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Buena Park man compensated for wrongful conviction - but problems remain

By Jason Siegel

The California Victim Compensation and Government Claims Board recommended giving $31,700 to a 22 year old former Buena Park man who spent 10 months in prison for a carjacking he didn't do, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Buena Park, the police and a dog handler involved in the investigation agreed to a tentative $550,000 settlement.

Buena Park's James Ochoa plead guilty in 2006 after O.C. Superior Court Judge Robert Fitzgerald threatened him a 25 years to life sentence if convicted. Ochoa plead guilty against his attorney's advice and took a two-year prison sentence offered by the prosecution.

The prosecution had a shabby case, relying on a dog who passed Ochoa home twice during a 63 minute search before stopping at his front door and finding that he must be in a local gang because of where he lives and the clothes he wears the O.C. Weekly pointed out in 2005 ("The Case of the Dog That Couldn't Sniff Straight," "There Once Was a Judge From Nantucket"). DNA evidence eventually linked the crime to a man already in prison for carjacking who confessed after Ochoa had served 10 months.

Despite his wrongful conviction, an officer told the state's compensation board that Ochoa didn't deserve payment because he helped get himself into prison by pleading guilty. The board disagreed, but The Innocence Project point out that "an author of the compensation law  and the state innocence commission have both said that the 'guilty plea loophole' needs to be removed to ensure that people like Ochoa don?t need to argue for compensation in future cases."

Full post as published by Legal Pad | LA on April 24, 2008 (boomark / email).