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Thread: Areli Carbajal Escobar - Texas Death Row

  1. #21
    Senior Member CnCP Legend CharlesMartel's Avatar
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    Court: Examine if Austin crime lab botched death penalty evidence

    By Chuck Lindell
    The Austin American-Statesman

    State’s highest criminal court orders examination of questions raised about DNA evidence in Austin murder.

    Areli Escobar was sentenced to die for the 2009 stabbing death of his neighbor, Bianca Maldonado, 17.

    The state’s highest criminal court on Wednesday ordered a closer examination of death row inmate Areli Escobar’s claims that shoddy work by the Austin police crime lab compromised evidence in his case.

    Escobar is seeking to have his conviction overturned, and a new trial ordered, after a Travis County jury sentenced him to death in the 2009 sexual assault and stabbing of his neighbor, 17-year-old Bianca Maldonado, an LBJ High School student who was attacked at her East Austin apartment with her year-old son, who survived, nearby.

    In a brief order issued Wednesday, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals directed state District Judge David Wahlberg to examine claims that the crime lab produced false or misleading conclusions from DNA evidence in the case, particularly on tests performed on the shirt, jeans and shoes that tied Escobar to the murder.

    Defense lawyers also argued that problems discovered at the crime lab after Escobar’s trial — including poorly trained analysts, reports of cross-contamination of samples and questionable analytical methods — tainted the DNA results used to convict Escobar of capital murder.

    “Areli Escobar’s capital murder conviction rests on forensic evidence developed by incompetent scientists using bad science,” defense lawyers with the state Office of Capital and Forensic Writs said in his latest appeal.

    Austin police officials closed the DNA portion of the crime lab in June 2016 after an audit by the Texas Forensic Science Commission, a state agency that includes leading forensic scientists, found that some staff members were not properly trained and that incorrect methods had been used to examine DNA samples.

    “In light of these developments, a comprehensive, independent review of … Mr. Escobar’s case is critical,” defense lawyers told the Court of Criminal Appeals.

    The appeals court also ordered Wahlberg to examine two other claims raised by Escobar’s lawyers:

    • Whether a fingerprint examiner relied on scientifically invalid methods to link a partial bloody print, found on a lotion bottle 2 feet from Maldonado’s body, to Escobar.

    • Whether prosecution experts overstated the significance of cellphone activity — said to put Escobar in the vicinity of Maldonado’s apartment when she was killed — based on calls and texts routed through nearby cell towers.

    The case next returns to Wahlberg’s court, where Travis County prosecutors will have a chance to respond to the claims raised by defense lawyers.

    Wahlberg can order hearings and briefings to help him form a recommendation on whether he believes the Court of Criminal Appeals should toss out Escobar’s conviction and order a new trial. There is no deadline for the judge to issue his findings or for the appeals court to issue its ruling.

    During Escobar’s 2011 trial, prosecutors argued that DNA evidence established his guilt after tests found Maldonado’s blood on his shoes and shirt. In addition, blood on the inside of the victim’s door was linked to Escobar, while tests on blood found in Escobar’s car could not exclude the victim as the source, prosecutors told the jury.

    However, tests performed last year on the same evidence were less certain — finding, for example, that the blood on the door could not be interpreted without additional testing, or the samples on the shirt and shoes were inadequate for comparison techniques, defense lawyers said.

    “In stark contrast to what the jury heard, the (new testing) demonstrates that the results for these items are inconclusive and do not connect Mr. Escobar to the crime,” the lawyers said.

    In addition, the lawyers argued that Escobar, 38, deserves a new trial based on recent information detailing “gross incompetence and negligence at the APD lab.”

    Documents showed 11 “contamination incidents” of samples at the lab between 2005 and Escobar’s 2011 trial, they said, including seven by the analyst who tested items in the Maldonado case and three by the forensic scientist who screened evidence for the presence of DNA.

    When combined with the forensic science commission’s criticism of the lab’s training and practices, the information raises significant doubts about Escobar’s conviction, they told the appeals court.

