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Man who spent 33 years in prison is exonerated of attempted murder

By Timothy Bella Washington Post

A California man was freed Thursday after recently uncovered evidence showed that he was not at the scene of a 1989 shooting that led to his conviction on six charges of attempted murder and a prison stint that lasted 33 years.

Daniel Saldana was sentenced to 45 years in prison after he was one of three men convicted of shooting at a car containing six high school students who were mistaken for gang members in Baldwin Park, Calif., on Oct. 27, 1989, according to the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office. Two of the students were wounded, and all survived.

But the conviction of Saldana, who had always denied that he was involved, was reexamined by prosecutors in late February, after the district attorney’s office said it was given a copy of a 2017 parole hearing detailing how the man “was not involved in the shooting in any way and was not present.” The end of the investigation led Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón (D) to announce that “Saldana was innocent of the crimes he was convicted of and for which he spent over 33 years in prison.”

“As prosecutors, our duty is not simply to secure convictions but to seek justice,” Gascón said in a news release. “When someone is wrongfully convicted, it is a failure of our justice system and it is our responsibility to right that wrong. We owe it to the individual who was wrongfully convicted and to the public that justice is served.”

Saldana’s attorney, Mike Romano, did not immediately respond to a request for comment Friday morning. Saldana told reporters Thursday at the Hall of Justice in downtown Los Angeles that he “never lost hope” that he would be exonerated.

“It’s a struggle, every day waking up knowing you’re innocent and here I am locked up in a cell, crying for help,” Saldana said at a news conference. “I’m just so happy this day came.”

Saldana’s exoneration is the latest recent case in which someone has been exonerated after decades in prison. A database from the National Registry of Exonerations shows that the 17 longest wrongful-conviction cases in U.S. history have happened in the past decade. Among them is Anthony Mazza, who spent more than 47 years in prison for murder and robbery before he was exonerated in 2021, according to the database from the University of California at Irvine, the University of Michigan and Michigan State University.

A 2020 study by the National Registry of Exonerations found that more than half of wrongful criminal convictions are caused by government misconduct. In a study that reviewed 2,400 exonerations between 1989 and 2019, nearly 80% of those cases were for violent felonies. The study also found that police and prosecutors were rarely disciplined for actions that lead to a wrongful conviction.

At the time of the Baldwin Park shooting, Saldana was 22 and working full time as a construction worker.

Esteban Rodriguez and five of his friends had left a high school football game in his car when they were approached in Baldwin Park by another vehicle, according to records filed to the California Supreme Court. Prosecutors claimed at the time that Saldana had joined Raul Vidal and April Gallegos in the back seat of a Datsun.

After Vidal asked Rodriguez what gang he belonged to, Vidal allegedly lunged at the teen’s car and yelled to get a gun, records show. As Rodriguez stepped on the gas, prosecutors said, someone shot at the car. Prosecutors argued that Saldana “started shooting.” One of the passengers of the teens’ car, Enrique Zamudio, was shot in the right thigh.

A few weeks later, the victims identified Saldana in a police lineup. Even though Saldana said he wasn’t at the scene of the incident, he was convicted in 1990 on six counts of attempted murder and one count of shooting at an occupied vehicle. Vidal and Gallegos were also convicted on all charges. An appeals court rejected Saldana’s argument that his conviction relied on insufficient evidence, records show.

Saldana had spent more than 27 years in prison when Vidal told a state parole board that Saldana was not involved or present during the shooting, according to the district attorney’s office.

“I know this contradicts what the report says, but Daniel Saldana, he’s actually a victim of mine,” Vidal said in 2017, according to the Los Angeles Times. “He’s actually innocent.”

Gascón said Thursday that the information from Vidal’s hearing was never made available to Saldana or his attorneys, and that a Los Angeles County prosecutor present at the hearing did not report the information. It’s unclear why the information was not made available to Saldana.

Then, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation turned over a transcript of Vidal’s 2017 parole board hearing to the district attorney’s office, Gascón said. Months after an investigation was launched to reexamine Saldana’s case, Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge William Ryan announced a finding of factual innocence on May 11.

Two weeks later, Saldana was a free man.

Romano, Saldana’s attorney, said in a news release that while it was “disappointing” that the information at Vidal’s parole hearing was not available sooner, he was thankful the evidence finally came to light to exonerate his client.

“We must all work together to help people like Mr. Saldana who are spending their precious years behind bars for an act they did not commit,” said Romano, the chair of California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s (D) committee on revising the penal code.

While Gascón did not disclose other details in the case that led to the exoneration, he apologized to Saldana and his family for the time spent in prison for a crime he did not commit.

“I know that this won’t bring you back the decades you endured in prison,” he said. “But I hope our apology brings some small comfort to you as you begin your new life.”

Wearing a gray suit and surrounded by his family Thursday, Saldana was in tears as he hugged loved ones who supported him throughout his wrongful conviction.

“This is overwhelming,” Saldana told reporters. “I just knew that one day this was going to come. I’m just so grateful and I just thank God, Jesus.”