Latest / Wrongful Conviction / #121 Wrongful Conviction: False Confessions - Daniel Villegas

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#121 Wrongful Conviction: False Confessions - Daniel Villegas · Wrongful Conviction

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to Wrongful Conviction, False Confessions. I'm Laura and I writer.
0:05
Speaker 2: And I'm Steve Drisen.
0:07
Speaker 1: Today we're going to tell you about a case that
0:09
Speaker 1: shows just how much ordinary people can help the wrongly
0:12
Speaker 1: convicted find real justice, even when they start out as strangers.
0:17
Speaker 1: In today's case, an unexpected hero fought for years to
0:21
Speaker 1: turn tragedy into triumph, ending into one of the most
0:24
Speaker 1: dramatic courtroom exonerations I've ever seen. Like so many of
0:40
Speaker 1: our cases at the Center on Wrongful Convictions, Steve first
0:43
Speaker 1: learned about Daniel Viegas through one of his infamous online searches.
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Speaker 1: By this time, I actually had my own newsfeed, and
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Speaker 1: so did our colleague Josh Tepfer. But Steve had his
0:53
Speaker 1: own reasons for being particularly excited about this case.
0:57
Speaker 2: So after all three of us read about a possible
1:01
Speaker 2: false confession case in Alpasso, it seemed like destiny for
1:05
Speaker 2: us to get involved in this case. You see, in
1:08
Speaker 2: two thousand and six, al Passo was host to one
1:11
Speaker 2: of the most important conferences in the history of false
1:14
Speaker 2: confessions that brought together many of the leading experts on
1:18
Speaker 2: the subject to the University of Texas.
1:21
Speaker 1: For people like us. This is basically the Olympics meets Coachella.
1:24
Speaker 2: Who was there? Well, Donald Connery, the author of Peter
1:28
Speaker 2: Riley's book, was there.
1:30
Speaker 1: Steve's talking about a book called Guilty Until Proven Innocent.
1:33
Speaker 1: We'll tell you that story in a later episode about
1:35
Speaker 1: a false confession from nineteen seventy three, and Geisley.
1:39
Speaker 2: Good Johnson, the famed Icelandic detective turned psychology professor at
1:45
Speaker 2: King's College of London.
1:46
Speaker 1: You might remember Geisley from our last episode. His scientific
1:49
Speaker 1: expertise helped exonerate Tana Pora in New Zealand.
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Speaker 2: Richard Offshe and Richard Leo and Saul Cassen some of
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Speaker 2: the leading experts in the United States on false confessions.
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Speaker 3: There.
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Speaker 1: We're going to hear from saulcasm in another episode two.
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Speaker 1: All of these guys are og experts in the world
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Speaker 1: of false confessions. They're Steve's heroes and mine too. So
2:10
Speaker 1: if I've turned into a geek here, you know who
2:12
Speaker 1: to blame.
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Speaker 2: This conference was a watershed moment in the history of
2:16
Speaker 2: false confessions and the idea of going back to El
2:19
Speaker 2: Paso to work on an actual false confession case. It
2:23
Speaker 2: just seemed like destiny to me.
2:27
Speaker 1: This story starts in El Paso, a border city in
2:30
Speaker 1: West Texas. Now, in the early nineteen nineties, El Casso
2:34
Speaker 1: was a different place than it is today. The crime
2:36
Speaker 1: rate was sky high. There was lots of gang activity,
2:39
Speaker 1: street violence was a daily problem, and in some neighborhoods,
2:43
Speaker 1: shootings were regular occurrences. We start our story in the
2:47
Speaker 1: early morning hours of April tenth, nineteen ninety three. Good Friday.
2:51
Speaker 1: It's just after midnight, and four teenagers are walking home
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Speaker 1: from a party and they find themselves in a rough neighborhood.
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Speaker 1: Three of them, Manda Lazo, Juan Carlo's Medina, and Jesse Hernandez.
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Speaker 1: We're seventeen years old. The fourth, Bobby England, was eighteen.
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Speaker 1: All of them were good kids, none of them were
3:09
Speaker 1: caught up in gangs or the street life. But they
3:11
Speaker 1: ran into trouble anyway. At the intersection of Electric Street
3:15
Speaker 1: and trans Mountain Road. That's where a maroon car with
3:18
Speaker 1: tinted windows rolls up behind them and starts following them slowly. Now,
3:24
Speaker 1: just as the four of them start to get scared,
3:26
Speaker 1: the car takes off. It speeds away, but a few
3:29
Speaker 1: minutes later it comes back, and this time the driver
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Speaker 1: turns off the headlights. Words are shouted from the car
3:35
Speaker 1: in Spanish, possibly an insult keeputos, and then a series
3:39
Speaker 1: of shots ring out, one right after another. One and
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Speaker 1: Jesse take off running as a matter of sheer instinct,
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Speaker 1: and they think that their two friends are running away
3:49
Speaker 1: alongside them. But when One and Jesse feel that they've
3:52
Speaker 1: run far enough that it's safe to slow down, they
3:55
Speaker 1: look around them and they don't see Mondo or Bobby
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Speaker 1: with them at all. Take a deep breath, go back
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Speaker 1: to the scene of the shooting, and they see police
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Speaker 1: lights flashing. Bobby had been shot in the head and
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Speaker 1: died in the street. Mondo had been shot in the
4:11
Speaker 1: stomach and the thigh. He made it one hundred yards
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Speaker 1: to a house up the street, where he collapsed in
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Speaker 1: the front yard and died as the residents frantically dialed
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Speaker 1: nine one one. Now, the police found six shells from
4:22
Speaker 1: a twenty two caliber handgun littered on the street right
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Speaker 1: where the car had pulled over. But that's about it
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Speaker 1: in terms of evidence. There were no fingerprints, no DNA,
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Speaker 1: nothing forensic to help them solve this crime. It was
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Speaker 1: going to have to come down to confessions.
