defendant daniel villegas not guilty of
[Applause]
the story of daniel villegas is the
story of a 16 year old teenager from el
paso
who was convicted of a double murder
based on a false confession
he was sentenced to life in prison and
might still be there today
if it weren't for the work of an
unexpected hero
i've been beat down by the law so much
you know
going appeals failing appeals after
appeals failing no one listening to you
i was going to be in the grave back in
huntsville with a tdc number on my
gravesite
[Applause]
[Music]
april 10th 1993 it's actually good
friday
and there were four teenagers in el paso
walking
home from a party in the early morning
hours
all of a sudden a maroon car rolls up on
them
from behind they look around the car is
slowing down
and for a moment they panic but after a
minute
the car speeds up but turns down a side
street and they feel relieved
but in a minute the car's back behind
them again
this time it turns off its headlights
and six shots ring out from the car
[Music]
[Applause]
[Music]
this was one of the most serious
shootings that el paso had seen
they discovered that there were six
shell casings
left in the middle of the street from a
22-caliber handgun
but that was pretty much the only
evidence that the police had to go on
it was pretty clear that solving this
case was going to have to come down to
confessions
[Applause]
the el paso police assign a closer to
the case
an interrogator somebody who knows how
to break cases open
by questioning people now there are some
really talented closers who rely on
corroboration
and good interrogation techniques to
solve cases but there are some
who rely on threats and lies
and scaring people and that's the kind
of closer
who got involved in the good friday
[Music]
shootings
and before david knows it he's inside an
interrogation room
with that closer the detective who's
interrogating him
who's telling him falsely that his
friends implicated him
in this crime and telling david that
unless he gives up information
david is going to go to prison where
he'll be raped
this terrifies david and
david offers a story eventually to
police david rangel had a cousin
16 year old daniel villegas daniel had a
reputation as a jokester
as a bit of a braggart he would boast to
his friends that he had a fancy new
stereo when he didn't
and one thing daniel had joked about was
committing the good friday shootings
he told his cousin david a story in
which he had participated in the
shooting
now david never believed that story but
inside that interrogation room with the
pressure he was under
he repeated the story to the detective
he told them
that daniel had talked about the
shootings
[Music]
i've never had you know any uh
knowledge or you know understanding the
criminal justice system other than uh
like i said as an outsider
from my brother's experiences but
i've never personally ever been
interrogated now just like his cousin
david daniel was told
that if he didn't confess he would be
raped
in prison he was also told that if he
didn't confess to the good friday
shootings he'd be brought out to the
desert
and beaten and then finally he was told
that if he didn't confess
he would be facing the death penalty
this went on
and on for hours until finally daniel
admitted that he had committed the good
friday shootings
but this confession was riddled with
errors
as soon as daniel was outside of the
interrogation room he recanded his story
to a juvenile probation officer who met
with him but it was too late
the closer had closed the case at least
as far as he was concerned
he'd gotten confessions and so daniel
villegas
at age 16 was charged with two counts of
capital murder
i would always try to keep my mind
focused that you know i'm innocent
and this is my environment it's not what
i'm supposed to be a part of but
you know sometimes you know you can't
help it
at first john was skeptical he'd always
believed in the criminal justice system
but as a favor to his new wife and his
new family
john agreed to take a look at daniel's
case he sat down and reviewed all the
paperwork
read through all the police reports and
the news stories and the transcripts of
the trial
and after this research he came away
convinced
that an innocent man was behind bars
john manbella met with a local d.a he
presented what he had found him
and he asked the d.a to reopen the case
but the d.a
shut him down so john vinbella became a
man
possessed
you see jessie hernandez had never seen
daniel villegas's confession
so when john's investigator showed jesse
the piece of paper
on which daniel had written out his
story when he confessed
jesse read it for the first time and he
said
this confession reads like it was
written by someone who wasn't there
this isn't how it happened not at all
and then jesse said who is the detective
who took this confession when john ben
bella named
the detective who'd interrogated daniel
that's when jesse's face
turned white turns out that jesse
hernandez
one of the survivors of this shooting
had been interrogated
himself by this same detective a few
days before daniel villegas had been
interrogated
the same detective had told jesse
hernandez that his friend had implicated
him which was false
he told jesse hernandez that he'd be
going to prison for life
or facing the death penalty unless he
confessed and jesse hernandez
came within a hair's breath of
confessing himself
to committing the good friday shootings
even though he was one of the intended
targets when jesse told this to john
manbella's investigator
that's when john doubled down he hired
one of the best lawyers in el paso joe
spencer
and the team got to work
and most importantly evidence comes out
at this hearing
that two known gang members had
threatened mondo lazo
just a week or two before the shooting
and then they bragged about committing
it afterwards
a free man physically but still waiting
to hear his fate
first we went to a church and we you
know prayed
and then after that we went to a
steakhouse and i
got a big old steak
[Music]
it was a horrible offer one of these
alfred please that we hear about
time and again in cases of wrongful
conviction
and daniel considered it he considered
it because he had so much to lose
the life he had built during those four
years of freedom
but what stopped him from taking the
alfred please
he felt that being branded a murderer
when he didn't do anything wrong
was a heavy burden to live with and so
when daniel villegas was offered an
alfred plea
was offered the chance to walk away from
prison if he falsely admitted guilt
jason baldwin was there to counsel him
to give him advice
to tell him you know what you do have
the courage
to turn this down to go to trial and to
bet on the truth
and i was walking into that courtroom
you know i was
i went there by my lawyers and stuff and
i turned around and looked and i could
see my kids in the back
you know and that's it started really
messing with my head you know if we made
the right decision on that offer halfway
[Music]
and as daniel waited for that jury to
return with its verdict
as the tension and pressure was rising
he took
his newborn daughter only six months old
into a back room of the courtroom and as
he waited with her
for the jury to give him his answer he
told her
i know you can't understand me but i'm
telling you as your father
i didn't do this you know you you tell
yourself
you know it's for justice but then you
think to yourself but hell man if i
don't get this
you know if if they come back with a
guilty verdict you know i'm going i'm
going to lose my kids again
it was like every second was a freaking
just a bunch of knives just sticking in
me
and so when they finally said you know
uh not guilty it was like all that
pressure all that
knives everything all that that freaking
ball of
just nerve endings that are non-stop
just killing me you know just
pop and i just dropped
not guilty we left the courtroom and
when judgmental said you know you're a
free man you're free to go i
told you know i said let's go we jammed
out of that courtroom
we hit the the parking lot i stopped my
wife
and i told her we're gonna live together
you know i thought you realized we're
gonna live the rest of our lives
together and she's like yeah
we left the kids in the courthouse
that's how fast we left
[Music]
transitioning is still from then to now
i mean i'm still in the process of
transitioning you know i'm still in the
process of
finding out who i am and where i belong
i've been practicing guitar working out
and spending a lot more time with the
kids and stuff and
changing the way i think and my attitude
and stuff you know i'm always constantly
constantly just
always monitoring myself you know and
making sure that
i'm always grateful for everything
daniel villegas's case
is proof of how easy it can be to
wrongly convict someone
even when their confession is riddled
with errors and is obviously false
one thing that i would like everybody to
know is no matter what you go through in
life no matter what hell you go
through no matter what it is i mean it
can be
something very psychotic and crazy
whatever
it doesn't matter whatever hell don't
let that be the reason to hold you down
anything could happen to you but as long
as you still breathing living
you still got a chance to get out there
and do what you want to do
[Music]
you