A Taping of 'Curb Your Enthusiasm' Saved an Innocent Man from Death Row (2017)
Comments
1659447091
pmarreck
This should be disturbing.
If there is a true alibi exonerating someone, then there would have been no truthful evidence against him. And yet, a man without truthful evidence against him was almost put to death row. Why is that? Have we stopped caring about Blackstone's Formulation in our zeal to imprison everyone even possibly guilty?
1659447091
He was not "almost put to death row". There was no trial for that to even be a possibility. Instead, a man without truthful evidence against him had the charges dismissed.
mixdup
Yes, but, the case was only dismissed when he had a positive alibi against the charges, when the charges should only happen when there is positive evidence against him
pmarreck
This is exactly my point.
1659447091
He didn't even have an alibi until later. At first he could not remember where he was that night, his girlfriend had to remind him later. So when he was charged there was an eyewitness describing someone like him, he had no alibi at the time, a previous record, and he had strong motive having attended a hearing in which the victim had just testified against his brother in a gang murder that the brother is serving time for as an accomplice. That is more than enough for reasonable suspicion or probable cause. Then during the discovery period his now remembered alibi checked out and he was released. That is due process working.
ktallett
An eyewitness report describing someone like him, not him, was the only evidence placing him at the scene. That should never be enough evidence to charge. That isn't due process, that is finding someone to fit the crime whether they may have done it or not. There is far too much needing to prosecute, than only prosecuting when certain.
1659447091
I said like him because it turned out to not be him but the eye witness identified it as him. That plus motive and him not having an alibi is probable cause where one is charged. Any more than that is what a trial is for but he was cleared with his alibi checking out before it ever got that far.
atoav
Aren't there cases whose innocence has been discovered after they have been on death row?
pmarreck
Yes.
And full disclosure, I have donated to The Innocence Project
1659447091
Yes, but that is not this case.
7bit
And that's relevant how?
atoav
I wonder how the fact that many innocent people do land in death row is relevant in the discussion about one case where someone didn't.
Seriously tho, of course this is relevant. Either your authorities have extremely high confidence, beyond even unreasonable doubt proof or they don't. These are cases where people who didn't do it came close to the danger of being wrongfully executed by the state. If anything, this is a damning data point on how bad the executive and the judicial system are at only prosecuting when they have the proof. In fact it looks a lot like they will just take anybody who is remotely likely to have done it.
like_any_other
> If there is a true alibi exonerating someone, then there would have been no truthful evidence against him.
You mistake evidence for proof. Evidence is stuff like a witness that saw someone similar at the crime scene, a motive, the accused's DNA at the crime scene (left there before the crime, e.g. during a benign visit), an injury that could have been sustained during the struggle that led to a murder (but was actually sustained in an unrelated bar fight..), owned the same kind of unusual knife the victim was stabbed with (but lost it the night of the murder), etc. It suggests guilt, but leaves room for doubt.
If 'truthful evidence' only existed against the guilty, then the single tiniest bit of evidence would be enough to convict.
will5421
The quickest fix is to get rid of the death penalty
nickff
How does getting rid of the death penalty address the parent’s concern about false imprisonment? I understand the philosophical and practical arguments against the death penalty, but getting rid of it won’t forestall zealous prosecutors.
bryanrasmussen
well it will help to forestall the person being dead if exonerating evidence comes along, although anticipating the next question - yes, they can of course die for other reasons in prison, but not having any stats to back it up I will just state my very strong suspicion that most people on death row who die in prison do so because the death penalty was applied.
atoav
[flagged]
pmarreck
Even a 20x multiple of such a number is still a relatively tiny number.
You can consider this the cost of the Second Amendment today. The difference is that when new technology comes along that will let you incapacitate someone without killing them, we will always already have the Second Amendment in place, and Germany will not suddenly give this weapon-right back to the people just because technology has progressed to the point that it is safer. A right that is given away to the state is 10 times harder to reclaim (and usually costs bloodshed).
So, be smug for now about the temporary illusion of safety you have created. Enjoy the fact that your “Bulle” are mostly unarmed. I’m sure the terrorists you’re letting into your country every day who will happily use knives and bombs (and, ahem, runaway vehicles) instead of guns will “pay off” one day, because all of those people can at least hypothetically be stopped by a single armed citizen. (And this does happen, by the way.)
unmanned6621
[flagged]
cluckindan
”No one sane believes that.”
That is a fallacious argument of the ”no true scotsman” variety.
spauldo
It's not. Think about it.