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Speaker 2: The Alpasso Police assigned one of the toughest cops on
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Speaker 2: the force to the Good Friday shooting, an officer whose
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Speaker 2: name we can't share, but an officer who was known
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Speaker 2: as a closer.
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Speaker 1: This guy is so tough he's even been featured on
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Speaker 1: the TV show Cops.
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Speaker 2: Now, what's a closer. A closer is someone who is
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Speaker 2: very skilled at police interrogation. A good closer will gather
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Speaker 2: evid and then slowly reveal that evidence to a suspect,
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Speaker 2: like peeling off layers of an onion, so that the
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Speaker 2: suspect feels like he is nabbed, his goose is cooked,
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Speaker 2: and that leads the suspect to confess. But there are
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Speaker 2: other kinds of closers. Closers who use brutality and threats,
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Speaker 2: and they don't only use these tactics with suspects. Their
5:23
Speaker 2: modus operandi is to use these tactics with suspects, with
5:28
Speaker 2: witnesses and sometimes with victims, and they get statements, but
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Speaker 2: those statements are coerced and false statements. This detective, he
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Speaker 2: was in that second camp exactly.
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Speaker 1: So the closer is brought in right, this detective from
5:43
Speaker 1: the Al Paso Police Force. He begins investigating the case,
5:46
Speaker 1: and pretty soon he comes across a seventeen year old
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Speaker 1: boy named David Rongel. David is brought into the police
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Speaker 1: station in theory about a completely different case. The police
5:58
Speaker 1: had told his mom that they needed to talk to
6:00
Speaker 1: Davide about some telephone harassment complaints, but when questioning actually began,
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Speaker 1: it had nothing to do with telephone harassment. Police began
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Speaker 1: accusing Davide of committing the Good Friday shootings. Now later on,
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Speaker 1: Davide said that the police falsely told him during this
6:17
Speaker 1: interrogation that his friends had implicated him, and Davide himself
6:21
Speaker 1: was threatened. He says he was told that he was
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Speaker 1: a pretty white boy with green eyes who would be
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Speaker 1: raped in prison if he didn't confess. This scares David.
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Speaker 1: Then eventually he starts offering some information. He tells police
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Speaker 1: that his sixteen year old cousin, Daniel Viegas, had been
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Speaker 1: bragging about committing the Good Friday shootings, although he added
6:43
Speaker 1: that everyone was sure Daniel had been joking. You see,
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Speaker 1: Daniel had a reputation as a jokester. He was the
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Speaker 1: type of kid who always boasted about things he hadn't
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Speaker 1: actually done. Daniel had bragged about owning a water bed
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Speaker 1: when he didn't. He'd bragged about owning a fancy stereo
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Speaker 1: when he didn't. He'd even bragged about being ascended from
7:00
Speaker 1: Italian Royalty when he definitely wasn't.
7:03
Speaker 2: I want to be descended from Italian Royalty, me.
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Speaker 1: Too, but that kind of looks just ain't for us. Steve. Anyway,
7:09
Speaker 1: when it came to the Good Friday shootings, Davide never
7:11
Speaker 1: believed Daniel Tobi Sirius, not even for a minute. It
7:14
Speaker 1: just wasn't him. Daniel had nothing serious like this in
7:17
Speaker 1: his background.
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Speaker 2: Just like criminals have a modus operandi, many times closers
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Speaker 2: or interrogators have a modus operandi, and in David's case
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Speaker 2: we saw evidence that we later were able to demonstrate
7:30
Speaker 2: was a modus operandi. Almost always, this interrogator would tell
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Speaker 2: the suspect that his best friend or close associate had implicated.
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Speaker 1: Him in the crime, even if that's une true right.
7:40
Speaker 2: Always untrue right. He would threaten the suspect with the
7:43
Speaker 2: death penalty, and he also told the suspects or the
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Speaker 2: witnesses or the victims in this case, that they were
7:51
Speaker 2: going to go to prison, and they were going to
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Speaker 2: be raped. I mean, if you're a seventeen year old kid,
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Speaker 2: and most of these witnesses were teenagers, and you're told
8:00
Speaker 2: that you're looking at going to an adult jail where
8:03
Speaker 2: you're going to be a rape victim, you're going to
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Speaker 2: say just about anything you need to get out of
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Speaker 2: that interrogation.
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Speaker 1: It's terrifying stuff. And for David, the information he gave
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Speaker 1: was that his cousin Daniel, had been joking about committing
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Speaker 1: the Good Friday shooting. He never believed Daniel to be serious,
8:18
Speaker 1: but this information was enough for the police. They asked
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Speaker 1: Devid to write out a statement describing what Daniel had said.
