"On the night Los Angeles police claim he carried out an act of gangland vengeance, Oscar Eagle could barely walk. In March 1998, Eagle was only 17 and using crutches to get around after he was wounded in a drive-by shooting. The bullet is still in his leg to this day, marked by a coin-shaped indentation on his calf."
"But a combination of dubious legal representation and an arrest made by members of a notoriously corrupt unit in the Los Angeles Police Department saw Eagle sentenced to 25-years-to-life in prison. In July, a judge granted a joint motion from the California Innocence Project and the L.A. County district attorney's office to vacate Eagle's conviction, citing ineffective assistance of counsel and questions about the behavior of LAPD detectives on the case."
""This is what I've been dreaming of every day," a tearful Eagle, 45, said during an interview in late July."
Oscar Eagle was 17 in March 1998 and moved on crutches after a drive-by shooting that left a bullet lodged in his leg. Police alleged he committed a gang-related shooting, but witnesses and medical evidence placed him at a hospital during the incident and showed limited mobility. Ineffective legal representation and an arrest by members of a corrupt LAPD unit produced a 25-years-to-life sentence. In July a judge vacated the conviction after a joint motion citing ineffective assistance of counsel and questions about detective behavior. The L.A. County conviction review unit has increased recent exonerations.
#wrongful-conviction #conviction-review #lapd-corruption #juvenile-prosecution #criminal-justice-reform
Read at Los Angeles Times
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]