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Two Magicians Warn the Supreme Court About Junk Science

Penn & Teller filed a Supreme Court brief questioning the use of “investigative hypnosis” in a death-penalty case in Texas.


Penn Jillette and Teller in Las Vegas last year. Roger Kisby for The New York Times

By Adam Liptak
Adam Liptak is the chief legal correspondent and host of The Docket.
April 16, 2026

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Penn Jillette, the talkative member of the magic act Penn & Teller, knows that people will find the duo’s new project a little surprising. It is a Supreme Court brief filed last month urging the justices to hear an appeal from Charles Don Flores, a death row inmate in Texas. ... A key piece of evidence in the case was tainted by a police officer’s “investigative hypnosis” of a witness, the brief said.

On a video call from Las Vegas, Penn was quick to tell me that he does not know much about many things. But he said — and who could disagree? — that he is an expert in misleading people. ... “I am bringing this to you with the utmost humility,” he said. “I am carny trash. I am uneducated. If you want to say I have a position of expertise, it is that I have lied to people onstage and gotten them to believe it. And I think I could do what that police officer did.”

But first Penn wanted me to know a couple of things. He said he had no idea if Flores is guilty of a 1998 murder of a woman in Texas. He added that, in his view, Flores should not be executed even if he is. ... “I am completely against the death penalty in every single case,” Penn said. “If I saw Bin Laden killing my mother in Times Square, and taking 1000 people with her, would I then be in favor of the death penalty? The answer is ‘no.’”

Then he got to the point. “On top of that,” he said, “I think this evidence is bogus."

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