8:26
Speaker 1: David wrote that Daniel had bragged about using a shotgun
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Speaker 1: to commit the shootings, but the detective had David take
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Speaker 1: that part out and write the statement a second time
8:35
Speaker 1: without mentioning the type of weapon, because remember, the shells
8:39
Speaker 1: at the scene had come from a twenty two, not
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Speaker 1: a shotgun. Even with the detective's edits, David's statements still
8:45
Speaker 1: contained errors. He remembered his cousin bragging about being in
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Speaker 1: a black car, not a maroon car, and Davide said
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Speaker 1: that Daniel described firing a few shots then getting out
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Speaker 1: of the car, chasing Mondo Lazo to the house and
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Speaker 1: shooting him again. There, that's just not how this crime happened.
9:02
Speaker 1: The shots were all clustered together, not spaced out, and
9:05
Speaker 1: there were no casings found near Mondo's body. But none
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Speaker 1: of us mattered. Now, this was a statement that da
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Speaker 1: Vide regretted giving. It haunted him for the rest of
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Speaker 1: his life that he'd implicated his own cousin in the
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Speaker 1: Good Friday shootings, when even he didn't believe that Daniel
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Speaker 1: was guilty. But it was a statement that he felt
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Speaker 1: he had no choice but to give in light of
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Speaker 1: the threats that he was encountering in the interrogation room.
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Speaker 2: So there are errors, errors in David's statement, errors in
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Speaker 2: the statements of other witnesses, errors that the true perpetrator
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Speaker 2: would never have made. That's a red flag.
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Speaker 1: It's a huge red flag. But it doesn't stop these police.
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Speaker 1: Within hours, three more people are brought in for questioning
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Speaker 1: late at night on April twenty first, two friends of Daniel's,
9:52
Speaker 1: Marcos Gonzalez and Rodney Williams, and Daniel himself. They're all questioned,
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Speaker 1: and when Daniel is interrogated, he denies involvement. He tells
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Speaker 1: the police he was babysitting that night with a group
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Speaker 1: of friends and they were all watching White Men Can't
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Speaker 1: Jump on TV.
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Speaker 2: But here comes that modus operandi exactly.
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Speaker 1: Daniel reports being told that if he didn't confess, he
10:14
Speaker 1: would be taken to the desert to get beaten, and
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Speaker 1: then to jail where he would be raped by old
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Speaker 1: men then sentenced to death by the electric chair. This
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Speaker 1: is how they scared Daniel. This is how they began
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Speaker 1: reducing him down to this feeling of hopelessness. But if
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Speaker 1: he confessed, on the other hand, he was told that
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Speaker 1: he would get leniency because he was just a minor.
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Speaker 1: And after about five hours of interrogation, Daniel ends up
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Speaker 1: signing a confession typed out by detectives. It's about three
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Speaker 1: o'clock in the morning.
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Speaker 2: He repeats the same errors that David Rangell had made,
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Speaker 2: but he makes other mistakes too. First of all, what
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Speaker 2: about the people in the car? Daniel says the driver
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Speaker 2: was someone nicknamed Popeye and that the front passenger was
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Speaker 2: someone nicknamed Droopy. But the only known Popeye was incarcerated
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Speaker 2: at the time, and the only known Droopy he was
11:01
Speaker 2: also on house arrested at the time, they could not
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Speaker 2: possibly have been in the car. The color of the car.
11:08
Speaker 2: Davide had said the car was black. Survivor Jesse Hernandez
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Speaker 2: he had said the car was maroon. Daniel said they
11:15
Speaker 2: were in a white four door sedan at the time
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Speaker 2: of the shooting. And finally, Daniel said that he had
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Speaker 2: shot Bobby and Mondo in the back, but it was
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Speaker 2: clear from the medical examiner's report that they had been
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Speaker 2: shot from the front.
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Speaker 1: The more and more you study Daniel's confession, the more
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Speaker 1: you start to see a pattern. The only facts about
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Speaker 1: this murder that he was able to get right are
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Speaker 1: facts that had been publicized about the Good Friday shootings
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Speaker 1: in the local paper, the El Paso Times. Now, this
11:44
Speaker 1: is a pretty big red flag when you can only
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Speaker 1: get facts right when you've read about them in the newspaper.
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Speaker 1: And there's another red flag in this case too. As
11:52
Speaker 1: soon as the interrogator left the room, Daniel immediately recants
11:57
Speaker 1: to a juvenile probation officer. I didn't do it, he said,
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Speaker 1: and he explained that he only confessed because the cops
12:03
Speaker 1: kept harassing him. He said, I was tired, so I
12:07
Speaker 1: told them what they wanted to hear.
12:09
Speaker 2: And the police and prosecutors ran with that confession, even
12:13
Speaker 2: though it was filled with many false facts and errors.
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Speaker 1: Despite the red flags in his confession, despite the recantation,
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Speaker 1: despite the lack of any physical evidence connecting him to
12:24
Speaker 1: the crime, Daniel Viegas is arrested and charged with capital murder.
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Speaker 1: He's sixteen years old.
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Speaker 2: Now.
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Speaker 1: Daniel didn't come from a family with a lot of money,
12:44
Speaker 1: but his parents managed somehow to scrape together ten thousand
12:48
Speaker 1: dollars for an attorney. Daniel Viegas's first trial took place
12:52
Speaker 1: in December nineteen ninety four. At that trial, Davide Wrangle testified,
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Speaker 1: but he maintained that Daniel had been obviously kidding when
12:59
Speaker 1: he'd bragged about the shooting. Rodney and Marcos, Daniel's friends, well,
13:03
Speaker 1: they had given police statements implicating Daniel when they'd been questioned,
13:07
Speaker 1: but on the witness stand they said their statements were
13:09
Speaker 1: false and had been obtained through threats of prison, rape
13:12
Speaker 1: and other similar threats. And Daniel's attorney called eighteen defense witnesses,
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Speaker 1: including several alibi witnesses, who testified that Daniel was with
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Speaker 1: them babysitting and watching TV at the time of the shooting. Right,
13:25
Speaker 1: white men can't jump, And Daniel's attorney argued strenuously about
13:30
Speaker 1: all these inconsistencies in Daniel's confession, how it just didn't
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Speaker 1: match the facts of this crime, how it showed every
13:37
Speaker 1: indication of being false.
