In a remarkable turn of events, a Californian, Miguel Solorio, who spent a quarter-century behind bars for a murder he didn't commit, found redemption as a judge ordered his release on Thursday, following prosecutors' acknowledgment of a wrongful conviction.
Having been arrested in 1998 for a fatal drive-by shooting in Whittier, southeast of Los Angeles, Solorio, now 44, faced a life sentence without parole until Superior Court Judge William Ryan intervened during a remote Los Angeles court hearing.
Expressing his gratitude to the Northern California Innocence Project, Solorio hailed his legal team as his "dream team" and described the moment as a surreal dream he never wanted to end.
The legal battle for Solorio's release centered on the assertion that faulty eyewitness identification practices led to his unjust conviction. Last month, the Los Angeles District Attorney’s Office unequivocally stated that Solorio deserved release.
His defense argued that the case against him heavily relied on a discredited method of suspect identification, which taints witnesses' memory by repeatedly showing them photos of the same person. In Solorio's case, eyewitnesses initially failed to identify him, with some pointing to another individual. However, law enforcement persisted in presenting Solorio's photos until some eventually identified him, bypassing other potential leads.
Sarah Pace, an attorney with the Northern California Innocence Project, emphasized the tragedy of tunnel vision in law enforcement, where a suspect's name triggered a myopic focus, neglecting alternative evidence and potential suspects.
The district attorney's letter acknowledged a scientific consensus in 2020 that a witness's memory for a suspect should be tested only once, as even the test itself can compromise the witness's recollection.
The state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation now has up to five days to process Solorio's release from Mule Creek State Prison, located southeast of Sacramento.
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