Episode 7: 𝐊𝐫𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐧 𝐂𝐮𝐞𝐥𝐥𝐚𝐫

In this episode we explore the work of Kristin Cuellar, the Executive Director of the Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty.

She reflects on her journey into human rights advocacy, her decades-long fight against capital punishment, and her perspective on justice, reform, and the human cost of the death penalty.

Hosted by criminologists Dr. Rashaan DeShay and Dr. Katherine Polzer.

Edited and produced by Krystal Guerra.

Note: We have worked hard to ensure that all facts reported in this show are accurate. The views and opinions expressed by the individuals featured in this show are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of the hosts.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:10

I hope hell would catch him.

SPEAKER_03 0:14

There was some people that said get an attorney, but my way of thinking was why I'm innocent.

SPEAKER_00 0:23

And I looked up it said homicide. I'm like, homicide.

SPEAKER_01 0:30

Kristen Quayar is the executive director of TCADP, the Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty. She has served in this capacity since December of 2008. She was involved in the movement to abolish the death penalty long before taking on her current position at TCADP. This includes working for Amnesty International and spending time as a board member for the Kentucky Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty. In this episode, Kristen talks to us about her path to be involved in this movement and the work of TCADP, which involves advocacy work related to the death penalty. She also discusses how wrongful convictions have impacted the movement to abolish the death penalty. This is Voices of the Innocent with your host, Dr. Katie Polzer, and me, Dr. Rashawn Dechey.

SPEAKER_02 1:24

So, Kristen, just to kind of get us started, can you talk to us about kind of like your career trajectory and what drew you into this work?

SPEAKER_00 1:35

Yeah, so thanks so much for having me. Um, I have always been interested in um civil rights and human rights issues, you know, starting from a pretty young age. And um, when I uh got to college in the um early 90s, I immediately joined the human rights organization, Amnesty International. And initially it was very much um focused on human rights abuses that were happening in other countries. You know, Amnesty had campaigns uh, you know, focused on human rights defenders in China, Nigeria, and Kenya, and I was really drawn to those issues. But in the process of being involved with Amnesty, I was learning a lot about the death penalty, which is also one of their kind of core issues. And they would issue what they called urgent actions of cases of individuals facing execution, you know, in other countries, but also in the United States and many times in Texas. So that was where my real uh, you know, I had thought about the death penalty um for various reasons, you know, early on in my life, but it really wasn't until um 1997 when the Commonwealth of Kentucky, where I was a student at the University of Kentucky, was preparing to carry out its first execution in more than 30 years. Um, it was a man by the name of Harold McQueen who had with his brother robbed a convenience store and killed Leclerc. And he had done so in such a drug and alcohol-fueled haze, he didn't even really remember committing the crime. And, you know, by all accounts, he was deeply remorseful. Uh, he had been in on death row since 1981 and had spent his time um, you know, again, by all accounts, rehabilitating himself. He was making videos for young people cautioning him against going down the path that he did. And um, I just that was just when it really hit me like this was a human rights um violation taking place in my meme in my backyard, and I felt obligated to work against it. So I started participating in various protests against the execution. In the course of doing that, I met um longtime advocates against the death penalty in Kentucky. I met uh family members of individuals on death row who knew Harold McQueen. So really came to, you know, through them know him as a person. He wasn't just some sort of abstract. Um, and you know, again, it just felt like I felt obligated to speak out against the execution, and it just felt like such an outrage to like every sense of uh justice that I possess. And so um that's really where it started. And from there, from that experience, I became more involved in amnesties, uh work against the death penalty, served in a couple volunteer leadership roles, and then in 2002, I had the privilege of being hired to work with Amnesties National Program to abolish the death penalty in Washington, DC. And I did that for about five years, and not surprisingly, a lot of our work um involved cases in Texas, and so I came to know the advocates in Texas and uh felt like I could bring um some you know good context and connections to the work in Texas, aware that you know there was really a surprisingly like there are very few kind of criminal justice professionals in Texas for a state this with this of this size and the scope of criminal justice problem. So I moved here in 2007 to Austin, and in 2008 I was hired as the first executive director of the Texas coalition to abolish the death penalty. So I've held that role ever since.

