After 21 Years, Inmate's Conviction Reversed; Prosecutor in '91 Trial Still Calls It 'Bulletproof'
Maurice Caldwell knew his lawyer had a court hearing yesterday, so he gave her a call, collect.
After 21 years in prison, the 47-year-old California inmate was stunned to hear that his conviction had been overturned, due to ineffective assistance of trial counsel, who failed to investigate the case properly, reports the San Francisco Chronicle.
“At first he was totally speechless,” says Paige Kaneb, who worked with the Northern California Innocence Project at Santa Clara University School of Law to win the reversal of Caldwell’s second-degree murder conviction. “Then he kept thanking me. I told him it was a long time coming, and he said, ‘No, it’s a blessing.’ “
San Francisco Superior Court Judge Charles Haines asked prosecutors to tell the court Monday whether they plan to appeal his ruling, retry Caldwell or dismiss the charges against him, the newspaper says.
Caldwell, who has maintained his innocence, was convicted based on the testimony of one eyewitness. Another convicted criminal has taken responsibility for the murder, and has identified another inmate as his accomplice.
However, the original prosecutor in Caldwell’s 1991 trial, Al Giannini, was also stunned to hear that the conviction had been reversed, the Chronicle reports. He described the case against Caldwell as “bulletproof” and the reversal as “just heart-breaking.”