    “The widespread problems at the lab … call into question all of the DNA evidence in Mr. Escobar’s case,” the lawyers said.

    http://www.mystatesman.com/news/cour...xmzYYLPEJzVAJ/

  2. #22
    Senior Member CnCP Legend CharlesMartel's Avatar
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    Maligned Austin police DNA analyst at center of death penalty appeal

    By Ryan Autullo
    The Austin American-Statesman

    The work of a maligned former Austin police DNA analyst is at the center of an appeal by a death row inmate convicted of killing a young mother and injuring her son in 2009.

    Court records show lawyers for Areli Escobar have raised concerns that DNA evidence collected in the case was analyzed by lab technician Diana Morales, who was reassigned in December 2016 after the Department of Public Safety deemed her to be untrainable for continued employment in the revamped DNA portion of the crime lab. The lab was temporarily shuttered in 2016 over mistakes and sloppy testing practices.

    Escobar, 39, appeared Wednesday in state District Court as he tries to persuade a judge to recommend that a higher court order a new trial in the death of 17-year-old Bianca Maldonado. The Court of Criminal Appeals in October referred the appeal to state District Judge David Wahlberg.

    Testimony at Escobar’s 2011 trial revealed Maldonado was stabbed 46 times, beaten and sexually assaulted before dying of blood loss at her Decker Lane apartment. The LBJ High student was alone with her 1-year-old son, who was injured but survived.

    The DNA evidence that Escobar’s lawyers intend to question includes blood on his shoes and shirt that prosecutors used to establish his guilt, court records show.

    A message left Wednesday with Austin police regarding Morales’ role in Escobar’s case was not returned.

    Her departure as DNA analyst came months after Travis County prosecutors in the middle of a sexual assault case raised concerns about her performance. According to a memo, they found her unprepared to testify about her DNA analysis, giving contradictory answers to their questions and unable to explain her basic analysis methods and conclusions.

    In 2010, former employee Cecily Hamilton accused Morales of cheating on a proficiency exam and doing substandard work. Both internal and external reviews dismissed her claims, saying Morales appeared competent and qualified.

    The next step in Escobar’s bid for a new trial comes Sept. 6 when his lawyers intend to question the validity of cellphone testimony that prosecutors used at his trial. An additional unscheduled hearing will focus on fingerprint identification. Discussion of the DNA evidence will come at yet another hearing.

    It will be several months until Wahlberg weighs in on whether Escobar should be granted a new trial.

    https://www.mystatesman.com/news/cri...vW5utcMZUQqON/
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  3. #23
    Senior Member CnCP Legend JLR's Avatar
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    January 8, 2021

    Concerned over DNA evidence, judge recommends new trial to Austin man on death row for 2009 slaying

    By Katie Hall
    The Austin American-Statesman

    A Travis County state district judge has recommended that an Austin man on death row get a new trial, after his attorneys raised concerns that a former Austin crime lab technician incorrectly analyzed DNA evidence collected in the case.

    The recommendation comes as local attorneys review Travis County convictions that involved DNA evidence after a state audit highlighted problems at the lab. Control over Austin's crime lab was transferred from the Austin Police Department to the Texas Department of Public Safety when the audit revealed that lab techs were improperly analyzing DNA samples.

    Areli Escobar — a 41-year-old who was convicted on May 13, 2011, of sexually assaulting and killing 17-year-old Bianca Maldonado and injuring her son — may get a new trial, if the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals agrees with Judge David Wahlberg's recommendation.

    "Mr. Escobar has maintained his innocence from the beginning to today," said his attorney Carlotta Lepingwell. "Now that we all know the truth about the APD lab, we have seen a mountain of evidence to support what Mr. Escobar has maintained since day one. This is a tragic and painful case, but Areli Escobar and the people of Travis County deserve a fair and just prosecution, based on reliable evidence."