SPEAKER_05 5:32

So can you talk or can you tell us some more about your advocacy work for the Texas Coalition Against the Death Penalty?

SPEAKER_00 5:41

Yeah, so TCADP is the only statewide grassroots advocacy organization that's dedicated solely to ending the death penalty in Texas. We address the issue in a variety of ways through public education efforts, through strategic communications, uh, through advocacy at the state and county level, and through the support of um lit of attorneys who represent individuals on death row.

SPEAKER_02 6:09

And um it seems like at least currently, or at least for quite some time, innocence has been an important aspect of the again, maybe current death uh penalty abolition movement. How um can you talk to us about that? But also how often do you think um innocent people are actually sentenced to death?

SPEAKER_00 6:33

Yes, the risk of of wrongful conviction and the evidence of error in the death penalty system, I think is a key component of our work and a key message that we convey and one that really resonates across all sectors, all ideologies. You know, I think there is, I'd like to say universal, but nearly universal agreement that states should not be executing innocent people. So educating the public and decision makers about the flaws and failures of the death penalty is really kind of one of the core tenants of of our work. And you know, we have we have strong evidence that the death penalty um does uh is is imposed on innocent people, um, not just evidence, but like living proof. So we have um in the United States uh around 200 people who have been exonerated after spending time on death row, and that includes 18 people in Texas. Um, and then we also have very strong evidence that Texas has executed a number of innocent people. So there is a statistic uh from the Death Penalty Information Center that, like for every eight people executed in this country, there's been one exoneration, and that's a pretty astonishing figure. Um, and and just a rate, a really unacceptable rate of error. I mean, I think one innocent person on death row is an unacceptable rate of error, but to think that, you know, again, at least 200 times, and these are just the cases again where the courts um, you know, finally um that the the court, the judicial process file, you know, ultimately led to an exoneration. Um, there also are current current estimates that um I think that that around like 4% of individuals currently on death row around the country are innocent. And you know, here in Texas, you know, we've have worked on a number of cases of individuals that have, you know, we believe very strong innocence claims.

SPEAKER_02 8:51

Do you think that the innocence argument in terms of why we should abolish the death penalty resonates with like members of the public or policymakers? Do you think that actually means something to them?

SPEAKER_00 9:08

Absolutely. I think that innocence really is the kind of argument against the death penalty that does bring people together. And I think it is very eye-opening for people who may not have thought about the death penalty before to either learn the story of an innocent person who's been exonerated, or an innocent person who still faces execution, or you know, someone who has been executed. I mean, we um hear so often from people who find their way to TCDP that the thing that sparked their interest in the issue is watching a film about someone like Cameron Todd Willingham or hearing the story of someone like Anthony Graves. So I think that in a sense is really the strongest argument that we have against the death penalty in the sense that it does like cross kind of all boundaries, you know, conservative, liberal, religious, non-religious. I mean, I think that it really is a again, a universal um argument against against the state's ability to to kill people or state's power, I said, I guess I should say.

SPEAKER_05 10:19

So according to the Death Penalty Information Center, we are currently seeing death sentences and executions near historic lows. Do you think we'll ever get to a point of abolition in this country? And if so, what do you think it will take us to get there? You're the expert. So do you have, you know, anything you're seeing down the road that we might see this end at some point?

