Man behind bars 2 years after judge orders release
Daniel Larsen was found 'actually innocent' of carrying a concealed knife, but the attorney general's appeal is keeping him in prison, claiming that he missed a key deadline.
At a news conference Monday, Brian Banks, center, carries petitions calling for the release of Daniel Larsen. (Brian van der Brug, Los Angeles Times / August 20, 2012)
Daniel Larsen was in a California prison serving a life sentence when he received the news he had awaited more than a decade. A federal court in Los Angeles had thrown out his conviction for carrying a concealed knife.
Two judges concluded that jurors who convicted Larsen would never have found him guilty had they heard from additional witnesses who saw a different man with the knife. Larsen's attorney, who has since been disbarred, failed to adequately investigate the case and identify the witnesses before the trial, the judges found.
But two years after he was supposed to be released, Larsen remains behind bars while the California attorney general appeals the decision. The state's main argument: He did not file his legal paperwork seeking release on time.
California Atty. Gen.Kamala D. Harris, whose office maintains that evidence still points to Larsen's guilt, accuses him and his attorneys of filing a petition seeking his release more than six years after he was legally required to do so. Prosecutors question whether the judges had the authority to hear Larsen's petition for release.
The standoff offers a window into what is often a defendant's last chance to have a criminal conviction overturned.
Larsen turned to the federal court to file a habeas corpus claim after exhausting his appeals in California state courts. In overturning Larsen's conviction, the federal court found he was "actually innocent" under the law because it had no confidence in the outcome of the original trial.
Prosecutors have long been frustrated by the seemingly endless appeals from inmates claiming innocence, many of whom were convicted on solid evidence. Robert Weisberg, a professor at Stanford Law School, said the attorney general appears to be trying to prevent an onslaught of legal claims by prisoners who have tenuous arguments. States want to make it nearly impossible for inmates to reopen their cases in federal court, which force prosecutors to retry cases in which they have already won convictions, he said.
"What they're saying is, this guy had his chances. At a certain point the music has to stop, and a case just has to be closed," Weisberg said. "We're afraid that lots of people who were not unjustly convicted are going to be encouraged to frame their case as the injustice of the century."
Larsen's attorneys say prosecutors are interested only in a win for win's sake. They contend that evidence that Larsen is innocent is strong enough to overcome any need to meet legal deadlines.
The wrangling over byzantine legal rules governing federal habeas corpus laws could take several more years to resolve.
On Monday, Larsen's supporters delivered copies of online petitions to the attorney general's office in downtown Los Angeles demanding the man's release.
"He's living in legal limbo just waiting to be released," said his fiancee, Christina Combs.
The attorney general's office declined to comment.
Larsen's legal saga began in June 1998 at a parking lot outside a Northridge bar.
Two police officers responded to a report of a bar fight and testified that they saw Larsen take a shiny metal object out of his waistband and throw it under a car. They said they searched the area and found a double-edged knife about 6 inches long.
Larsen's attorney, Michael Edward Consiglio, did not call any witnesses on Larsen's behalf, despite his client's claims of innocence. Jurors found him guilty and, because Larsen had two prior convictions for burglary, he qualified for a lengthy prison term under the state's three-strikes law and was sentenced to 28 years to life.
From prison, Larsen contacted nine different attorneys for help until the California Innocence Project picked up his case in 2002.
After the group's legal claims were repeatedly rejected in state courts, the organization filed a last-ditch habeas corpus case in federal court in 2008. A year later, U.S. District Court Magistrate Judge Suzanne H. Segal heard what jurors at Larsen's initial trial never did — testimony from three witnesses who said they saw a different man, not Larsen, with the knife.
Among the new witnesses was a correctional officer visiting from Tennessee who formerly served as a police chief in North Carolina, and his wife. After listening to the witnesses, the judge described Larsen's claims as one of the "extraordinary cases where the [prisoner] asserts his innocence and establishes that the court cannot have confidence in the contrary finding of guilt." She found that Larsen's attorney failed to provide a competent defense.
U.S. District Judge Christina A. Snyder agreed and ruled that Larsen could be released even though his legal claim missed the federal court's deadlines.
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