LOS ANGELES — A man who spent about 18 years behind bars was declared factually innocent and ordered to be released from custody Wednesday after his murder conviction was overturned for a 16-year-old boy’s killing in South Los Angeles in 2005.
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Superior Court Judge William C. Ryan granted a joint petition from the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office and Michael Semanchik, executive director of The Innocence Center, that requested that Stephen Patterson’s conviction and 50-year-to-life sentence be set aside and that a factual innocence finding be made.
The petition cited an investigation by the District Attorney’s Conviction Integrity Unit that “identified the true perpetrators of the shooting.”
“You have been exonerated, Mr. Patterson,” the judge said, with much of the audience bursting into applause in the packed downtown Los Angeles courtroom.
Shortly after being released from custody, Patterson told reporters, “This was a long time coming … My life was given back to me.”
He said he looks forward to spending time with his family, including his mother, who hired a private investigator to look into the case after her son’s conviction.
Patterson was convicted in 2007 of first-degree murder and gun allegations in connection with the April 15, 2005, shooting of Yair Oliva as the teen stood in front of an apartment complex near the corner of 68th Street and Parmalee Avenue after a verbal dispute between Oliva and several others and a man believed to be a gang member, according to the petition.
He was sentenced in 2008 to 50 years to life in state prison.
Patterson — who was arrested in 2006 — denied knowing anything about the killing and told detectives he was home when the shooting occurred…
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