    After the DNA lab takeover, the Travis County district attorney’s office sent more than 1,000 legally required notifications to defendants whose cases might be affected by the fact that officials had called the DNA evidence into question. Those defendants could then contact the Capital Area Private Defender Service’s Forensic Project if they wanted to have their cases reviewed.

    The Forensic Project is not handling Escobar's case because the Texas office of capital and forensic writs is representing him. Officials with the Forensic Project declined to comment on whether they are seeking retrials in other cases, citing their policy against commenting on pending litigation.

    A Travis County jury convicted Escobar of capital murder after hearing testimony that, in May 2009, Maldonado was stabbed 46 times, beaten and sexually assaulted before dying of blood loss at her Decker Lane apartment, where Escobar also lived. The LBJ High School student was alone with her 1-year-old son, who was injured but survived.

    The attack happened not long after Maldonado's mother and sister left for a job delivering the Austin American-Statesman, investigators said.

    Escobar's fingerprint was found on a lotion bottle near Maldonado's body, and experts at the trial said that DNA evidence likely linked Escobar to the killing.

    During the trial, analysts testified that Maldonado could not be excluded as the source of blood found on shoes witnesses said Escobar wore the night of the killing and on a car witnesses said he had been driving.

    However, issues with the DNA evidence in Escobar's case arose even before his trial. Nine months before his trial, the Austin police DNA lab requested that DPS conduct additional testing on a stain on a shirt and a stain on a doorknob lock. Three days after the jury had already convicted Escobar of capital murder, then-DPS Analyst Jody Koehler reported that she was unable to find any DNA profiles from the stain.

    "Had counsel for Mr. Escobar been in possession of Ms. Koehler's report when it was first issued on May 16, 2011, counsel for Mr. Escobar could have utilized the report as mitigating evidence in the punishment phase of Mr. Escobar's trial, as well as moving for mistrial and/or filing a motion for new trial based on new evidence," Wahlberg wrote in his Dec. 22 recommendation.

    Instead, Escobar's attorneys did not receive a copy of Koehler's report until 2017, Wahlberg wrote. This amounted to suppression by the prosecution of evidence favorable to Escobar, which violated his Fourteenth Amendment right to due process, Wahlberg wrote.

    "This case provides troubling indications that under the former DA the prosecutors committed grave misconduct in seeking to defend the indefensible conviction of Mr. Escobar," Lepingwell said. "The former DA’s office manipulated office policy to avoid disclosing exculpatory information about the evidence used to convict Mr. Escobar."

    The Travis County DA's office was under the leadership of Rosemary Lehmberg in 2011. Officials with the DA's office, which is now under the leadership of newly sworn-in DA José Garza, declined to comment on the case.

    DPS is contracted to operate the Austin DNA crime lab through August 2023. Officials have not decided what form the lab will take after the contract expires.

    The lab could be run by Austin and Travis County government, Austin police, or simply operate as an independent government entity, Austin’s Assistant City Manager Rey Arellano told Travis County commissioners in October.

    https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.sta...amp/4128619001

  4. #24
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    ARTICLE 11.071 APPLICATION FOR WRIT OF HABEAS CORPUS DENIED/DISMISSED WITH WRITTEN ORDER:

    https://search.txcourts.gov/handdown...ate=01/26/2022
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  5. #25
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    No new trial for Austin man on death row; appeals court rejects claims of bad DNA analysis

    An Austin man on death row lost his bid for a new trial, despite a lower court's belief that prosecutors presented incorrect DNA evidence to the jury that convicted him.

    The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals on Wednesday rejected state District Judge David Wahlberg's recommendation that Areli Escobar deserves a new trial after his attorneys raised concerns that the then-Austin police forensic lab incorrectly analyzed DNA evidence collected in his case.

    While DNA experts determined that some of the evidence was inconclusive or inadequate, other evidence still points to Escobar, the appeals court wrote in its order.

    Escobar is still entitled to challenge his conviction in federal court.

