Carlos Deluna Trial

On December 7, 1989, the state of Texas executed 27-year old Carlos Deluna for the stabbing of a gas station clerk. The trial drew local attention, but not concern that a guiltless man would be punished while the killer ran free. Chicago Tribune published a three-part investigative series implicating another individual and discrediting the evidence found against DeLuna. Columbia University law professor James Liebman and his team of students believe they have proven Texas gave a lethal injection to the wrong man. Correspondingly, DeLuna affirmed his innocence from the moment police arrested him until the day he was executed. Prosecutors and police had ignored tips in the case files that Carlos Hernandez, an older friend of Deluna, who had a reputation for

The presumably real killer, Carlos Hernandez, was a repeat violent offender who had a history of slashing women with his knife. In fact, various of Hernandez’ family members interviewed for the Columbia University report determined the pictures of the murder weapon retrieved from the gas station looked similar to the knife Hernandez habitually kept with him. The report, specifically more than 400 pages long, was turned over to the Chicago Tribune which then published a three-part series in 2006 that procured evidence suggesting that Hernandez was the true suspect. Numerous people revealed to the Tribune that Hernandez-who died in 1999 in prison of a liver disease-had confessed to the killing of that harrowing night. Essentially, negligent police work, the prosecution’s failure to pursue another suspect, and a weak defense fused to send DeLuna to death row. “There are many cases out there that nobody has ever looked at and are probably at risk of innocence,” said