In May 2005 James Ochoa was at his Buena Park, California home watching television with his family at the same time that a man robbed two men at gunpoint and stole their car. The car was found around the corner from where the 20-year-old Ochoa lived, and since he had a record for methamphetamine possession, the police showed his mugshot to the two victims. One identified Ochoa and the other wasn’t sure. Protesting his innocence, Ochoa was arrested and charged with robbery and carjacking. There were so many questionable aspects to the case that the local alternative newspaper, The Orange County Weekly ran a story about Ochoa on November 5, 2005 titled, The Case of the Dog That Couldn’t Sniff Straight.
During his December 2005 trial a detective said that Ochoa was initially suspected because a police dog had followed a scent directly from the abandoned vehicle to Ochoa’s front door. (This was later proven to be false.) Three days into the trial the prosecution offered Ochoa a deal – plead guilty in exchange for a two year sentence in addition to the six months he spent in jail awaiting trial. They said if he was convicted they would seek a 50-year sentence, and Judge Robert Fitzgerald told Ochoa he would sentence him to life in prison if he was convicted by the jury.
Ochoa told Judge Fitzgerald, “But it was not me [who did the crime].” Fitzgerald’s response suggested he didn’t think it was relevant if Ochoa was the wrong person: “Innocent people go to prison.”
Afraid of being convicted and dying in prison, Ochoa agreed to plead guilty. He was subsequently sentenced to two years in prison.
What the prosecution didn’t tell Ochoa’s lawyer was that they knew Ochoa did not commit the crime. The robber left a black baseball cap and long-sleeved gray shirt in the car. A month after the robbery the items were DNA tested by the Orange County Sheriffs forensic laboratory. Although an identifiable male DNA profile was detected, Ochoa was not that person. The robber’s thumb print lifted from the car’s gear shift knob also didn’t match Ochoa. So his prosecution was based on the two eyewitness identifications — while the exculpatory evidence wasn’t disclosed to Ochoa’s lawyer.
Then on Oct. 13, 2006, during a routine check the California Department of Justice found a match between the DNA and a 20-year-old man locked up in a Los Angeles County Jail on carjacking charges. With the DNA directly linked to an accused carjacker, six days later the Orange County prosecutors filed a motion to dismiss the charges against Ochoa, and Fitzgerald — the same judge who pressured Ochoa to falsely plead guilty — vacated his conviction and sentence. Later that day Ochoa was released after 17 months of wrongful incarceration.
Ochoa filed a claim for the $100 per day California state law provides for each day a person is wrongfully imprisoned. The claim amounted to $31,700. The Victim Compensation and Government Claims Board’s hearing officer recommended against granting the claim because Ochoa’s guilty plea contributed to his wrongful conviction. However, on April 24, 2008 the full Board granted the claim after a review of the unusual circumstances contributing to Ochoa’s false guilty plea.
Ochoa had filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the City of Buena Park and several of its police officers. The week after the state Board awarded Ochoa his claim, Ochoa and Buena Park agreed to a tentative settlement of his lawsuit for $550,000. So Ochoa’s total compensation for his ordeal will be $581,700.
Ochoa now lives in Texas, where his parents moved after his conviction.
By Hans Sherrer
Justice Denied