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Speaker 2: He even called other witnesses who called into question the
13:43
Speaker 2: credibility of this detective, former prosecutors who had sought indictments
13:49
Speaker 2: for perjury.
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Speaker 1: The defense mounted a huge fight. They made every argument
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Speaker 1: they could. The trial lasted a week and at the
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Speaker 1: end there was a hung jury eleven to one, but.
14:00
Speaker 2: It was eleven to one in favor of a conviction,
14:03
Speaker 2: which gave the district attorney some thought that this would
14:06
Speaker 2: be an easier case to convict the next time around.
14:10
Speaker 1: Sure enough, about nine months later, again, Daniel Veegiss tried
14:13
Speaker 1: for the murders of Mondo and Bobby. But the second
14:16
Speaker 1: trial was different. You see, Daniel's parents had spent every
14:20
Speaker 1: penny they had on the first trial and they couldn't
14:23
Speaker 1: afford a lawyer for the second trial. This time around,
14:26
Speaker 1: Daniel was represented by a court appointed lawyer, someone who
14:29
Speaker 1: had been assigned the case only two months before the
14:31
Speaker 1: trial began, and so when the second trial rolled around,
14:35
Speaker 1: that lawyer called only one defense witness, no alibi witnesses
14:39
Speaker 1: at all. He hardly pointed to any problems with Daniel's confession,
14:43
Speaker 1: even though he had a blueprint for success in the
14:46
Speaker 1: form of the first trial.
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Speaker 2: And he didn't make a full frontal attack on the
14:50
Speaker 2: integrity and credibility of the police officer who got these
14:55
Speaker 2: unreliable statements.
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Speaker 1: And so on August twenty fourth, nineteen ninety five, Daniel
15:00
Speaker 1: Viegas was convicted of capital murder. Because he'd been a
15:04
Speaker 1: juvenile at the time of the offense, he wasn't sentenced
15:07
Speaker 1: to death. Instead, he was given two life terms in prison,
15:12
Speaker 1: one for Bobby and one for Mondo. Daniel was a
15:15
Speaker 1: teenager when he went to prison, and he might still
15:18
Speaker 1: be there today if it weren't for a man named
15:21
Speaker 1: John Mimbella. Now, John is the head of a successful
15:25
Speaker 1: El Paso construction firm, a firm that hired a lot
15:28
Speaker 1: of formerly incarcerated people because John is a guy who
15:31
Speaker 1: believes in second chances. One day in two thousand and five,
15:35
Speaker 1: John Mimbela walks into an El Paso bank and he
15:39
Speaker 1: ends up asking his teller, a woman named Lucy out
15:42
Speaker 1: on a.
15:42
Speaker 4: Date six months later, were buried. Lucy had three daughters
15:47
Speaker 4: with Daniel's brother, so Daniel was actually Lucy's ex brother
15:52
Speaker 4: in law. I adopted Lucy's daughters two years later, and
15:56
Speaker 4: that's when I learned more about Daniel's.
15:58
Speaker 1: Case now, and brought the girls to see their grandparents,
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Speaker 1: who were Daniel's parents, and eventually John started coming along too.
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Speaker 1: That's where he started to hear stories about their son, Daniel,
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Speaker 1: who was serving life in prison for two murders he
16:12
Speaker 1: didn't commit.
16:13
Speaker 4: At first, I thought, you know, any parents gonna not
16:17
Speaker 4: want to accept that their son might be a killer.
16:21
Speaker 4: I had a lot of faith also in our system,
16:24
Speaker 4: you know, I always believe that if a jury found
16:28
Speaker 4: you guilty, it must have been because they had plenty
16:31
Speaker 4: of evidence against you. So I figured, hey, you know,
16:34
Speaker 4: they must have all kinds of evidence on this kid
16:37
Speaker 4: if they sentenced him to life.
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Speaker 2: John was skeptical, but he saw how heartbroken the grandparents
16:43
Speaker 2: were and he agreed to read through the court papers.
16:46
Speaker 2: Before long, he was dumb struck. There was no reliable
16:50
Speaker 2: evidence tying Daniel to these shootings at all. And then
16:55
Speaker 2: John Minbella became a man possessed.
16:58
Speaker 4: I've got a couple of friends and I asked him
17:01
Speaker 4: if they could set up a meeting with our DA
17:04
Speaker 4: because I saw some serious problems in Daniel's conviction. Our
17:08
Speaker 4: DA happened to be high Miss Barsa, and he personally
17:11
Speaker 4: tried Daniel. So I figured, you know what, if there's
17:15
Speaker 4: some mistake, if there's some doubt, you know, he's going
17:18
Speaker 4: to reopen this case. So we had the meeting and
17:21
Speaker 4: I told him, I go, you know what, I think
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Speaker 4: Daniel's innocent. Something's wronger, you know, we need to look
17:26
Speaker 4: into it. This DA fought us a lot just to
17:30
Speaker 4: get evidententry. Heering after he told me the Higher Good
17:34
Speaker 4: of Bills lawyer and opened up the case again. He
17:36
Speaker 4: fought us to the new.