The Scotsman fallacy is when you claim that no member of a group meets a certain criteria that is not a defining criteria for that group. "No true Scotsman wears green shoes" is a fallacy. "No true Scotsman is born and spends their entire life in Singapore" is not a fallacy, because someone born in and spending their entire life in Singapore would not meet the defining criteria of being a Scotsman in the first place.
"No one sane believes that" implies that the belief that cops should be able to execute people on the spot is incompatible with the definition of sanity. Given that sanity is ill-defined, it's a reasonable (if slightly hyperbolic) statement.
atoav
"What the news is force feeding you" — I have to admit my feeling purely based on your phrasings is that you are the one who probably lives on a diet of social media "news", but that is besides the point.
I am not German, I took German police killing statistics because Germany is the biggest EU nation with the most migration, to make it a fair comparison. The statistics for both US/Germany are from wikipedia and I averaged the numbers for the past decade to avoid the noise a little. If you can't handle these facts I am deeply sorry, but maybe you should reflect on how you rejecting reality might in fact make the problem worse for your country.
> No one sane believes that
I didn't claim they are sane. You have a major TV "news" station whose now disgraced former host used the defence of "no reasonable person would take this serious" in a court of law. And this is the most widely watched news station in the US. Just saying.
unmanned6621
I said 'your' news, not 'the' news. Believe it or not, but what is shown on different stations is, in fact, different. Social media has more net negatives than positives, so I mostly avoid it.
I neither claimed you are German nor that I deny any facts. The very way you keep phrasing american policies or american things by stating it as 'your police force' or 'your news station' what leads me to believe that you are in fact not american. Thus how would you know how the police interact with citizens over here if all you injest is what your news is feeding you?
You agreeing with me that only the insane believe those facts, proves my entire point. Why would anyone sane believe that police can just indiscriminately shoot people? We don't, and attempting to classify an entire nations people based upon what the insane belive, is insane.
watwut
You can release someone from prison, but it generally does not happen. And legal system does NOT care about your guilt or innocence after you have been sentenced.
Even if there is clear and unambiguous proof that you was factually innocent, legal system is setup to ignore it. There is no innocence pathway out of prison once you was sentenced.
Timon3
That's the state of the system right now, but it doesn't have to stay this way. It doesn't look like there's much hope for it given the current political direction, but it's possible that the system will improve over the coming decades. An innocent person sentenced to prison today can still be released at that point, but an innocent person murdered by the state can't be unmurdered.
And while I can't imagine what it would be like to be locked up for such a long time while innocent, I doubt every such innocent prisoner would prefer being dead.
tjwebbnorfolk
The innocence project has an interest in showing the justice system to be more capricious and random than it really is. The guy was exculpated by the evidence, and the system worked as intended.
Yes it has problems but the headline and story are obscuring what really happened here. The guy was nowhere near death row.
RevEng
But only because of a pure fluke. If not for that extraordinary evidence, would they have been exonerated? I'm not saying justice is useless and broken (at least not in this way), but innocent people being found guilty on insufficient evidence does happen and far more often than people would think. It's a serious problem that needs to be addressed, but the people it happens to are usually the kind of people who others are already biased against and are unlikely to want to help, e.g the poor, drug addicts, and minorities.
1659447091
Cellphone location data is not extraordinary evidence, he was not cleared based on walking into frame of the show as it was taped and hour and 22 minutes before the murder; giving him time to still do it. It was his girlfriend calling him 20 minutes before the murder placing him at the stadium.
He also had a strong motive as the victim testified against his brother in an unrelated gang murder in which he attended and his brother is serving time for. He also had a record and an eye witness (found later to be wrong) giving a description that could have been him. Add it all together and it was not about a poor minority being targeted by the system. The due process worked here. There is nothing extraordinary about this particular case--except--as promotion for a Netflix documentary that was promoted in the NYPost article:
"As covered in the Netflix documentary “Long Shot,” out Friday, Juan’s innocence would ultimately rest on a near brush with fame — more specifically, with Larry David and “Curb Your Enthusiasm.”
The real injustice is how “Curb Your Enthusiasm" is taking the spot light from a very real problem that was exposed here. The "clerical error" that had him sit in jail for 2 weeks after being cleared of charges. He won a settlement, but it never should have happened and is a larger problem facing the poor, drug addicts, and minorities, wrt the system.
