Two people believed to have been wrongfully convicted of murder may go free soon, according to the Los Angeles District Attorney’s office.
Calling it a “miscarriage of justice,” D.A. George Gascón presented his case to an L.A. Superior Court judge on Tuesday, seeking the release of Charlotte Pleytez and Lombardo Palacios who have been in prison for more than 17 years.
The two were convicted of the 2007 murder of Hector Flores, who was shot and killed in his car in East Hollywood in front of a 99 cent store.
Troubles in the case
Flores’s fiancée was wounded during that shooting, and later identified 15-year-old Palacios as the person who fired the gun, and 20-year-old Pleytez as the driver.
Gascón said at a press conference that the conviction was not based on factual evidence, but rather the accounts of three witnesses.
He took issue with the way witness identification was handled, noting one incident where Pleytez was identified out of a mug shot book with only two women in it.
“Two of the three identifications were not definitive,” Gascón said, “and used language like, ‘stood out the most [and] ‘resembles the suspect.’”
Pleytez maintained her innocence throughout the trial, saying she never knew Palacios and wasn’t near the store at that time.
Gascón said, the case against then 15-year-old Palacios was also troubled. Part of his interrogation video was played showing detectives pressuring him into making a confession.
“I’m going to walk out of here thinking you’re just a little gangster who doesn’t care about a person’s life,” a detective said to Palacios. “But one way or the other, we’re walking out…
Read the full article here