    A Travis County jury in 2011 convicted Escobar of capital murder after hearing testimony that, in May 2009, 17-year-old Bianca Maldonado was stabbed 46 times, beaten and sexually assaulted before dying of blood loss at her Decker Lane apartment, where Escobar also lived. The slain LBJ High School student was alone with her 1-year-old son, who was injured but survived.

    When Escobar's girlfriend called his cellphone early that morning, she could hear a woman screaming repeatedly, she testified at his trial. Escobar later arrived at his mother's house with a bloody shirt, according to his arrest affidavit.

    As part of the appeal, experts who reexamined the evidence years after the trial concluded that Maldonado's DNA was found on Escobar's shoes and in his car.

    Prosecutors also presented other evidence to support Escobar's conviction, including a fingerprint, cellphone evidence, a shoe print, and testimony from Escobar's girlfriend, the appeals court pointed out.

    Escobar and his attorneys "failed to show that the general deficiencies discovered in the (state) audit specifically affected the DNA results in his particular case," the appeals court wrote.

    The Austin Police Department in 2017 surrendered the lab to state control after a state audit found that the lab was following a procedure that was not scientifically sound. The Texas Department of Public Safety will continue operating the lab through August 2023, and the Austin City Council last year moved $12 million out of Police Department's budget to create an independent forensics lab in the future.

    Escobar has maintained his innocence from the beginning, said his attorney, Benjamin Wolff, director of the state's Office of Capital and Forensic Writs.

    "We are disappointed that the Court of Criminal Appeals would uphold the use of the junk science used to convict Mr. Escobar," Wolff said. "No conviction, let alone a death sentence, should be based on scientifically unreliable evidence. Because that is how innocent people get convicted."

    9 months before Escobar's trial, the Austin police DNA lab requested that outside experts conduct additional testing on a stain on a shirt and a stain on a doorknob lock. Three days after the jury had already convicted Escobar, the analyst reported that she was unable to find any DNA profiles from the stain.

    However, Escobar's attorneys did not receive a copy of this report until 2017.

    Wahlberg wrote in his December 2020 recommendation that "counsel for Mr. Escobar could have utilized the report as mitigating evidence in the punishment phase of Mr. Escobar's trial, as well as moving for mistrial and/or filing a motion for new trial based on new evidence," Wahlberg wrote.

    The appeals court disagreed with Wahlberg in its order.

    The same appeals court late last year tossed out a conviction that also relied on questionable DNA analysis. The Court of Criminal Appeals set aside the cocaine possession conviction of 41-year-old Lamarcus Turner in December after he had already completed his 5-year sentence.

    In that case, the court agreed with Turner's lawyers, who contended that "inconclusive and unreliable DNA evidence was relied upon to secure his plea."

    The Forensic Project, an independent team of attorneys appointed by Travis County, is still reviewing about 500 requests from defendants to appeal their cases over DNA evidence analyzed at the Austin police lab. The project is reviewing all types of charges, including sexual assault and murder.

    Of those 500, the Forensic Project has said that 5 to 10 are probably headed to litigation soon, but it declined to say which cases or what kinds of charges the group would be challenging.

    The Forensic Project did not handle Escobar's case because it was a death penalty case.

    (source: Austin American-Statesman)
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
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  6. #26
    Moderator Bobsicles's Avatar
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    On February 7, 2022, Escobar filed a habeas petition in Federal District Court.

    https://dockets.justia.com/docket/te...v00102/1161456
    Thank you for the adventure - Axol

    Tried so hard and got so far, but in the end it doesn’t even matter - Linkin Park

    Hear me, my chiefs! I am tired. My heart is sick and sad. From where the sun now stands, I will fight no more forever. - Hin-mah-too-yah-lat-kekt

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    Petition for a writ of certiorari filed June 24, 2022.

    https://www.supremecourt.gov/search....c/21-1601.html

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    Texas death row case could get Supreme Court review, Austin’s faulty DNA lab the focus

    The American Bar Association is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to grant a Central Texas man another trial after he was convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death for sexually assaulting and fatally stabbing a 17-year-old girl in east Austin in 2009.

