U.S. Supreme Court Asks for Record of Texas Case Where Relief Denied Despite Agreement of Prosecutor and Trial Judge that Death-Row Prisoner Should Get New Trial

The United States Supreme Court has request­ed the pro­duc­tion of the appel­late record of a death penal­ty case in which the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (TCCA) refused to grant a new tri­al to a death-row pris­on­er despite the agree­ment of coun­ty pros­e­cu­tors that the use of faulty foren­sic evi­dence from a dis­cred­it­ed crime lab to con­vict Areli Escobar (pic­tured) denied him a fair trial. 

Travis County pros­e­cu­tors have tak­en the rare step of fil­ing a response brief in sup­port of Escobar’s peti­tion for writ of cer­tio­rari ask­ing that the Court review his case and reverse his con­vic­tion. On September 28, 2022, Travis County District Attorney José P. Garza con­ced­ed in the prosecution’s brief 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.” Garza wrote that ​“the State agrees with Petitioner that this Court should sum­mar­i­ly reverse the [TCCA’s] rul­ing or, alter­na­tive­ly, grant the peti­tion and set this case for argument.”

Escobar’s case has been dis­trib­uted to the jus­tices for con­fer­ence three times since the com­ple­tion of brief­ing on October 11, 2022. After the Court’s October 28, 2022 con­fer­ence, the jus­tices request­ed that the TCCA trans­mit the record of the case to the Court. The case dock­et reflects that the Court received an elec­tron­ic record of the case, includ­ing sealed mate­ri­als, on November 9, 2022. The Court’s request to review the record indi­cates a height­ened inter­est in the case, but does not nec­es­sar­i­ly mean that the jus­tices will agree to hear the case.

Escobar was con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death in 2011 for the mur­der of his neigh­bor, Bianca Maldonado Hernandez. He has con­sis­tent­ly main­tained his inno­cence of the killing. In state post-con­vic­tion pro­ceed­ings, his lawyers pre­sent­ed evi­dence that the DNA analy­sis and tes­ti­mo­ny of wit­ness­es from the since-dis­band­ed Austin crime lab that was used to con­vict him was false and unre­li­able. At that time, Travis County pros­e­cu­tors opposed Escobar’s efforts to win a new tri­al. However, after the Travis County post-con­vic­tion court found that the false sci­en­tif­ic evi­dence had ren­dered Escobar’s tri­al ​“fun­da­men­tal­ly unfair” and rec­om­mend­ed a new tri­al be grant­ed, the District Attorney’s office reviewed its posi­tion on Escobar’s claims and also con­clud­ed that a new tri­al was appro­pri­ate. Despite the agree­ment of coun­ty pros­e­cu­tors that Escobar’s due process rights had been vio­lat­ed, the TCCA reject­ed the tri­al court’s rec­om­men­da­tion and refused to grant him relief. 

Several note­wor­thy groups of fair-jus­tice advo­cates have filed friend-of-the-court briefs in the Supreme Court in sup­port of Escobar’s peti­tion. On July 26, 2022, The Innocence Network and The Center for Integrity in Forensic Sciences, Inc. filed a joint brief on behalf of Escobar ask­ing the jus­tices to sum­mar­i­ly reverse the TCCA’s rul­ing. Two days lat­er, the American Bar Association and a group of sev­en for­mer state attor­neys gen­er­al, United States Attorneys, and state pros­e­cu­tors also filed ami­cus briefs in sup­port of Escobar.

Escobar was charged with rap­ing and mur­der­ing 17-year-old Bianca Maldonado, who was stabbed 47 times. Prosecutors pre­sent­ed DNA, shoeprint, and fin­ger­print analy­sis from the Austin Police Department crime lab that pur­port­ed to iden­ti­fy Escobar as the assailant. 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. 

Trial pros­e­cu­tors had no evi­dence of any pre-exist­ing rela­tion­ship between Escobar and Maldonado, and no eye­wit­ness­es placed Escobar at the crime scene. As a result, they relied heav­i­ly on the foren­sic evi­dence, which they told the jury was a ​“key piece” of the puz­zle prov­ing Escobar’s guilt. At a court hear­ing dur­ing Escobar’s appeals, a juror told the court how essen­tial the foren­sic evi­dence was. ​“I was sit­ting on the fence, if you will, as to whether he was guilty or not guilty all the way up to when the DNA evi­dence was sub­mit­ted to the jury and, for me, that was the seal­ing fac­tor,” the juror said. The foren­sic evi­dence pur­port­ed­ly showed through both fin­ger­print and DNA analy­sis that Escobar had like­ly been at the crime scene and had come into con­tact with the vic­tim. This DNA evi­dence was col­lect­ed and ana­lyzed by the Austin Police Department DNA Lab (APD Lab).

In 2016, after a full audit, the APD Lab was shut­tered for mul­ti­ple, seri­ous errors in its foren­sic test­ing. The errors were so severe that coun­ty-wide, crim­i­nal judges signed a let­ter to the city coun­cil and the coun­ty commissioner’s court stat­ing that “[t]he prob­lems dis­cov­ered raise ques­tions about every deter­mi­na­tion made by the lab.” One of the ana­lysts from the APD Lab who con­tin­ued to defend the debunked meth­ods used by the lab even after she was informed that the pro­to­cols were not sci­en­tif­i­cal­ly sup­port­able had con­duct­ed the DNA test­ing in Escobar’s case, draw­ing a direct line between these faulty meth­ods and the con­clu­sions pre­sent­ed to his jury. 

Escobar’s lawyers filed for state habeas review of his case after the results of this audit had been released. The TCCA issued an order direct­ing the tri­al court to con­duct a hear­ing and make rec­om­men­da­tions on address­ing Escobar’s claims. Saying it would be ​“shock­ing to the con­science to uphold the con­vic­tion of Mr. Escobar,” the tri­al court rec­om­mend­ed a new trial. 

After Escobar pre­sent­ed evi­dence of the false foren­sic tes­ti­mo­ny, Travis County pros­e­cu­tors agreed with the defense that the con­vic­tion was should be over­turned. In a media inter­view, Garza explained that, ​“Although it is the instinct of every dis­trict attor­ney to defend con­vic­tions, our job is to see that jus­tice is done.” He object­ed to some of the tri­al court find­ings, but sub­mit­ted a brief to the TCCA agree­ing that Escobar was enti­tled to a new tri­al. Despite the agree­ment of the par­ties, the TCCA issued an unpub­lished per curi­am opin­ion that denied Escobar relief and nev­er men­tioned the prosecution’s con­ces­sion of error. Travis County pros­e­cu­tors filed a motion with the TCCA reit­er­at­ing their posi­tion and request­ing that the TCCA recon­sid­er its rul­ing or at least issue an opin­ion explain­ing its deci­sion. The TCCA sum­mar­i­ly denied the motion, set­ting the stage for Escobar’s Supreme Court appeal.