SPEAKER_00 10:45

Yeah, so the death penalty landscape has shifted really dramatically in Texas over the last 25 years. So we've gone from a peak of um 48 people sentenced to death by juries in Texas in 1999 to single digit death sentences for the last 10 years, uh, including this year, three people in the entire state of Texas were sentenced to death in 2025. And um, you know, I think so, uh, and then you know, in terms of executions, the numbers are are dropping as well. So, you know, around that same time when death sentences peaked, executions also peaked in 2000. Texas executed 40 people, you know, this year there were five executions, so pretty traumatic difference. And you know, we always talk about executions as a lagging indicator because an execution of where the public is on the death penalty, because um, an execution typically involves a case that may be 20 or more years old, whereas a new death sentence is a case that's being charged and tried today. And it's just reflecting or it's reflective of the decision making of uh elected prosecutors at this time. And what we're seeing in Texas and across the country is that uh elected district attorneys just are not seeking the death penalty in you know, all but maybe really 1% or less of cases uh that could be charged and tried as capital murder. So I absolutely think that the death penalty is going to be abolished. Um, you know, we've had we are now at um 23 states in the District of Columbia that have abolished the death penalty. Um, you know, I think achieving abolition through legislation is becoming more difficult, but you know, there are still um prospects of achieving that in other states. I think in Texas it's a much um harder road, but I but I really do um take heart and just again the the declining numbers, both of death sentences and executions, and just you know, to again put it, throw another another number out there. I mean, right now the Texas death row population is stands at its kind of lowest level since the mid-1980s. So there were currently 168 people on death row. Back in the like 1985, you know, there was, I think 400, or at its peak, there were like 450 people on death row in Texas. So just astronomical numbers. So um, you know, I think we're just gonna continue to see um the death penalty like go away because the numbers are just going to continue to stay low or drop, the death or populations are going to drop, especially as you know the population continues, continues to age. You know, there are so many people on death row in Texas, but particularly in other states that have been there, you know, maybe 30 or more years. And so I think just you know, people are going to not be executed, but but be taken off of death row or maybe you know, pass away from natural causes. So I think we're really gonna just continue this movement away from the death penalty.

SPEAKER_02 14:11

Okay. And you did mention that um fewer prosecutors uh or district attorney's office are seeking the death penalty against individuals. Do you think innocence plays a role in that? The concern about executing someone who's innocent? Um, do you think maybe that's part of it, or you think there are other reasons why we're seeing that?

SPEAKER_00 14:32

Yes, there are a number of factors uh that have led uh prosecutors not to seek the death penalty um in recent years. Innocence or concerns about innocence, or just um an understanding that their public has greater concerns about innocence are is one factor. Um I think though um other things that we point to will include, you know, Texas was the last uh state with the death penalty to adopt life in prison without the possibility of parole as a sentencing option. It did so, or that became law in 2005. So that's given prosecutors and juries a lot more discretion than they previously had in terms of how they handle cases. So that's a big reason why, you know, again, the vast majority of these capital murder cases don't even go to trial. They are resolved with uh plea agreements, you know, um, and prosecutors will take the death penalty off the table in exchange for a plea agreement in some cases. In some cases, they just won't pursue it at all for a variety of reasons. We've also had a lot of turnover in the district attorney offices around Texas. Um, so back in like the 80s and 90s, it was pretty common for one individual to hold the elected office of district attorney for decades. For those decades, year after year, there were uncontested elections and they you know just had a vice grip on that office. And you know, several of them were notorious for their pursuit of the death penalty and just their um proclamations that they would seek the death penalty whenever and wherever they could. They wore it as a badge of honor when some when a defendant was sentenced to death. So, you know, that would be people like Johnny Holmes in Harris County or Henry Wade in Dallas. So these like very kind of larger than life personalities of district attorneys who held office, you know, elect you know year after year. But things started to change in Texas, um, probably like 15 or so years ago. We've seen turnover in pretty much every major county in Texas has had turnover, and some have had multiple uh turnovers in the person holding that elected office of district attorney. And the district attorney is the linchpin of the criminal justice system in their county. Um, that is the person who makes decisions about how to charge people accused of crimes and what punishment to pursue at trial if the case does proceed to trial. And then, you know, and that's at the front end, and then um later on down the road, uh, unlike most other states in Texas, it is again the elected district attorney who decides whether to advance a case to if someone sentenced a death to execution. So they have to ask the trial court judge to set a date as opposed to in places like Florida where it's the governor issuing an execution warrant. So those changes in district attorneys have led you again, not only just like a change in administration, but also um has brought into office people who have held who've hold different views on the death penalty or at least a different approach to criminal justice than perhaps their predecessors. You know, we've had um people who practice law as defense attorneys become elected as prosecutors or people, you know, and who have said like they want to be much more limited in their use of the death penalty. Um, so that's been a big factor in the decline as well. Another factor has been the improvements in the quality of legal counsel pointed to indigent defendants who faced the death penalty. So up until the early 2000s, it was not um uncommon for attorneys who had no experience with criminal law to actually be appointed to represent someone facing a possible death sentence. Um, and that was particularly true in the 1980s, um, where we just had like egregious um instances of um ineffective representation at the trial level. But in 2001, the Texas legislature passed something called the Texas uh Fair Defense Act, and that set forth standards and criteria for the appointment of counsel. So um every county has kind of like what they call the wheel of um attorneys who are qualified to represent somebody in a capital case. Um and then it also kind of created like the appointment of other people to the team, so including investigators and like mitigation specialists. And that would be, yeah, another factor I think that has led to the decline in death sentences is just the importance that has been placed on mitigation and mitigation specialists whose job is to really collect the life story of the clients, of the defendants, and to be able to persuade decision makers, whether that's the the prosecutors or you know, jury, if it goes to trial, that um that this person is is more than their worst act if if they are you know indeed guilty of a crime or that they they're mitigating reasons why they shouldn't be sentenced to death. So yeah, a long, long laundry list of reasons why uh death sentences have declined in Texas, but you know, we can't discount the the the um role or just the public awareness of wrongful convictions. And you know, the I think that I think that is something that prosecutors take into account when they're making the decision whether or not to proceed to trial and whether or not to proceed, you know, as a death penalty case, because you know, they know they're first of all going to be facing um more of a true adversary in terms of the representation on the defense side, but also just a more aware and more informed jury. Um, and then one other thing I totally forgot, another very big, big factor is just the exorbitant cost of the death penalty. We we see prosecute or we hear prosecutors again and again cite the cost as a reason for not pursuing um the death penalty in a capital case. And that's particularly true in our smaller rural counties in Texas who have said, you know, look, this would bankrupt our county. We would have to forego paying for other like vital social services that are actually going to benefit our county. We can't spend a million or upwards of a million dollars on the trial of just this one person. You know, we just had we've had several examples of that. Um again, this is like a very complicated process. So it's taking, it's just takes longer and longer to bring cases to trial. And so um it all really amounts to a very expensive process. And that's at the very front end. Um, that meter starts running as soon as a district attorney decides they're gonna seek the death penalty and doesn't, you know, doesn't stop with the appeals process, of course.

