THE SAN ANTONIO 4 — Anna Vasquez, Elizabeth Ramirez, Cassie Rivera, and Kristie Mayhugh — are innocent. So declared the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals on November 23, 2016.
The four young Chicana lesbians were imprisoned for almost 15 years on false accusations of sexually abusing Liz’s two little nieces while babysitting them for a few days in the early 1990s.
When no one else would believe in their innocence, the National Center for Reason and Justice did.
When no one else would find them legal help, NCRJ did. We persuaded the Innocence Project of Texas to take their case. IPOT won their released from prison in 2013.
With your generous donation, we can do more.
When no one sought to publicize their flight, NCRJ did. We alerted local journalists and the documentarian Deb Esqenazi to the story and helped them tell it. Deb’s powerful film “Southwest of Salem” galvanized support for the women nationwide.
And now, just before Thanksgiving, the Four have been exonerated. Although they can never get back what they lost, the state will pay them restitution for each year of wrongful imprisonment.
Help NCRJ celebrate—and work for justice for others—with a special extra donation of $25, $50, or $100 to NCRJ at ncrj.org/donate.
“Homophobia and hysteria didn’t deprive these women of their freedom – prosecutors did. The state’s reluctance to take responsibility in a case where its failings have been unusually well-documented and publicized suggests locking up the occasional innocent person isn’t that big a deal. With that conviction-at-all-costs mentality pervasive among prosecutors in the U.S., we can expect there are many more innocent people in prison than we know.”
“I can’t do this anymore.” I sometimes find myself waking up with that as the first thought of the day to enter my mind. But don’t worry. I’ve been waking up uttering that about once a week for at least twenty of the twenty-three years I have spent in wrongful and unjust imprisonment. The thought is more of a temptation than any real conviction. “You don’t have that luxury,” my friend Pornchai Moontri often says in rebuttal. He’s right.
