Charles

Supporting evidence.

The biggest reason we needed to republish an episode from last November in our podcast feed on Tuesday is not because of the fancy award it got nominated for, or the new listeners we have, or any of the other reasons that first made me consider this.

The biggest reason is simple: on Monday, Pablo Torre Finds Out discovered that there has been an extremely urgent change in the story of its subject.

On May 12, 2025, the Texas attorney general’s office sent the letter that Charles Flores and his lawyer, Gretchen Sween, have been dreading.

The state of Texas has officially requested an imminent execution date for Charles.

In courtrooms, Charles is known as Inmate No. 999299. He’s been living inside the supermax Polunsky Unit in Livingston for years now; that’s where PTFO correspondent Dave Fleming met him. At this point, Charles has been in federal prison for more than a quarter-century — and maintaining his innocence, throughout, for even longer.

But to give you a sense of the whiplash over the last week: when PTFO checked in with Charles and Gretchen several days ago, nothing had developed in his case. Over 25 years, they’d exhausted every legal avenue. “In the current political moment,” Gretchen told us, “there is unlikely to be any positive change.”

The timing of this letter, however, was a surprise.

So all they could do yesterday was file their formal opposition statement, now requesting that the 195th District Court in Dallas County “not set an execution date as [Flores] litigates his claim that his wrongful conviction is based solely on an identification by a hypnotized witness.”

They submitted the episode we republished as supporting evidence.

They fear, now, that the legal fight of Charles Flores may be over.

We fully believe that it shouldn’t be.

For more information: please visit FreeCharlesFlores.com.