SPEAKER_02 22:03

And just to circle back real quick, you mentioned that it kind of, I guess it varies by state in terms of who's going to actually request an execution date. And so in Texas it's the district attorney who or like where the person was prosecuted or yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:19

So the county where they were convicted, it's up to that that district attorney to um file a motion with the trial court judge asking them to set a date. But yeah, there's no, you know, there's no requirement for them. They'll, you know, typically do so um once someone has like seemingly exhausted their federal appeals, um, but there's no requirement for them to do so. There's no requirement for the district attorney to like file that motion. So some do, you know, some don't there may be a lot of other reasons for them not asking for a date. You know, it's just part of this inherent arbitrariness and randomness of the death penalty.

unknown 22:58

Okay.

SPEAKER_05 22:59

So you've been in Texas now getting close to 20 years and doing this work the whole time. So while you've been in Texas at least what cases do you think about the most or that kind of haunt you in terms of people that have already been executed?

SPEAKER_00 23:21

Mm-hmm. Yeah there's so so many. I mean but of both people who were you know of the cases that I have worked on in Texas, the case the ones that haunt me the most are people like Billy Joe Wardlow, Quentin Jones, um, Christopher Young. I mean these were not innocent men. These were men were who were guilty of of committing crimes, but they did so when they were 18, 19, 20, 21 years old and you know, like um the man I mentioned the very beginning, Harold McQueen, they had used their time on death row to to grow, to change, to mature. I mean, you know, especially in a case of like Billy Joe Wardlow, you know, sentenced to death for a crime committed when he's 18 years old. He spent like more than 20 years on death row. He was not the same person when they executed him in 2020 that he was as an 18, you know, an angry and impulsive 18 year old. And you know we know from um scientific research about so much more about brain development and and um how you know brains particularly of males do not really fully develop until the mid or mid-20s and you know it just seems it's been such a um travesty to me that Texas continues to execute people who were late adolescents at the time of the crime and to do so um without any regard for the evolution of that person on death row and to do so in some of these cases particular of like Christopher Young and Quentin Jones despite the wishes of the families of the victim. So in Chris Young's case the son of the man that Chris killed pled with the Texas Board of Pardon and paroles to grant clemency to Chris you know he wasn't advocating for him to be um released from prison but he did not think that he should be executed. In Quentin Jones' case the family it was a he was convicted of killing his great aunt and her sister did not want Quinn to be executed and um you know those are the cases that that I've worked on that really that really haunt me because I think they just illustrate the the futility of the death penalty and it its ripple effects.