17:37
Speaker 1: Now this really fired John up. It didn't make any sense.
17:41
Speaker 1: He starts paying for billboards around El Paso that' say
17:44
Speaker 1: free Daniel Viegas. He starts organizing rallies and protests outside
17:49
Speaker 1: the courthouse, and he hired a private investigator.
17:52
Speaker 4: He read the transcripts and he was dumbfounded too. He
17:56
Speaker 4: goes John, I was a homicide detective for twenty years.
17:59
Speaker 4: This case would never have gone to trial. I would
18:01
Speaker 4: never have presented this to my da if this is
18:04
Speaker 4: all I had. He was very upset, and he goes, yes, John,
18:07
Speaker 4: I'll take your case.
18:08
Speaker 1: John Nannella's invested in Daniel's innocence and the work he
18:12
Speaker 1: would go on to do ended up costing him personally
18:14
Speaker 1: hundreds of thousands of dollars.
18:16
Speaker 2: He's the patron saint of the Daniel Viegas case. You know.
18:20
Speaker 2: I went down to al Paso shortly after John had
18:24
Speaker 2: hired lawyers and investigators to reopen Daniel's case, and when
18:29
Speaker 2: I went into the courthouse, there were like fifteen or
18:31
Speaker 2: twenty people walking around with signs saying free Daniel Viegas.
18:36
Speaker 2: You know, false confessions happened. Justice for Daniel Viegas. John
18:41
Speaker 2: had organized a rally right in front of the courthouse,
18:44
Speaker 2: and on the street in front of the courthouse was
18:47
Speaker 2: a truck that had billboards on both sides of it
18:50
Speaker 2: that was driving around the courthouse. So when you walked
18:53
Speaker 2: into the courtroom and al Paso, you were just blitched
18:57
Speaker 2: by this notion that an udjusta had occurred and that
19:01
Speaker 2: it needed to.
19:02
Speaker 1: Be fixed exactly, and John brought his entire community into
19:05
Speaker 1: this case too. There was a manager who worked at
19:08
Speaker 1: his construction company who was a songwriter, and he ends
19:11
Speaker 1: up writing a corrido, a traditional Mexican ballad about the
19:14
Speaker 1: wrongful conviction of Daniel Viegas.
19:17
Speaker 2: John was so proud of that song that one of
19:19
Speaker 2: the first things he did when I was down in
19:21
Speaker 2: al Paco was to play that for me. It's on
19:31
Speaker 2: YouTube now if you want to hear it.
19:35
Speaker 1: John and the private investigator, right, they want to really
19:38
Speaker 1: find out what happened, and one of the first people
19:41
Speaker 1: they go to speak to is Jesse Hernandez, one of
19:44
Speaker 1: the survivors of the shooting. Of course, Jesse was now
19:48
Speaker 1: a grown man, and John shows Jesse for the first
19:51
Speaker 1: time a copy of Daniel's confession.
19:55
Speaker 4: Jesse's like, John, this is not what happened. Not look
20:01
Speaker 4: like a confession from somebody who was there, who took
20:05
Speaker 4: this confession down and I told him. At that point,
20:10
Speaker 4: Jesse turns pale and he's like, John, that same detective
20:15
Speaker 4: almost had me confessing to that crime. He shows up
20:20
Speaker 4: that night and he tells me, we know you shot
20:22
Speaker 4: your friends, your buddy Kwan Medina. I just told us
20:25
Speaker 4: that you did it, and Jesse says that he was
20:28
Speaker 4: just hysterical. He's like, wait a minute, these are my friends.
20:31
Speaker 4: I love my friends. I would never do anything like
20:33
Speaker 4: that to my friends. He goes, well, maybe you blacked out,
20:36
Speaker 4: you know, and you shot them and you didn't even
20:37
Speaker 4: realize it. And at that moment, Jesse goes, well, man,
20:41
Speaker 4: you know, why would my friends say I shot them
20:42
Speaker 4: if I didn't show them. Maybe I did do it,
20:45
Speaker 4: And he put his head down on the table and
20:48
Speaker 4: just crying uncontrollably. Had it not been for his mom
20:52
Speaker 4: that stepped in, he says, he was almost ready to confess.
20:56
Speaker 4: So Jesse's like, the last thing I want is somebody
21:00
Speaker 4: innocence spending the rest of their life in prison. That
21:02
Speaker 4: could have been me.
21:14
Speaker 1: This was an absolute bolt from the blue when John
21:17
Speaker 1: heard this story from Jesse Hernandez, and it only motivated
21:20
Speaker 1: him to continue pounding the pavement. Eventually, John hires a
21:24
Speaker 1: highly skilled El Paso trial lawyer, a man named Joe Spencer.
21:28
Speaker 1: Now Joe files a state petition for a writ of
21:31
Speaker 1: habeas corpus, arguing, among other things, that Daniel's lawyer at
21:34
Speaker 1: his second trial had been ineffective for failing to call
21:38
Speaker 1: Daniel's alibi witnesses. There's a hearing plan it's going to
21:41
Speaker 1: happen in twenty eleven. And in the run up to
21:44
Speaker 1: that hearing, that's when Steve and I first heard about
21:47
Speaker 1: this case.
