Innocence Project
News and Press
DA Loses: Judge Declares Convict Factually Innocent
By Leslie Griffy
Mercury News
Article Launched:12/20/2007 05:39:11 AM PST
After spending six years trying to clear his name - five of those years in prison - Jeffrey Rodriguez walked out of court Wednesday exonerated.
Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge Andrea Y. Bryan declared Rodriguez factually innocent, sweeping aside the objections of prosecutors who had initially won a conviction against Rodriguez in the 2001 robbery of an employee at a Kragen Auto Parts store in San Jose.
"I still believe in our system," an emotional, happy Rodriguez said after the hearing, "even if it can take awhile."
Bryan's ruling marked the first time in memory that a Santa Clara County defendant was declared innocent even in the face of opposition from prosecutors.
Weeks after District Attorney Dolores Carr took office this year, after campaigning on a platform of changing the office's "win at all costs" culture, her office decided not to retry Rodriguez, amid questions about the evidence that had led to his conviction.
But the office stopped short of acknowledging his innocence, and last month she said in a letter to the director of the Northern California Innocence Project that she had "no reason to believe" Rodriguez was innocent.
Rodriguez had been convicted and sentenced to 25 years to life in prison based on testimony from the victim that he was the man who showed up at the loading dock and demanded money. The prosecution was aided by the conclusion of Santa Clara County crime lab analyst Mark Moriyama that Rodriguez' pants were stained with a combination of cooking oil and motor oil - a combination that Deputy District Attorney John Luft said would have come from the loading dock.
The conviction was overturned last year, based on an appellate court ruling that the poor performance of Rodriguez' trial attorney could have made the difference in the case. As the district attorney prepared for retrial, Deputy District Attorney David Pandori and Deputy Public Defender Andy Gutierrez together found evidence that raised questions about the reliability of the victim's identification.
The district attorney chose to drop the case altogether after Moriyama's analysis was contradicted by outside analysts who disagreed that motor oil was found on Rodriguez' jeans.
The evidence that Rodriguez wasn't the culprit was "clear," said Irma Castillo, the attorney who first raised questions about the evidence in her successful appeal last year. Wednesday, Castillo called the district attorney's decision to fight the exoneration troubling.
"I think that the office still has the mentality of conviction at all costs," she said. "That was an opportunity to do the right thing and they missed it."
But Carr pointed to her office's decision not to retry Rodriguez as evidence that she is working to change the culture there.
"I think our commitment to changing the win-at-all-costs culture was demonstrated by our decision to dismiss the case," she said. But, she noted, the standard to find someone innocent is much higher than to find the defendant not guilty.
The innocence finding wipes the arrest from Rodriguez' record, and leaves him eligible to seek reimbursement from the state for having been wrongfully incarcerated. Rodriguez's case was featured in the Mercury News series "Tainted Trials, Stolen Justice" as an example of how questionable conduct by prosecutors, judges or defense attorneys increases the small but significant chance of wrongful convictions.
"How does a man who is accused of a crime defend himself against false evidence?" Rodriguez' attorney, Jaime Leanos, asked during the hearing Wednesday. "You can't. It is scary that they are still fighting this."
Judge Makes a Surprising Move in Murder Case
Thursday, November 08, 2007 | 9:22 AM
By John-Thomas Kobos
11/08/2007 -- The recent courtroom developments were yet another chapter in the disturbing murder of a pregnant Reedley woman gunned down at her father's convenience store.
Armando Ortiz has maintained his innocence since he was arrested for double murder at the age of 16.
He was convicted even though he had one of the Valley's best known attorneys, Ernest Kinney, representing him.
But that conviction got overturned by a judge who had major concerns with how Kinney handled this case.
4 years ago Armando Ortiz was sentenced to two life sentences for the murder of Manar Jaber and her unborn child.
Wednesday afternoon a state Supreme Court judge threw out Ortiz's conviction saying his defense lawyer Ernest Kinney provided ineffective legal council.
"They want to say I'm ineffective. It's far more important that an innocent man get out of this horrible situation than running on Ernie Kinney," said Ernest Kinney, defense lawyer.
The overturned conviction is the result of work by a group called "The Innocence Project" who works to free people like Ortiz and others they believe have been wrongly convicted.
Innocence Project attorneys found a list of potential witnesses who maintain Ortiz was at a family party in Fresno at the time Jaber was gunned down in Reedley.
Cookie Ridolfi with Innocence Project says Ortiz' attorney Ernest Kinney did a lousy job.
He failed to call witnesses for the defense that were available for the defense.
But Kinney says he had no knowledge of these witnesses and wonders if they would have been effective.
"Juries don't tend to give it a lot of weight. They rarely work. They can be valuable. It can be good. If I had that material I would have evaluated it. I don't believe I ever had that material," said Kinney.
"What he didn't do in this case is basic, basic defense work. It's not like he missed a subtle issue," said Ridolfi. <
When asked how she reacted to the news of the overturned conviction, Armando's sister, Jennifer Rodriguez, replied, "I was happy but I knew that the day was coming."
Ortiz's sister Jennifer Rodriguez says this new ruling is a chance for her brother to find freedom.
"When I talked with him earlier this afternoon he was very very happy. Very happy, very pleased with the council we have now," said Jennifer Rodriguez.
Ortiz will be represented by the very group who helped persuade the judge to overturn his conviction.
Ortiz isn't out of jail just yet. He's serving time on an assault charge that the Innocence Project is also fighting to get overturned.
The district attorney's office plans to ask the judge to reconsider his decision.
If that fails, the D.A. will have to decide whether to seek a new trial or to drop the case entirely.
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