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