21:47
Speaker 2: Yeah, we heard about it through our news feeds. And
21:50
Speaker 2: this time what made this special is it wasn't just
21:53
Speaker 2: me who came in to the office the next day.
21:56
Speaker 2: It was me and Laura, and so did our third attorney,
22:00
Speaker 2: Josh Tepfratz. All three of us got this newsfeed at
22:04
Speaker 2: the same time, a case of a juvenile who had
22:07
Speaker 2: confessed to a crime he didn't commit and who was
22:10
Speaker 2: trying to reopen his case through a new hearing.
22:13
Speaker 1: At the hearing, Jesse Hernandez takes the stand for the
22:16
Speaker 1: first time. Jesse testifies that Daniel's confession didn't match what
22:21
Speaker 1: actually happened to him and his friends. Daniel's alibi witnesses
22:24
Speaker 1: also testified, saying that they were with Daniel on the
22:28
Speaker 1: night of the crime. And remember doctor Richard Leo, one
22:31
Speaker 1: of the experts from that false confession conference in El
22:34
Speaker 1: Paso back in two thousand and six. He took the
22:37
Speaker 1: stand too, and testified that Daniel's statement showed every sign
22:41
Speaker 1: of being false. There was even evidence introduced that two
22:44
Speaker 1: other known gang members had threatened Mondo Lazo's life right
22:48
Speaker 1: before the shooting, and they'd bragged about killing him afterwards.
22:52
Speaker 1: When one of those two gang members was called to testify,
22:55
Speaker 1: he invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self incrimination and
22:58
Speaker 1: refused to answer anything.
23:00
Speaker 2: And Joe Spencer also mounted again a direct attack on
23:04
Speaker 2: the integrity of the detective who had taken the false
23:08
Speaker 2: witness statements, who had almost gotten a false confession from
23:12
Speaker 2: the crime victim, and who had gotten the confession from Daniel.
23:15
Speaker 2: And one of the things he discovered, which is pretty incredible,
23:19
Speaker 2: was that one of the tactics that this detective had
23:24
Speaker 2: used in another case was that he would enter an
23:27
Speaker 2: interrogation room dressed in a smock. Now, why would anybody
23:32
Speaker 2: wear a smock? Well, he tried to mislead the suspect
23:37
Speaker 2: into thinking that they were speaking to a medical person,
23:41
Speaker 2: a doctor, unbelievable, instead of a police officer. And when
23:45
Speaker 2: the judge heard that evidence, his eyes rolled back into
23:49
Speaker 2: his head.
23:50
Speaker 1: And eventually we had an opportunity to file an amicus
23:53
Speaker 1: brief about the unreliability of Daniel's confession. And add that
23:56
Speaker 1: to everything that Joe Spencer was already doing in the
23:58
Speaker 1: courtroommphasized how vulnerable a teenager like Daniel would have been
24:03
Speaker 1: to making a false confession. The hearing concluded, and then
24:07
Speaker 1: we waited. The judge took nine months to reach a decision,
24:11
Speaker 1: but on August seventeenth, twenty twelve, Judge Sam Madrano recommended
24:17
Speaker 1: that Daniel Viegues receive a new trial. Judge Madrano concluded
24:21
Speaker 1: that Daniel's trial lawyer had provided ineffective assistance by failing
24:25
Speaker 1: to investigate or introduce evidence of the unreliability of Daniel's confession. Now,
24:31
Speaker 1: Judge Madrano's decision was a fabulous victory, but it was
24:34
Speaker 1: only a recommendation. It had to be adopted by the
24:37
Speaker 1: Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. It was at that point
24:40
Speaker 1: that we joined the team to craft a presentation to
24:43
Speaker 1: that court that we hoped it would accept. As that
24:47
Speaker 1: appeal process is ongoing, Daniel's lawyer, Joe Spencer asked Judge
24:51
Speaker 1: Madrano to free Daniel on bond let him go home.
24:55
Speaker 1: As the appeal process dragged on, and on January fourteenth,
25:00
Speaker 1: twenty fourteen, after nearly two decades in prison, Daniel was
25:05
Speaker 1: released on bond, straight into the arms of John Mambella,
25:08
Speaker 1: who drove him home in a brand new, shiny red convertible.
25:14
Speaker 2: It was almost like a kick or tape parade. Daniel
25:18
Speaker 2: was free.
25:19
Speaker 1: He got started living right away. As soon as he
25:22
Speaker 1: was released. He got married to a woman named Amanda,
25:24
Speaker 1: whom he'd met when he was behind bars, and in
25:27
Speaker 1: short order they had two beautiful children. But even though
25:31
Speaker 1: Daniel was walking out of the prison into the arms
25:33
Speaker 1: of a crowd of supporters, it could have all been
25:35
Speaker 1: taken away from him.
25:36
Speaker 2: And the Court of Criminal Appeals in Texas is a
25:39
Speaker 2: court that has a reputation of being hostile to defendant's claims,
25:45
Speaker 2: especially claims regarding their actual innocence, So it was anything
25:49
Speaker 2: but a sure thing that Judge Medrano's decision would be affirmed.
