OUT OF THE FIRST 239 EXONERATIONS PROVEN BY DNA TESTING 175 involved mistaken eyewitness identifications.
For Francisco Carrillo, who was released on Wednesday after 20 years behind bars for a murder he didn’t commit, there was no DNA evidence. He was convicted of the Jan. 18, 1991 drive-by shooting murder based on the testimony of six teenage boys who were standing with the victim. Carrillo was 16 at the time he was arrested.
A Los Angeles County Superior Court judge overturned the conviction this week after the victim’s son, plus four other witnesses, recanted their identifications.
The LA Times’ Jack Leonard has the rest of the story.
For two decades, Francisco “Franky” Carrillo insisted he was innocent.
After his arrest at age 16, he recalled, he was desperate to prove to a jury that he had nothing to do with the fatal drive-by shooting he was charged with. Then came the guilty verdict and a life prison sentence.
Carrillo was behind bars when his father died in 1999. His son, born shortly after his arrest, grew to manhood outside prison walls. During a phone call, Carrillo promised his son that he would one day be released so that he could be with him.
On Wednesday afternoon, two days after his murder conviction was overturned, Carrillo made good on his vow, walking out of Los Angeles County Jail and into the arms of his supporters and attorneys who had helped win his freedom.
Wearing jeans and a striped shirt provided by jail staff upon his release, Carrillo said he harbored no bitterness for the time he spent incarcerated and was focused instead on enjoying his new life. His immediate priority: shave, shower and grab lunch.
“I’m, personally, not angry,” he said. “I don’t want to carry that heavy load.”
(Illustration from Psychology Today)
TEACHERS & PROGRAM DIRECTORS FROM HAMILTON HIGH PERFORMING ARTS MAGNET MAY GET AX
There have been some hideous moves made in the course of LAUSD’s budget slashing, but this one’s at or near the top.
Hamilton High School’s performing arts magnet is one of the true jewels in the Los Angeles Unified School District. It quite literally changes kids’ lives with its excellent of teachers and stellar arts programs.
And now LAUSD is gutting the magnet school?
Really???
A big thank you to Steve Lopez for doing a column on the issue. Here’s a clip.
The news rippled across the campus Friday morning, and students were falling apart. They texted their parents and sought out one another to see if it could all be true.
“I saw kids crying in the quad,” said Portia Amofa, student body president at Hamilton High School in West Los Angeles.
The students were finding out that some of their favorite teachers were among roughly 7,000 in L.A. Unified who had gotten layoff notices. In addition, the directors of two enormously popular and successful Hamilton programs, the humanities magnet and the music magnet, had been told by L.A. Unified that their positions were being eliminated.
It’s still early in the game, and some teachers who got layoff notices may keep their jobs in the end. But things don’t look good, given anticipated funding cuts from Sacramento. Like school districts across the state, L.A. Unified has had to prepare for the worst and send out “potential” notices.
Students at Hamilton aren’t waiting around for the adults to mess things up any more than they already have in a state that ranks near the bottom in national spending per pupil. They’re on the warpath, trying to save something they believe in.
THE PRESSURE BUILDS FOR A SCOTUS CODE OF ETHICS
This issue isn’t going away.
The NY Times is the latest entry into the discussion with a new editorial.
Here’s how it opens:
Supreme Court justices have life tenure to assure their independence and impartiality. The court’s lack of a recusal policy leaves each justice to decide whether he or she is meeting that standard. That plainly violates the age-old legal principle: Nemo iudex in causa sua — no one should be a judge about his or her own case. It damages the justices’ credibility and the court’s authority.
The court is still not addressing the issue despite months of questions about possible cozy friendships, suspected political biases and family ties….