A judge has vacated the first-degree murder sentences of two Angelenos who were wrongfully convicted in 2009, Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman announced on Monday.
Charlotte Pleytez and Lombardo Palacios were in prison for 17 years for the murder of Hector Flores, a man who was shot and killed in his car in East Hollywood near a 99 Cent store. They’ve since been exonerated and released.
What led to the decision
Former D.A. George Gascón originally brought the case to the court in October when he was in office. He took issue with the way witness identification was handled, saying the conviction was not based on factual evidence.
Pleytez was identified out of a mug shot book with only two women in it, and two out of the three identifications were not definitive. Palacios was also 15-years-old when he was pressured into a confession during interrogation, a process that’s now illegal in California. (The interrogation video was not shown to the jury.)
Lombardo Palacios, pictured here at 15 years old during an interrogation where detectives could be heard saying, “I’m going to walk out of here thinking you’re just a little gangster who doesn’t care about a person’s life. But one way or the other, we’re walking out of here knowing you killed somebody.”
Screenshot of footage showed at news annnouncement
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However, on Monday, Hochman said there was no…
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