Location

Defendant(s)

Date of Alleged Crime

Max Soffar was convicted of murdering Arden Alane Felsher, 17, Tommy Lee Temple, 17, and Stephen Allen Sims, 25, during a robbery of the Fair Lanes Windfern Bowling Center.  He was sentenced to death.  Soffar, 24, a mentally impaired individual, confessed to the murders after hours of police interrogation.  No physical evidence connected him to the crime.  A fourth victim, Gregory Garner, survived a gunshot wound to the head but failed to identify Soffar as a participant in the robbery.

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Ricardo Aldape Guerra, a Mexican national, was sentenced to death for the murder of James D. Harris, a Houston police officer.  Harris was killed during a routine traffic stop.  The gun that killed Harris was found on Roberto Carrasco some hours later, after Carrasco was killed in a shootout with police.  Guerra, a 20-year-old acquaintance of Carrasco, was riding in the car with Carrasco when Harris was killed.  Police theorized that Guerra shot Harris and later traded guns with Carrasco.  Guerra's fingerprints were not found on the gun, but five eyewitnesses identified him as the shooter.

Beginning in 1994, evidence emerged that police and prosecutors had systematically intimidated and manipulated the eyewitnesses into identifying Guerra as Harris's killer.  During a federal appeal, these witnesses testified that they had perjured themselves because they feared police and prosecutors.  Guerra's conviction was overturned in Nov. 1994.  The state delayed justice by appealing the ruling, but ultimately released Guerra in Apr. 1997, as they had no intimidated witnesses with which to retry him.  Upon release, Guerra returned to Mexico where he was the subject of a book, a feature film and at least one popular song and music video.  (NC Reporter)  [2/07]

Everett Baily Malloy was convicted of the murder of 25-year-old William Smiddy.  While Smiddy was in a North Houston nightclub, he saw a man, believed to be Malloy, take $20 from a waitress' serving tray and then leave the club.  Smiddy followed the man outside, choked him, and took the stolen money back.  However, the man fatally shot him with a .22 caliber pistol.

Malloy maintained his innocence and had witnesses testify that he was not at the club.  But four prosecution witnesses identified him as the killer.  They also said a woman accompanied him at the nightclub.  Following Malloy's conviction, the woman described by witnesses was located  and her information led to the filing of charges against a different man for the killing.  Malloy was released from prison in 1984.  (Herald-Journal) (Star-News)  [8/10]

Anthony Robinson, a black man, was convicted of raping a white University of Houston student. He was picked up because the victim said her assailant was a black man wearing a plaid shirt. The victim, who was white, also said her assailant had a mustache, smelled of cigarette smoke, had no money, and that he apologized to her, saying he had just gotten out of prison and had not had sex in a long time. Robinson had no mustache, did not smoke, had $169 on him, and had never been to prison. The victim identified Robinson as her assailant when he was brought to her and at trial. Robinson's fingerprints did not match those taken from the crime scene

Robinson was paroled after serving 10 years of his 27-year sentence. He then worked to pay for his own DNA testing and hired a lawyer who had him officially exonerated. Because he was a well thought of college graduate who served two years in the Army, a state senator employed Robinson as the “poster child” for a proposed Texas law to increase the compensation for the wrongly convicted to $25,000 per year of incarceration. The law passed and Robinson was awarded $250,000 under it.  (IP) (Frontline)  [5/08]

Robert Angleton, also known as Bob, was a bookie who took bets on sporting events.  He was charged with murdering his 46-year-old wife, Doris.  Following the murder, Bob told police that he suspected his brother Roger was the killer.  Despite Roger's checkered past, Bob had employed him in 1989.  He fired him less than a year later.  After being fired, Roger felt Bob owed him $200,000 and even tried to rob him of it at gunpoint.  Roger then threatened to put Bob out of business, by reporting him to the IRS.  Bob ignored him, but Roger started making phone calls to customers, posing as an IRS agent.

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Gilbert Amezquita was convicted of aggravated assault after Kathy Bingham was severely beaten at the Houston plumbing company where he worked and which her family owned.  Shortly after coming out of a 10-day coma, the still-hospitalized Bingham whispered to police that it was “Gilbert” who had assaulted her.  Amezquita was a U.S. Army reservist with no prior criminal record.  His appellate attorney, Roland Moore, found that prosecutors had failed to consider that a second Gilbert - Alonzo Gilbert Guerrero - also worked at the plumbing company.  Moore discovered that Bingham and Guerrero had argued a few days before the attack and that Guerrero had Bingham's cell phone after the beating.  Guerrero, who is now serving a seven-year prison sentence for burglary, did not have a good explanation for how he came to possess Bingham's phone.

In 2007, the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles recommended a pardon based on innocence for Amezquita.  News of the Board's action did not please Bingham, who maintains that Amezquita attacked her. Governor Perry subsequently pardoned him.  (Chronicle)  [6/07]

Ricardo Rachell was convicted of sexually assaulting an 8-year-old boy.  The boy, lured by a bike-riding stranger promising him $10 for help cleaning up trash, was sexually assaulted in a vacant home south of downtown Houston.  The next day, the boy's mother saw Rachell riding a bike on Cullen Blvd.  She drove her son to the location and the boy subsequently identified Rachell as his assailant.  Testimony from the boy and one of his friends who saw the assailant served as the core of the case against Rachell.

During deliberations, jurors asked about the boys' testimony, sending written questions to the judge.  At least two wanted to know how the mother asked her son to identify his assailant and how the boy responded to her question.  The boy appeared to know Rachell not as a stranger, but from seeing him around his neighborhood as a man whose facial deformity, from of a shotgun blast years before, made him drool and appear "scary-looking."  The two boys never mentioned that their assailant had an obvious facial deformity.

After Rachell was incarcerated, similar assaults occurred on at least three young boys lured by a man who promised them money in exchange for performing a task.  Rachell's defense attorneys said they were never told that biological evidence existed in the case, but were later made aware of it.  DNA tests of this evidence confirmed Rachell's innocence in 2008, leading to his release after more than 5 years of imprisonment.  Rachell became blind from glaucoma during his incarceration.  He was officially cleared in 2009.  (HC #1)  (HC #2)  [5/09]