It took only a single eyewitness testimony to convince a jury to wrongfully convict Stephen Patterson to a 50-year life sentence for shooting and killing 16-year-old Yair Oliva in 2005. That witness was 200 yards away, inside her home in South Los Angeles and peering through closed blinds.
Other witnesses contradicted that testimony or could not identify Patterson, who was only 19 at the time. Investigators also ignored that the gun used in Oliva’s killing showed up at another crime scene six weeks later.
But on Wednesday, Patterson was declared innocent after spending nearly half his life behind bars. His exoneration marks the 13th under Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón’s tenure. According to his office, those 13 people collectively add up to nearly 300 years of wrongful incarceration.
Gascón is running for reelection and touting his work on criminal justice reform that his competitors have criticized as being soft on crime.
“I had a lot that I wanted to say,” Patterson said during his news conference. “Especially for the people still waiting on their turn to be freed who have been falsely imprisoned. But when I heard 300 years, it broke my spirit. That’s a long time, and it’s minorities, and it’s overlooked.”
Patterson’s mother hired a private investigator, Eduardo Hernandez, before the Innocence Center got involved and reinvestigated. The effort led to filing a conviction review request with the district attorney’s Conviction Integrity Unit. The team exams and reinvestigates wrongful conviction cases and remedies them. They have received 886 requests for review between 2020 and 2023.
Los Angeles is one of the top five…
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