SPEAKER_05 25:55

Are there any cases that haunt you where um there were some clear cut signs of the person's innocence I know you mentioned Todd Willingham's case um and there was a few others as well but I don't know what your thoughts were on those cases.

SPEAKER_00 26:14

Yeah I mean there are two cases that predated my time in Texas but I think do I think are haunting because I think because I think they provide the clearest evidence of the state executed an innocent person. So one of them is Kermit Todd Willingham who was executed in 2004 he um was convicted of setting his home on fire and and his three young daughters were killed but um numerous uh experts looked at the case shortly before he was executed and after and have concluded that the evidence of arson that was relied on at his trial was just was junk science and that um you know I mean some of it is that because understanding of of fire have have changed but also just some of the kind of myths that the um investigators you know relied on to determine that the fire was intentionally set you know or just do not hold up these days and yet you know he he was um put to death despite his you know vehement protestations of his innocence another case I found really haunting is Carlos de Luna uh he was executed in 1989 um he was convicted of killing robbing and commit killing a convenience store clerk in Corpus Christi in 1982 so you know just or sorry 1983 just thinking about that like he was only on death row for like six years I mean just the that is just not something that would happen these days but again he's one of those individuals who was appointed a lawyer who I believe had never um he'd never tried a criminal case in court let alone a capital murder case and yet he held basically held Carlos Duno's life in his hand um but in Carlos's case there was another man named Carlos who was well known to law enforcement who had been convicted um of of carrying out really brutal crimes against women and yet you know the um the the police said that they had never heard of him um they and they've continued to to to claim that he um he you know this other Carlos didn't exist even though that's just completely uh untrue um there were so many things that went wrong in that case you know Carlos was Carlos de Luna was found um near the scene of the crime but he was taken to the the crime scene in the backseat of the police car and wit witnesses were brought over to the car at night, you know, it's late at night to identify him I mean it's just um things that you know really are so baffling when and you know would be unheard of today and yet all of this um proceeded like you know they there's like the crime scene was like hastily cleaned up before it was fully investigated. I mean so many things have gone wrong and that case has been thoroughly investigated um by um folks with Columbia University there's a documentary film about him called the Phantom so that those are two cases of I think two of the kind of strongest cases that we can point to um of Texas executing a likely innocent person.

SPEAKER_02 29:57

Okay so you you've talked to us about some cases that haunt you that you uh worked on and then of course then the cases that you just mentioned where there's significant evidence that Texas has executed um innocent men. Are you able to talk to us about any cases that you're currently working on yes I would love to talk to you about the case of Charles Flores.