25:55
Speaker 1: Long story short, the High Court affirms Judge Madrano's ruling. Yes,
26:00
Speaker 1: Daniel Veegis deserves another trial and a chance to prove
26:03
Speaker 1: his innocence. But the DA didn't get around to the
26:06
Speaker 1: new trial until twenty eighteen, So for four years Daniel's
26:11
Speaker 1: living with a sword hanging over his head. If he
26:13
Speaker 1: goes to trial and loses he'll be back in prison
26:17
Speaker 1: for life. This is enormously stressful. The months and years
26:21
Speaker 1: are ticking by. Daniel's starting a family. He's working at
26:25
Speaker 1: John Manbella's construction company, tasting freedom and cherishing it. What
26:30
Speaker 1: does the DA do? He asks Daniel to enter an
26:34
Speaker 1: Alfred plea stay free as long as you plead guilty.
26:39
Speaker 2: It's such a tempting offer, especially to somebody who was
26:43
Speaker 2: locked up for a crime they didn't commit as a
26:45
Speaker 2: teenager and had to spend two decades or more in
26:49
Speaker 2: prison suffering under the weight of that wrongful conviction. But
26:54
Speaker 2: now Daniel's got other people. He has to think about,
26:57
Speaker 2: his wife and their children.
26:59
Speaker 1: Daniel consider the Alfred plea option seriously because it meant
27:02
Speaker 1: that he wouldn't have to go back to trial. You
27:04
Speaker 1: would be a convicted murderer, but at least he would
27:06
Speaker 1: have his freedom. Of course, he was tempted to put
27:09
Speaker 1: the whole thing behind him. But Daniel lived in El Paso, Texas,
27:13
Speaker 1: and El Paso had become home to a small community
27:16
Speaker 1: of wrongly convicted individuals. Among that community was a man
27:20
Speaker 1: named Jason Baldwin. Now that's a name that true crime
27:24
Speaker 1: junkies might recognize because Jason Baldwin was a member of
27:28
Speaker 1: the West Memphis Three, a group of three teenagers from
27:31
Speaker 1: Arkansas who had been accused of the nineteen ninety three
27:34
Speaker 1: killings of three eight year old boys. One of them,
27:37
Speaker 1: Jesse miss Kelly, had falsely confessed, and the three of
27:40
Speaker 1: them were convicted, two sentenced to life in prison, and
27:43
Speaker 1: the third, Damian Eccles, sent a death row in Arkansas.
27:47
Speaker 1: They fought their case for seventeen years. Steve and I
27:51
Speaker 1: were fortunate enough to join Damien Eckles' legal team at
27:53
Speaker 1: the very end, and they were freed only when the
27:56
Speaker 1: State of Arkansas made them an offer. All three of
28:00
Speaker 1: you enter Alfred, please say you're guilty of these crimes,
28:05
Speaker 1: and then we'll let you out. Now, this is an
28:07
Speaker 1: easier decision when it came to Damien, he was on
28:10
Speaker 1: death row, but Jason, who had been sentenced to life
28:12
Speaker 1: in prison, wrestled with it. He didn't want to admit
28:15
Speaker 1: to a crime he didn't commit, even to secure his
28:17
Speaker 1: own freedom. Ultimately, he chose to accept the Alfred plea
28:21
Speaker 1: to help save Damien's life.
28:24
Speaker 2: One of the consequences of entering an Alford plea is
28:27
Speaker 2: that you can't get compensated through state compensation statutes. The
28:31
Speaker 2: Alfred plea is considered a plea of guilty, and that
28:35
Speaker 2: disqualifies you from recovering any compensation.
28:39
Speaker 1: Prosecutors dangle freedom so long as they can secure guilty,
28:43
Speaker 1: please and return and prevent themselves from being sued down
28:46
Speaker 1: the road. It's a tool of injustice. It happens way
28:49
Speaker 1: too often. It was used in the Robert Davis case,
28:52
Speaker 1: it was used in the West Memphis three case, and
28:54
Speaker 1: it almost worked on Daniel Viegas. You see, Jason Baldwin
28:58
Speaker 1: had moved from Arkansas to Texas, where he became involved
29:02
Speaker 1: in a wrongful conviction advocacy organization called Proclaim Justice and
29:07
Speaker 1: joined John Manbela's fight to free Daniel Viegas. Jason Baldwin
29:11
Speaker 1: became one of his closest friends and confidants. As Daniel
29:14
Speaker 1: wade whether to accept that.
29:16
Speaker 4: Alfred play, Daniel told me, Johnny goes, if I take
29:19
Speaker 4: this deal, all this work that you did is for nothing.
29:22
Speaker 4: So we called Jason Bodwin for his advice, and he said,
29:27
Speaker 4: let's talk about it before you decide anything. And he
29:30
Speaker 4: tells Daniel, Noah, I can't tell you what to do
29:34
Speaker 4: you have a family, But in my case, you know,
29:38
Speaker 4: there's no way that I would do it again. It
29:42
Speaker 4: bothers me every day of my life. So just think
29:46
Speaker 4: hard about this because it could bother you the rest
29:49
Speaker 4: of your life too.
29:50
Speaker 1: And with Jason Baldwin's counseling and support, Daniel Viegas found
29:55
Speaker 1: his courage and turned down that unjust Alfred Plea offer.
30:00
Speaker 1: He decided to go to trial.
30:04
Speaker 2: The stakes were so high at this trial. Daniel had
30:08
Speaker 2: tasted freedom, he was starting to live the kind of
30:12
Speaker 2: life he had always dreamed of. But here he was
30:15
Speaker 2: back in that court room, a place where the last
30:18
Speaker 2: time had ended in a conviction.