I am somewhat surprised so many are skipping over this very real issue present in this very story for virtue signaling over death row that has nothing to do with this story other than unfounded speculation.
ktallett
The evidence proved he wasn't there. The evidence they were trying to use to prove he should be charged was rather worthless. Eyewitness testimony is extremely unreliable and this didn't even give him, just someone sort of similar but not someone similar who definitely committed the crime. Motive without evidence is meaningless, you can't fit evidence to a person, evidence should lead you to a person. If it doesn't then you don't have a case
qingcharles
I was helping with a murder case, it was a little over five years since the crime, and the defendant asked me if I knew if there was a way to get cellphone location data as he said he had left the scene of the crime about an hour before the incident was held to happen, and returned about an hour afterwards.
Nobody had thought to get this data before. I called Verizon but I was told they only hold location data for five years and had already erased it.
For other reasons I believe the defendant to be innocent. He was put to trial three times for the crime; his first two guilty verdicts were overturned on appeal before he plead guilty to the minimum to get the process over with and have a near release date.
tantalor
Good lord, they keep 5 years of location data!? That's excessive.
xboxnolifes
Pretty sure it's a legal requirement. In large part for the purpose of proving/disproving crime.
3eb7988a1663
Should call up the spooks -they probably keep it forever.
shiroiushi
It's not dramatic at all. Without proof of his innocence, it could very well have gone to trial and resulted in a conviction, thanks to people's belief in the reliability of "eyewitness testimony". This case alone should show just how useless and flimsy eyewitness testimony is.
1659447091
> It's not dramatic at all.
It was not the show that "saved" him; it was cellphone location data that got the charges dismissed. He was never on trial with the possibility of death row because it never got that far.
kenjackson
TV footage seems like a WAY better alibi than cell phone pings.
1659447091
Not when it was taped an hour and 22 minutes before the murder
> "The discovery seemed a home run for Juan, who by then had been in jail over a month. Still, the prosecutor argued that the footage was from 9:10 p.m. — and the murder had occurred at 10:32. Juan ostensibly could have left early, driven to the scene of the crime, and still had time to kill Puebla."
whatshisface
Somebody needs to tell them that guilt is what has to be established beyond a reasonable doubt...
idle_zealot
Not true for jail; only probable cause or reasonable suspicion is required to lock someone up awaiting a court date. Which, of course, can easily ruin someone's life (missing work, deepening debts, the accusation itself can damage reputation). In this case the accused was awarded damages, but that's not usually how this plays out. It's a huge structural problem with our justice system that spits in the face of "innocent until proven guilty." Any attempt to change it though is met with backlash about not being sufficiently tough on crime, and letting dangerous criminals walking the streets, preventing our law enforcement from doijg their jobs, etc.
1659447091
> In this case the accused was awarded damages, but that's not usually how this plays out.
The false imprisonment & settlement had to do with the clerical error that had him report back to jail after being cleared of charges. (an ongoing problem in its own right)
It is a completely separate issue from being locked up while charges were pending.
rgavuliak
Why would you think that? Cell phone ping data is stored for a good amount of time and generated by a 3rd party that has no involvement in the case. Of course the phone can be given to someone else, but it has advantages over suspect generated data.
kenjackson
The last issue you noted. There was a notorious Instagram page for criminals that noted this as one of the key things to do before committing crime — have an accomplice keep your phone.
sidewndr46
Not even that. You could just sit the phone under a park bench.
shiroiushi
He was in jail for a month, all because some idiot thought he looked like the killer. He could have gone on trial, and much worse, if he didn't have solid evidence proving it wasn't him.
Countless people have been imprisoned and executed just because of eyewitness testimony. How many black men have been killed because some white person who thinks they all look alike said on the stand "it was him!"? Eyewitness testimony shouldn't even be allowed, because it's so unreliable.
1659447091
He was never facing death row; there was no trial for that to be a possibility. The unnecessary speculation of death row has no barring on this story.
There are real cases that have made it to trial where your argument is better suited. He was in jail for a month, but not prison (there is a difference here) and nowhere near death row. I didn't see where the reason was, my guess is he could not afford bail (a separate problem altogether from this story). Prosecutors had reason to believe it was him; not only from an eye witness but because he had a record and had motive.
>> "..Martha Puebla, who had recently testified at a preliminary hearing about a gang murder in which Juan’s brother Mario was charged as an accessory. (Mario was convicted and is currently serving time.) Authorities argued that Juan — who had been in the courtroom during the hearing — had killed Puebla in retaliation for cooperating with police."
The NYPost article hints all the drama over this case is for a Netflix documentary:
>> "As covered in the Netflix documentary “Long Shot,” out Friday, Juan’s innocence would ultimately rest on a near brush with fame — more specifically, with Larry David and “Curb Your Enthusiasm.”