SPEAKER_00 30:23

So Charles was um he has spent more than um 20 let's see where do we know he was sentenced in 1999 so more than 25 years on death row he has maintained his innocence uh from day one he was convicted of um a um breaking into the home of um some folks in farmers branch texas and um uh an attempted robbery and and murder there's no physical evidence whatsoever connecting Charles to the crime scene and his conviction rests largely on the testimony of a neighbor a witness who did not identify Charles who was who was hypnotized and by the police shortly after she witnessed you know these two men pull up in the driveway of her neighbor's home and she did not identify Charles for 13 months after the crime um her only identification of him came in the courtroom when she saw him sitting at the defense table the only Hispanic male in the room and something yeah you know and yet in in this case she there were two men that she saw getting out of a car in her neighbor's driveway she said that they resembled each other they were white and had kind of long stringy hair and she drew a kind of or she gave enough information to for composite sketch to be drawn and the police quickly arrested a man named Richard Childs he looked like her composite Charles Flores is a heavy set Hispanic man with short hair doesn't look anything like Rick Childs um but Rick Childs was kind of given a a sweetheart deal he pled guilty to killing um Elizabeth Black he did not have to testify at Charles Flores's trial and he was given I think um or he was he's already paroled he was paroled in 2016 after serving less than half of his sentence um so um so many things um wrong in this case but you know first and foremost this idea that this witness you know she could identify one person but not the other she asked the police to like to hypnotize her which was um which is a practice that has now been prohibited by the Texas legislature uh they did so in 2023 and and there are like more than half the states in the United States have also banned this practice of like so-called investigative hypnosis but you know she was hypnotized she still couldn't identify Charles even though police were asking her so many leading questions trying to get him get her to to to recall and just you know feeding her all kinds of garbage about the way that memory works and telling her like you'll remember more later and your mind is like a video recorder which is completely untrue and goes against you know so much scientific research around how memory actually works and and the recall um she was so shown lineups various lineups including Charles Flores still couldn't identify him and then yes she shows up on the day of his trial and is like that's the guy and you know there's you know there really was not much else um uh for for them to go on and yet they convicted Charles and uh he's been on death row since since 1999. He faced execution in 2016 um but received a stay based on uh Texas's was called Texas's junk science law that was supposed to provide a pathway for people who could illustrate um or who could provide evidence that the science used against him like in Charles's case the junk science of investigative or forensic hypnosis you know is been invalidated the scientific evidence has changed or has been outright debunked um so that was the basis for his stay but it did not ultimately uh at that point lead to his conviction being overturned and in fact no one on death row who has um appealed under this junk science law has been granted relief to date so speaking of the junk science law um what can you talk about or what's happening currently with uh the Robert Roberson case which has gotten international media attention and there's been so many crazy twists and turns and uh legal wranglings that we've never seen before happen.

SPEAKER_05 35:23

So kind of where is he at currently fighting for his life?

SPEAKER_00 35:27

Yeah so Robert has faced three execution dates since 2016 including two in the last year. He um was convicted under what is called the shake and baby syndrome hypothesis uh even though there is a mountain of evidence that the tragic death of his two year old daughter Nikki was caused by her serious health issues. So he came, you know, hour within hours of being executed in October 2024 but um but and but for the intervention of a bipartisan committee of state lawmakers he would have been put to death um and then again this year he faced execution on October 16th but a week before the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals granted a stay and sent the case back to the trial court because the state court the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals had last year decided in another shake and baby syndrome case that the conviction was invalid and that it rested on um discredited science that the you know these are cases that Robert was tried in um 2003 I think and um this other Roar case was was tried you know around the similar time that actually involved a similar expert, child abuse uh expert or what's called child abuse pediatrician or something like that who testified again in the cases of both men and saying like oh yeah these were classic shake and baby syndrome cases which they weren't so in the case of Andrew Rourke last year the Texas CCA overturned his conviction um based on the discredited um shake and baby syndrome and the Dallas County uh district attorney decided not to re-prosecute so he has been exonerated and then on the other hand we have Robert Roberson you know same very you know convicted around the same time using the same now discredited evidence plus you know again this mountain of evidence that shows what really caused Nikki's death and he's facing execution. So last year even though they had uh grant of relief to Andrew work the Court of Criminal Appeals did not apply their same logic and reasoning to Robert Robertson's case but this year they they decided they decided to reconsider um and have sent Robert's case back to the trial court with the purpose of of um or under uh to under the same to see if it if it meets it's the same kind of ration under the same rationale as the Rohrer case. So that's that's where so Robert remains on death row um but his case has been sent back to the trial court in Anderson County where he was convicted in 2003 and um it was just um revealed this week in the Dallas Morning News that um the state which is represented in Robert's case um kind of unusually by the Attorney General's office is fighting against um you know what would be the logical next step in the case which is for the trial court judge to hold an evidentiary hearing so that would be the opportunity for both sides to present their their evidence. So in Robert's case you know his attorney would be presenting all of the many many medical and scientific experts who can point to you know what caused Nikki's death and the state would have the opportunity to put on its same old tired evidence of of shake a baby syndrome but um you know the the attorney general's office apparently is kind of asking the the trial court judge to just like drag his heels there's no need to rush and you know and so that's sort of where things are so you know again the not when a case is sent back to a trial court typically they'll schedule um kind of a status hearing where the parties sort of come up with the agree to a timeline um the state hasn't really even agreed that hasn't even been scheduled yet and then they're also kind of telling the state's response to that was to tell the judge like there's no there's no rush to holding an evidentiary hearing and in fact you don't really even you're not even required to hold an evidentiary hearing which is really kind of outrageous. Do you know in terms of like the maybe the quality of representation that he did receive at his trial was there also a concern about maybe the defense counsel that he had at his uh at his trial originally one of the biggest concerns is that um the um discovery which is you know all the evidence that has been supposedly amassed against a defendant was not in Charles's case it was not turned over to his defense attorney um they were still apparently like turning over the state you know as represented by the Dallas County District Attorney's office was still providing um discovery while they were in trial which is just um ridiculous I mean his is another case like kind of like with the Carlos Duluna case like 13 months from the time of the crime to trial I mean that is just unheard of these days. So it was very much rushed to trial um there, you know the evidence related to um you know like the the it was revealed that outside I think outside of the presence of the jury that the witness um had been hypnotized but I don't think that the defense team like really had they just didn't have all of the information that they needed to really mount a vigorous defense of Charles. And you know most recent and you know and they have they have actually you know um admitted to that that they did not have that they didn't investigate they didn't have the information that they that the state had in his hands that was you know potentially sculpatory and that they also just hadn't they didn't you know dig into a lot of the evidence that the state presented uh at trial that had again been just totally rushed.

