The Supreme Court has rejected an appeal from Texas death row inmate Areli Escobar, upholding his murder conviction and death sentence. This decision comes despite similarities between Escobar’s case and that of Richard Glossip, an Oklahoma man whose conviction was recently overturned by the high court. The Texas appeals court twice rejected Escobar’s appeals, even after a lower court ordered a new trial due to problems with evidence from the Austin Police Department’s DNA lab. When the case returned to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, Travis County prosecutors no longer defended Escobar’s conviction, as a new district attorney had been elected with a promise to hold police accountable.
In Glossip’s case, the Oklahoma Attorney General backed the call to throw out the conviction and death sentence due to the discovery of new evidence that showed he did not receive a fair trial. The Supreme Court ruled that prosecutors allowing a key witness to give false testimony violated Glossip’s constitutional right to a fair trial.
Escobar was sentenced to death for the 2009 murder and sexual assault of 17-year-old Bianca Maldonado in Austin. The rejection of his appeal by the Supreme Court raises questions about discrepancies in the justice system and the implications for death row inmates seeking a new trial. Despite the support of the prosecutor’s office that initially put him on death row, Escobar’s case highlights the challenges faced by individuals fighting for justice in capital punishment cases.
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