WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday rejected an appeal from a Texas death row inmate accused of killing a teen girl in Austin nearly 16 years ago.
Areli Escobar’s bid for a new trial has drawn the support of the Travis County District Attorney’s Office, which originally put him on death row.
In 2011, Escobar was convicted and sentenced to death in the May 2009 sexual assault and murder of 17-year-old Bianca Maldonado, a student at LBJ High School.
Investigators said Maldonado was stabbed 46 times and sexually assaulted at her Decker Lane apartment complex, where Escobar also lived. Maldonado was alone with her 1-year-old son, who was injured but survived.
The prosecution’s case against Escobar focused on evidence from the Austin Police Department’s DNA lab. But a later audit turned up problems at the lab that led Travis County District Court Judge David Wahlberg to conclude Escobar’s trial wasn’t fair.
“The State’s use of unreliable, false, or misleading DNA evidence to secure (Escobar’s) conviction violated fundamental concepts of justice,” Wahlberg wrote.
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has held up Escobar’s conviction twice. The first time followed a lower court’s decision ordering a new trial after the judge identified problems with the evidence. More recently, the appeals court ruled against Escobar after the Supreme Court had ordered it to reconsider.
The Supreme Court justices did not provide an explanation for rejecting Escobar’s appeal.
He is not facing imminent execution.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.