If not for the involvement of Curb Your Enthusiasm and a documentary, this would simply be another case that got dismissed from an alibi checking out and never making so much as a local community newsletter. Thus, the title is dramatic as it does not accurately summarize the truth of the story.
ruthmarx
It shows how useless and flimsy the jury system is also.
nickff
Please explain; the fact that a single eyewitness is unreliable (and I agree that they are,) does not mean that the consideration of a jury of one’s peers would be.
ruthmarx
First I'd point out that people living in the same city as someone accused is not necessarily a peer, even if they are considered as such for the purposes of a jury. Are a bunch of subtly racist blue collar white voters the peer of an Oxford educated immigrant Kenyan doctor? Just to use a clear example.
That aside, people are notoriously uninformed, and notoriously lack basic critical reasoning skills. Look at the sheer number of people who voted the way they did in the last US election because they incorrectly correlated cheaper prices with the guy who was president at the time.
Odds are a jury is unreliable because they aren't going to put in the effort to properly evaluate the evidence and lack the knowledge and motivation to make a truly impartial and educated conclusion.
Not to mention the way a judge will deliberately limit the information a Jury has access to, and not always ethically, such as barring mention or education about jury nullification being an option.
1659447091
If you think a jury is unreliable, you can opt for a bench trial instead. In a bench trial, a judge hears the evidence, determines the facts, considers the legal issues that arise, and decides whether a defendant is guilty or not guilty. There is no jury involved in a bench trial. Fact-finding moves from the jury's duty to become part of the judge's duty. Jury trial is a right as to shield one from being targeted by a system or dictatorship that is corrupt all the way down. If you think your peers are idiots you can waive that right and put the trial in the hands of a judge who does this for a living. Pick your poison. But at least you get options in the US system.
ruthmarx
I think judges tend to be unreliable a lot of the time as well. Aileen Cannon is a good example.
It's true you et choices in the US system, that doesn't mean we can't come up with something significantly better.
lockemx
It was actually a very disturbing case because of police misconduct. Watch the documentary. They built a strong case out of nothing, and they were never punished. So, it's really a story about technology advancing and professionals going above and beyond to help this guy escape what had become a guilty until proven innocent case.
jliptzin
Couldn't he have just given his cell phone to someone else that night?
thih9
More details along with a still: https://nypost.com/2017/09/23/how-curb-your-enthusiasm-saved...
> They had been stopped by a production assistant so as not to interrupt filming. But for some reason, the PA had a last-minute change of heart and let Juan and little Melissa walk to their seats — and into the background of the show’s action.
> “Can you imagine had Melissa not asked for a snack?” Juan marveled.
(…)
> Juan was released, but couldn’t catch a break. Due to a clerical error, he had to report back to county jail two days later. The tombs had just been rocked by racial unrest after a murder inside, and Juan was actually afraid “I would be killed.”
> Melnik had assumed it would be cleared up in 24 hours. Instead, Juan, a declared-innocent man, was there for two hell-filled weeks.
> In 2007, Juan received $320,000 in a settlement of his civil lawsuit against the LAPD and the city of Los Angeles for false imprisonment, misconduct and defamation.
nightowl_games
What happens if you dont accept a settlement for something like false imprisonment?
unsnap_biceps
a settlement just short circuits the process. Without a settlement, it goes to court and, depending on the jurisdiction and case details, decided by a judge or a jury, and again depending on the jurisdiction and case details, penalties are decided by a judge or a jury.
Really it's pretty similar to criminal court with the exception that neither party will have a criminal charge or criminal judgement against them at the end of it. No one will go to jail.
ruthmarx
> They had been stopped by a production assistant so as not to interrupt filming. But for some reason, the PA had a last-minute change of heart and let Juan and little Melissa walk to their seats — and into the background of the show’s action.
Why is a PA able to stop a ticket holder from going to their seats just cause a show is filming at the same time a game is on? Seems shitty for anyone that bought a ticket that day.
thih9
I guess this was coordinated with the event organizer; perhaps the filming happened in a way that wouldn’t interfere with watching the actual event; and the ticket holders were instructed to follow the PA’s guidance.
Related:
> Once a friend of mine called me excitedly after she attended a football game in Massachusetts. There were signs everwhere that announced that they were filming the crowd for a Warner Brothers Music video and by giving your ticket for entry you are giving permission for your image to appear in this video.
