” like­ly con­t­a­m­i­na­tion of sam­ples com­bined with a cav­a­lier atti­tude that ham­pered the dis­cov­ery of con­t­a­m­i­na­tion, and untrained analy­sists super­vised by lead­ers with­out nec­es­sary technical knowledge.

Based on evi­dence pre­sent­ed in state post-con­vic­tion pro­ceed­ings, pros­e­cu­tors con­clud­ed that ​“the State had offered flawed and mis­lead­ing foren­sic evi­dence at Petitioner’s tri­al and this evi­dence was mate­r­i­al to the out­come of his case in vio­la­tion of clear­ly estab­lished fed­er­al due process law.” Despite this con­ces­sion, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals dis­missed Escobar’s claims and denied his request for a new tri­al. The U.S. Supreme Court’s rever­sal requires the TCCA to recon­sid­er the case ​“in light of the con­fes­sion of error by Texas.”

Supreme Court ana­lyst and University of Texas law pro­fes­sor Stephen Vladeck not­ed that, giv­en the prosecution’s con­fes­sion of error, ​“The most alarm­ing thing about the court’s deci­sion to send the case back for a new tri­al is that it was even nec­es­sary in the first place.”