Quest For Justice

In April of 1993, Daniel Villegas only 16 years old was
arrested and later convicted of a double murder he did not commit. Without the
presence of his parents or a lawyer he was interrogated for hours into the late
night. He was threatened with the death penalty and told he would be taken to
the county jail to get raped if he did not confess. My name is John Mimbela and
I learned about Daniel’s injustice when I married Lucy and adopted her three
young daughters, Daniel’s nieces. In the
last five years I have spent well over $100,000 in Daniel’s lawyer fees,
private investigators, expert witnesses, and other expenses in seeking his
release and bringing awareness to his wrongful conviction.

Northwestern Law Center on Wrongful conviction of youth has
joined us in seeking Daniel’s release. Steve Drizin co-founder of the center
has stated “the only evidence against him is a confession and the confession
doesn’t fit the crime.” Daniel only got three things right in his confession
and those were facts previously published in the newspaper! Dr. Richard Leo,
co-author of The Wrong Guys is an associate professor of law at the University
of San Francisco also testified in Daniel’s evidentiary hearing that Daniel’s
confession was coerced and false. He is a world know expert on the subject of
false confessions. What surprises me the most is how hard D.A.’s fight to
preserve a conviction. In Daniels case no weapon was ever found, no physical
evidence or eye witnesses tied him to this crime. Only his confession that was
full of impossible and false facts led to his conviction. Daniel has always
maintained that his confession was false and coerced by Detective Al Marquez, a harsh and relentless interrogator. Daniel went to trial in 1995 with a court appointed lawyer, his lawyer John Gates, had 60 days to prepare for trial and was appointed a private investigator six days before trail. He called one witness to the stand and failed to call 18 other available defense witnesses, including Daniel’s alibis. The trial last three days and Daniel was convicted and sentenced to life in prison. He has now been in prison for 17 years.

We filed a writ of habeas corpus in December of 2009 on two
counts, ineffective assistance of counsel and actual innocence. Without DNA we
knew actual innocence would be hard to prove but in the last five years our
private investigator, Freddie Bonilla, and me have gathered a lot of facts and
evidence to show Daniel’s innocence. Our attorneys Joe Spencer, Josh Spencer,
and Luis Gutierrez did an excellent job in presenting a very strong case in
Daniel’s evidentiary hearing to prove his wrongful conviction and continue to
do a great job. Daniel also recently
passed a polygraph test with flying colors. John Gates, Daniel’s trial lawyer
gave us an affidavit stating he missed a lot of facts and was indeed
ineffective. After attending Daniel’s evidentiary hearing, the foreman of the
jury who convicted Daniel gave us an affidavit stating that had he heard all
this overwhelming evidence in the 1995 trial he never would have voted to
convict Daniel. Yet our DA Jaime Esparza who prosecuted Daniel continues to
claim that Daniel got a fair trial and the jury decided his fate. The Texas Code of Criminal Procedure states “It shall be the primary duty of all prosecuting attorneys not to
convict but to see that justice is done.” Has our DA lost site of the oath he took when we elected him? Instead of seeking truth
and justice he assigned three of his best prosecutors to fight our post convict writ and continues to deny Daniel the justice he deserves. One goal of our legal system must be to secure conviction of the guilty, but another must be to minimize wrongful convictions, including those involving false confessions. In America our constitution guarantees us the right to a fair trial; we pray Daniel will finally be granted one! We are now awaiting for our judge Sam Medrano and the Court of Criminal Appeals in Austin, TX to rule on Daniel’s
case. For more information please visit our website www.questforjustice.net or email John Mimbela at johnm@mimbela.com