Source: https://www.quora.com/How-did-directors-film-scenes-in-packe...
ruthmarx
> perhaps the filming happened in a way that wouldn’t interfere with watching the actual event;
A PA being able to stop ticket holders from going back to their seats because they got a snack sounds like a lot of interference to me.
thih9
Ticket holders have to follow instructions from stadium staff. My point was that stadium staff decided to allow filming - not sure why to focus on the PA at this point, they’re likely allowed to do that.
ruthmarx
The focus isn't on the PA, sure they're just the hand of the studio. My point is that it's crappy that the studio allows filming to interfere with and block ticket holders from going to their seats.
fracus
It is worrisome someone would have to prove innocence to remain off death row.
unsnap_biceps
I am firmly in the camp of the justice system should never execute anyone. It's a one way door that presumes the system is infallible and we've had proof after proof of cases where the system failed.
whatshisface
All sentences are a one-way door. You don't get years of your life back, or the skills that atrophy in jail if you had any before.
gostsamo
If you are sentenced falsely, would you liked to be killed or you would choose to spend some time in jail and be released when proved innocent?
What you are giving here is really false equivalence which contributes absolutely nothing to the conversation.
hnlmorg
If I have to spend 20+ years then my life as I know it is over because there’s no way I’m coming out the same person that went in.
efdee
But you are coming out, nonetheless.
hnlmorg
That’s not in disagreement. The question is how traumatised that person coming out is.
potsandpans
Given the choice of 15+ years in maximum security US prison or death, id unequivocally choose death.
lazide
Are we talking life sentences, or a year or two?
qingcharles
Not even sentences. I've known multiple people who have been incarcerated over a decade on allegations in pre-trail detention ("jail"). You don't need a sentence to lose years of your life.
immibis
Indeed. But a death penalty can't even give you back your remaining ones once you're found innocent, so it's worse in some sense.
csomar
The land of "human rights": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resolutions_concerning_death_p...
dangus
The justice system relies on the concept of guilt beyond reasonable doubt. That standard doesn’t mean “proved to be impossible to be innocent.”
In a system that is in a population of millions of people, there are bound to be edge cases where there’s a lot of damning evidence and people look guilty who just aren’t.
It’s one of the many arguments against capital punishment. It can’t be undone.
shiroiushi
>It’s one of the many arguments against capital punishment. It can’t be undone.
Neither can time spent behind bars.
mulmen
The time served can’t be undone but the incarceration can.
sdenton4
And there's little details like $320k settlements for wrongful imprisonment to help transition back out of prison... Harder when you're dead.
hnlmorg
I’ve seen interviews with people how have been wrongfully imprisoned for extended periods and they’re changed in irreversible ways.
Some of them are unlikely to ever integrate back into normal society.
hkt
> Some of them are unlikely to ever integrate back into normal society.
This is an indictment of the system itself. If it damages innocent people who are wrongfully jailed so badly, how can anyone ever hope it'll turn actual criminals into citizens?
hnlmorg
That’s also true. Though I’d see it as a separate, albeit related and just as crucial, point.
watwut
> The justice system relies on the concept of guilt beyond reasonable doubt.
Does it, in reality? With trials and layers being life destructibly expensive?
mrlonglong
This, IMHO, is the biggest argument against the death penalty. "Gung-ho" prosecutors with eyes on the political ladder will always call for the death penalty to further their career.
End it and lock them up for life. You can always release them if new evidence comes to light that proves their innocence. You can't bring back to life someone who's been executed.
We haven't sent anyone to the gallows since the 1960s. The EU doesn't either.
kordlessagain
> Los Angeles police have reassigned a detective who told a gang member he had been identified as a killer by a Sun Valley girl who was later murdered by another member of the gang. [1]
> Deputy Chief Charlie Beck says Martin Pinner will no longer work homicide cases. [1]
https://www.courthousenews.com/parents-say-l-a-police-lies-l...
namaria
Funnily enough this sounds like a 'Curb Your Enthusiasm' plot.
jdenning
It really sounds like the prosecution had exactly zero evidence that this man was guilty, but determined to prosecute him anyway, rather than “lose”. Disgusting.
hnlmorg
Unfortunately this is quite common in some legal jurisdictions.
The title is a bit dramatic. It never got to a trial, because his alibi checked out.
One of the factors was him walking into frame of a taping of Curb your Enthusiasm. The main factor was his cellphone placing him at that location after answering a call that pinged off a tower near the stadium 20mins before the murder which was 20 miles away. There was also footage from the stadium that showed a person in his seat, but resolution was not good enough to be dismissed from that alone. Even the shows footage did not clear him from charges, it was the cellphone location data.
The real tragedy was the clerical error:
"Due to a clerical error, he had to report back to county jail two days later."
On the positive: "In 2007, Juan received $320,000 in a settlement of his civil lawsuit against the LAPD and the city of Los Angeles for false imprisonment, misconduct and defamation."