John Wixted

More than a year later, two of those same witnesses showed up at his criminal trial and identified him as the shooter in front of a judge and jury.

He was convicted and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Miguel spent 25 years of his life, from age 19 to age 44, behind bars before finally being exonerated in late 2023.

with the help of the new science that I'm telling you about today.

Focus on the first uncontaminated test.

As tragic as Miguel's story is, at least the new science helped to overturn his conviction before he spent his entire life in prison.

But others with a similar story remain behind bars as we speak.

And some of them, their lives are hanging in the balance.

Consider the case of Charles Don Flores.

He too was arrested for murder in 1998.

There was one witness in this case.

On the day of the crime, she told the police that she saw a white male with shoulder-length hair go into her neighbor's house shortly before the murder occurred.

a couple days later she goes back to the police station they hypnotize her it's always dicey but she stuck to her story she said it's a white male with shoulder-length hair the police asked her to make a composite sketch so she did came out to be a white male with shoulder-length hair just like she said now keep in mind this is very early in the police investigation this is a time when her memory of the perpetrator is as fresh and strong and uncontaminated as it will ever be

But the police suspected Charles Don Flores, a Hispanic man with short hair, and for some inexplicable reason, put his photo in a photo lineup and showed it to the witness.

This is still early in the police investigation.

This is the all-important first test of a witness's uncontaminated memory for the suspect, Charles Don Flores.

The witness looked at this photo lineup,

didn't see any white males with shoulder length hair and quite understandably rejected it, providing clear evidence that Flores is innocent.

Fast forward to his criminal trial a year later and you can probably guess how this story turns out.

Now the witness is more than 100% certain that it was Charles Don Flores she saw go into her neighbor's house on the day of that murder.