30:22
Speaker 1: Now this trial was very different because this time Daniel's
30:27
Speaker 1: team of lawyers we succeeded in getting his confession thrown
30:31
Speaker 1: out as involuntary and coerced. And without that confession, there
30:36
Speaker 1: is precious little evidence to go on. The state presented
30:40
Speaker 1: a case to the jury, the jury deliberated, and in
30:42
Speaker 1: October of twenty eighteen, a verdict came back the State.
30:47
Speaker 3: Of Texas versus Daniel Viegis.
30:49
Speaker 1: Now, this is one of the highest profile cases in
30:52
Speaker 1: the history of El Paso at this point, and the
30:55
Speaker 1: courtroom was packed with supporters of Daniel Viegas. Jason Baldwin
30:59
Speaker 1: of The Westman three is there, the local wrongful conviction
31:02
Speaker 1: advocacy organization Proclaimed Justice is there, and John and Lucy
31:07
Speaker 1: Manbella sitting in the front row right behind Daniel and
31:10
Speaker 1: his lawyers. They are there.
31:12
Speaker 2: And when the judge asks Daniel to stand up for
31:15
Speaker 2: the verdict, his knees buckle. He almost collapses. He has
31:19
Speaker 2: to hear whether this beautiful life that he has started
31:23
Speaker 2: reconstructing is going to continue or is it going to end.
31:28
Speaker 1: Daniel's lawyers actually have to help him stand up, and
31:31
Speaker 1: he was able to stand just long enough to hear
31:35
Speaker 1: the verdict.
31:35
Speaker 2: We the jury, you find the defendant, Daniel viegis not
31:38
Speaker 2: guilty of not guilty, And the courtroom rrupts in a
31:47
Speaker 2: sound of both cheers and incredible relief. And then he collapsed.
31:54
Speaker 1: Under the weight of a lifetime's worth of fighting. He
31:57
Speaker 1: had finally been exonerated.
31:59
Speaker 4: It was it was a feeling that I don't think
32:03
Speaker 4: I'm ever going to feel again in my life.
32:11
Speaker 3: Hey, Daniel, is that you? Yes? Tell me about your kids?
32:15
Speaker 3: How many kids you got?
32:16
Speaker 2: Now?
32:16
Speaker 3: There's four altogether? A man of my wife tell me
32:19
Speaker 3: she was pregnant. I remember I told her, man, I'm
32:21
Speaker 3: told to be a dead and right at that time,
32:23
Speaker 3: my daughter got pregnant too, and I was like, oh, man,
32:25
Speaker 3: you know I'm too young to be a grandfather.
32:29
Speaker 1: What do you tell your kids about what happened to you?
32:32
Speaker 3: The two little ones are too small to know about
32:34
Speaker 3: it that they don't understand yet. Like I love when
32:37
Speaker 3: they tell me life stain't fair. I tell him, tell
32:39
Speaker 3: me about the nineteen years in print and tell me
32:41
Speaker 3: how life stay fair. Preen your room.
32:44
Speaker 1: I know that the Wrongful Conviction podcast played an important
32:48
Speaker 1: role in.
32:49
Speaker 3: Your case too. Yes, a man of she's really into
32:52
Speaker 3: the Wrongful Conviction comedian, right, She's like the voted fan
32:56
Speaker 3: to Jason flont So. When they came to me with
32:59
Speaker 3: that offer free, they're just telling me if I signing
33:01
Speaker 3: the paper, the cake is closed. So I was going
33:04
Speaker 3: to sign it almost and that's when Amanda jumped into
33:06
Speaker 3: is like, non, I'm I'm all about this, Alpha please.
33:09
Speaker 3: You know Jason Plan told me about this. She educated
33:11
Speaker 3: me on that, and then that's when we decided not
33:13
Speaker 3: to take that plea deal.
33:23
Speaker 2: Daniel, you're an incredible human being. To see you as
33:28
Speaker 2: a freeman at Innocence Network conferences, at events for proclaimed justice,
33:34
Speaker 2: it makes my heart sick.
33:36
Speaker 1: You're a symbol of endurance. It's been our honor to
33:38
Speaker 1: know you and to tell your story today. That's the
33:46
Speaker 1: story of Daniel Viegas. Join us next week when we'll
33:50
Speaker 1: tell you about Hammed Hyatt, a California man falsely accused
33:54
Speaker 1: of terrorism based on one of the most outlandish confessions
33:57
Speaker 1: I've ever heard till then. Thanks Thanks for listening to
34:00
Speaker 1: Wrongful Conviction, False Confessions. Wrongful Conviction, False Confessions is a
34:10
Speaker 1: production of Lava for Good Podcasts in association with Signal
34:14
Speaker 1: Company Number One. Special thanks to our executive producer Jason
34:18
Speaker 1: Flamm and the team at Signal Company Number one. Executive
34:21
Speaker 1: producer Kevin wardis Senior producer and Pope and additional production
34:26
Speaker 1: and editing by Connor Hall. Special thanks to jogy Hammer
34:29
Speaker 1: for additional script editing and for wrangling and writing like
34:33
Speaker 1: a mad woman. Our music was composed by Jay Ralph.
34:37
Speaker 1: You can follow me on Instagram or Twitter at Laura Nywriter,
34:40
Speaker 1: and you can follow.
34:41
Speaker 2: Me on Twitter at s Drisen.
34:44
Speaker 1: For more information on the show, visit wrongfulconvictionpodcast dot com
34:48
Speaker 1: and be sure to follow the show on Instagram at
34:51
Speaker 1: Wrongful Conviction, on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast, and on
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Speaker 1: Twitter at wrong Conviction