SPEAKER_02 42:13

And so but a lot of the stories that or the cases not stories but the cases that we've talked about are really kind of infuriating right have to be kind of frustrating for you as you do this work. How do you continue to do the work? Like how do you find a way to keep going when there are all these roadblocks and frustrations uh in your way yeah it's really important to kind of take the you know the long view of the work um and to also just take stock of like really how far we've come on this issue in Texas, even though you know our state does continue to execute people I mean the fact that the use of the death penalty has declined so precipitously here is something that you know helps us keep going.

SPEAKER_00 43:01

It just shows that change is possible. I mean you know there are a lot of people who think that the death penalty is just entrenched so entrenched in Texas it's just like this the way it's always will be and we know that's not true and we know that our state you know can can do just fine without without the death penalty um and we could see that just in you know in the number of of death sentences it's like it's it's so utterly meaningless to maintain this huge apparatus of a system that is you know sentencing three people in a state of 30 million you know to death every year. So um so so keeping an eye on the prize in the big picture is really helpful and you know also just knowing that we are we are making a difference in saving lives so you know being able to advocate for people like Robert Robertson and Charles Flores and Melissa And for people who are, you know, unquestionably guilty of their crimes, but also do not deserve to be executed by the state. And, you know, to also to hear from people who either have changed their minds on the death penalty or have just become sensitive to it or aware of it. You know, it's an issue that does not affect most people directly. Um, it doesn't touch most people's, you know, everyday citizens' lives in a direct way, but it does have ripple effects and you know, it does require some proximity. So when people encounter the death penalty in some form, you know, again, whether it's watching a film about Kermit Todd Willingham that pops up on their Netflix algorithm or hearing a story about Rob reading a story about Robert Roberts or you know, seeing something on social media, um, it's really gratifying to see how people come to this issue and just you know, a little bit of exposure and education really goes a long way in um and changing hearts and minds and you know, just again um making people aware uh of the death penalty and all of its flaws and failures.

SPEAKER_05 45:26

Thank you so much, Kristen. We really appreciate it.

SPEAKER_04 45:31

Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty is the only statewide grassroots advocacy organization dedicated solely to ending the death penalty in Texas. For more information about Kristen and Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, check out tcadp.org. And for more information regarding the Charles Flores case, go to freecharlesflores.com. Stay tuned for an upcoming episode on the Charles Flores case. Special thanks to Kristen Quayard and our editor-producer, Crystal Guerra.