His lawyers said he was framed. After nearly 3 decades in prison, he is declared innocent by a judge

Humberto Duran stood in a downtown Los Angeles courtroom Friday morning, nervously shifting his weight. But as Judge H. Clay Jacke spoke, Duran slowly began to smile, soaking in the words he’d been waiting so long to hear.

“The facts support the inescapable conclusion that Mr. Duran did not murder Albert Gonzalez or attempt to murder Ms. Rivera-Ortiz, as he was not present at the crime scene and is innocent.”

Turning to face Duran, he added: “You are factually innocent.”

Duran walked back to hug his family. And began to cry.

The now-51-year-old had been sentenced to life in prison for a 1993 gang killing in East Los Angeles. Twenty-four years later, the case began to fall apart when Monica Rivera — the only eyewitness to the crime — recanted her story, telling Duran’s attorney she’d lied on the stand when she swore she saw Duran shoot 17-year-old Gonzalez.

Duran’s lawyers at California Innocence Advocates reinvestigated the case for seven years. Then in early 2024, they filed a petition asking a judge to overturn the conviction.

In their 147-page filing, attorneys Megan Baca and Arianna Price said deputies — one of whom they described as Rivera’s cousin — “framed” Duran, targeting him for prosecution. They said there was no other evidence implicating Duran, and he had an alibi: He had been with his girlfriend and her mother.

California

He spent 30 years in prison, where he was beaten and shot. But was he actually innocent?

Humberto Duran was arrested on suspicion of murder in 1993, implicated by a teenage witness who since recanted her account. More than a decade later, Duran was still in prison.

Nov. 4, 2024

In October, the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office conceded in a 10-page letter that there was evidence of “actual innocence.” A day later Jacke overturned Duran’s conviction.

But before agreeing to the defense team’s request to have Duran formally declared innocent — a finding that clears the way for state compensation for the years he spent wrongly imprisoned — prosecutors wanted to investigate further. Earlier this month, the D.A.’s office filed a letter agreeing with Baca’s request.

“While justice often arrives at arrest, conviction and sentencing, there are cases where justice has to set aside a conviction,” Dist. Atty. Nathan Hochman told the court Friday, thanking his prosecutors and the diligent work of Duran’s defense team.

“It’s a pleasure to be here,” he said. “We don’t get too many days like this.”

Duran is the third person found factually innocent of murder since Hochman took office last year.

A week before Christmas 1993, Duran — then 19 — went to his girlfriend’s house on Fraser Avenue in East L.A. By his account, they watched TV together at home and made a quick trip to Taco Bell. At about 1:30 a.m., Duran said, an older friend from the neighborhood came over to walk him home.

When Duran got back to his parents’ house, his sister opened the door and told him the news: A kid he knew growing up — Gonzalez — had been shot.

After East L.A. deputies arrived at the crime scene, Rivera told them she and Gonzalez had been in a back room of his family’s home when they heard someone shouting for his older brother, Vidal. The teens went out to the driveway and saw a young man in a dark hoodie, who allegedly told Gonzalez that someone named “Beto” did not like him, according to the department’s case file.

Then, the young man pulled out a gun and fatally shot Gonzalez . Afterward, Rivera told the deputies, the shooter climbed in the passenger side of a Cadillac waiting in a nearby alley and left.

At first, Rivera told deputies she didn’t know the names of either the shooter or the driver but said she knew they were members of the Rascals street gang.

When detectives formally interviewed her three days later, she still mentioned only one shooter. A detective pulled out a photo of Duran that he’d brought along to the interview, but Rivera said she hadn’t seen him that night and that he was not the killer.

Later that day, one of the detectives — Sgt. Robert Perry — briefed Deputy Danny Batanero on the case and said Duran may have been a suspect, even though Rivera had excluded him just hours earlier.

Afterward Batanero visited Rivera at her family’s home. The two already knew each other, and Rivera later said in a sworn statement that they were cousins.

During the visit, Batanero didn’t record the conversation, but later wrote in his report that Rivera said there were two shooters and the second was someone she “personally knew as ‘Beto.’ ”

Near midnight, he brought Rivera back to the sheriff’s station for another interview. This time, the teen said that after the first man shot Gonzalez, Duran jumped out of the back of the Cadillac and shot Gonzalez in the leg, then pointed his gun at Rivera. When it didn’t go off, he threatened her and fled, she told detectives.

Deputies arrested Duran the day after Christmas. As word of his arrest got around, other people came forward with tips. Peter “Rocky” Paez told investigators that a fellow Rascals gang member who went by Spooky had confessed to a killing when he showed up to a party a few hours later covered in blood.

When the case went to trial, Duran’s lawyer — who State Bar of California records show was later disbarred for unrelated “acts of moral turpitude” — put on what Baca described as a “grossly ineffective” defense. He didn’t offer proof to back up Duran’s alibi, Baca wrote, and, during trial he showed up late so many times the judge held him in contempt, according to court minutes and a payment receipt.

When reached for comment last year, the former attorney, Donald Ainslie, said “some of the allegations” against him were “absolutely fabrications.”

After a weeklong trial, Duran was convicted. The judge gave him two life sentences.

More than 20 years later, the case landed on Baca’s desk. She sent Rivera a Facebook message, and the erstwhile star witness recanted.

“I know Beto is innocent,” she wrote in a sworn declaration in 2021. “My role in sending an innocent man to prison has haunted me for the past 27 years.”

She also swore there were two shooters and that the second wasn’t Duran but rather a dangerous gang member she could have identified if deputies hadn’t “insisted” she name Duran.

Last year, Batanero told The Times he’d found Rivera’s story credible at the time and said any accusations of misconduct against him were a “nefarious attempt… to discredit me and the fact that Monica on her own identified and implicated the petitioner in this gang-related murder.”

Two detectives involved in the case did not respond or could not be reached for comment.

When Duran came up for parole in summer 2022, Baca compiled a parole packet that included Rivera’s recantation. A few months later, he walked out of prison a free man.

But Baca still pushed forward with her effort to prove his innocence. And now that both the D.A.’s office and the court have agreed, Duran can seek money for his time behind bars.

“I am happy this is finally done,” Baca said after court. “This means that Mr. Duran can seek compensation from the Victim Compensation Board for every day he was wrongfully incarcerated. But more importantly, his name is cleared and the truth is out.”