    The bar association is pointing to DNA evidence used in the trial, which was conducted at the Austin Police Departments now shuttered crime lab.

    In 2016, an audit found that APD lab technicians were using flawed science when calculating the odds of DNA results, possibly botching thousands of cases. Techs were also using expired materials during testing and there was at least 1 case where the evidence was contaminated.

    Hundreds of DNA criminal cases from shuttered Austin Police DNA lab under review

    “What is perhaps most remarkable about this case is that the State itself—which secured the conviction—has now changed position and acknowledged that petitioner’s due process rights were violated and that a new trial is warranted,” ABA wrote in a 19-page amicus brief to the Supreme Court.

    Areli Carbajal Escobar, 43, is on death row for the murder of 17-year-old Bianca Maldonado. During his trial, the state presented graphic evidence of the attack, saying the victim was found with 46 stab wounds. They also presented DNA evidence, which is in dispute here, and fingerprints from the crime scene.

    Escobar’s girlfriend at the time said she heard the attack on her cellphone, police reported. For the next 10 minutes, she said she heard the sound of a woman being raped. Escobar lived at the same apartment complex as Maldonado.

    The murder happened in 2009, a jury decided Escobar was guilty in 2011. Escobar’s legal team has been fighting his conviction since.

    “I feel sad about all of this because I know we have to start over again, I know this is going to be hard not only for us but all of our family and people who know my sister,” said Magaly Maldonado, Bianca’s younger sister, in 2017 when Escobar appealed his conviction in Travis County. “This is going to bring tears again, it’s going to be really hard.”

    2009 murder victim’s family speaks about death row inmate’s new hearing

    The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has previously rejected attempts to get a new trial for Escobar, saying the DNA evidence was not central to securing Escobar’s conviction, according to the brief. It is unclear if the Supreme Court will take up the case.

    (source: KXAN news)
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

  9. #29
    Moderator Bobsicles's Avatar
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    Distributed for conference October 28, 2022.

    https://www.supremecourt.gov/search....c/21-1601.html
    Thank you for the adventure - Axol

    Tried so hard and got so far, but in the end it doesn’t even matter - Linkin Park

    Hear me, my chiefs! I am tired. My heart is sick and sad. From where the sun now stands, I will fight no more forever. - Hin-mah-too-yah-lat-kekt

    I’m going to the ghost McDonalds - Garcello

  10. #30
    Senior Member CnCP Legend Mike's Avatar
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    Texas DA Joins Judge, Defense in Condemning Flawed DNA Evidence in Death Row Case

    The Crime Report

    José P. Garza, a district attorney in Texas, has joined lawyers for a man convicted of murder in requesting a new trial, reports for the New York Times. Areli Escobar was convicted of murder in 2011 based on DNA evidence from a now-disgraced police lab that made his trial, as a state judge described it, “fundamentally unfair.” Garza told the New York Times that while it’s the instinct of every DA to defend convictions, their “job is to see justice is done,” and he was convinced that the DNA evidence was flawed. Garza joined Escobar’s lawyers when his case made it to the Court of Criminal Appeals in requesting a new trial, but the appeals court held up the conviction in an unsigned opinion.

    The appeals court somehow held up the conviction despite the unusual state of Escobar’s case: the trial judge, defense and prosecution all believe he deserved a new trial. On Oct. 28, the Supreme Court is expected to consider whether to take up Escobar’s appeal, and Garza has filed another brief in support. The DNA lab at the center of Escobar’s original trial was audited in 2016 and, after a number of issues were flagged by the Texas Forensic Science Commission, permanently shut down.

    https://thecrimereport.org/2022/10/2...eath-row-case/
    "There is a point in the history of a society when it becomes so pathologically soft and tender that among other things it sides even with those who harm it, criminals, and does this quite seriously and honestly. Punishing somehow seems unfair to it, and it is certain that imagining ‘punishment’ and ‘being supposed to punish’ hurts it, arouses fear in it." Friedrich Nietzsche

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