MoFo Helps Reverse 1994 Calif. Murder Conviction

Law360 interviewed Stacey Sprenkel about her work helping to vacate the conviction of Arturo Jimenez, who was wrongfully found guilty of murder as a result of witness coercion and ineffective defense counsel.

“The fact that there was exculpatory evidence, that the detective changed testimony…this was all there at the time, if Arturo had had a lawyer who actually reviewed the record,” Stacey said. “Those errors cost him 25 years of his life.”

Stacey, who represented Mr. Jimenez with a MoFo pro bono team that included Dan Marmalefsky, and Ian Bausback, also told Law360 that the length to which prosecutors went to secure a conviction in this case demonstrates much of what’s wrong with the justice system.

“Your aim as a prosecutor should not be to successfully prosecute somebody,” she said. “Obviously that’s an additional purpose, but what you’re ultimately doing is trying to find what happened.”

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