Youth to Be Freed as Judge Voids Conviction

SANTA ANA —  An Orange County judge Monday threw out the robbery conviction of a teenager whose case came under scrutiny after two jurors and a key witness expressed doubts about his guilt.

Arthur Carmona, 18, of Costa Mesa, who has spent more than two years behind bars, was expected to be freed as soon as prison officials processed his release.

The ruling by Judge Everett W. Dickey came after prosecutors decided not to oppose a request to toss out Carmona’s conviction in the 1998 armed robbery of two Orange County businesses. Supporters of Carmona have argued for months that his case underscores the problems with convictions based entirely on witness identifications.

His is at least the third case in Orange County in which eyewitness identifications did not hold up and convictions were overturned.

As Dickey called an end to the controversial case, Carmona’s mother, Ronnie, walked to the defense table and threw her arms around her handcuffed son. Crying softly, she held him tightly, then kissed his forehead.

“I’m overwhelmed,” she said later. “I just feel like I went through a long, hard labor. But it was worth it.”

Later, at a news conference, Orange County Dist. Atty. Tony Rackauckas said his office had no plans to ask for a retrial. He said prosecutors would be unlikely to win a second trial because key witnesses have recanted their testimony in Times reports. But he said his decision should not be interpreted as belief that Carmona is innocent.

“He was tried by a fair judge and an honest jury. They weighed the evidence and reached a just verdict,” Rackauckas said, reading a prepared statement. “For us to spend considerable resources on this, I believe, no longer is in the interests of justice.”

Carmona was 16 years old in February 1998 when he was arrested and charged with robbing an Irvine juice bar and Costa Mesa restaurant. Police detained him shortly after the juice bar robbery as he walked along a Costa Mesa street.

When victims of both robberies identified Carmona as the gunman, police arrested him. Carmona and his family professed his innocence for more than two years. Active in his church, Carmona had never been convicted of a crime.

A jury, however, convicted Carmona of both robberies in October 1998. Persuaded by the testimony of witnesses, jurors rejected defense attorney Kenneth Reed’s assertion that police swayed the witnesses by putting a hat on Carmona that the robber had worn, even though it had not been linked to Carmona in any way.

Despite Dooubts, No New Trial

Doubt about Carmona’s guilt first surfaced in a series of Times columns, starting last year. A key witness recanted her testimony after reading a column that laid out the details of the case. Two jurors expressed new doubt about Carmona’s guilt. But Dickey last year refused to grant him a new trial and sentenced him to 12 years in prison.

One of those jurors expressed joy at Monday’s developments.

“I am so happy,” said Sandra Dinardo, an Aliso Viejo retail store manager who was a juror. “It’s a great day. I’m very pleased. He wasn’t guilty, and I caved in and went along with the group pressure and sent that boy to jail. . . . The whole thing was a terrible mistake.”

For Ronnie Carmona, Monday’s ruling ended a two-year journey. She said she moved in with her parents in Santa Ana so she could spend her money on trips every weekend to visit her son.

“I gave up everything to be with my son,” she said. “When I heard the judge say it, I wasn’t satisfied,” she said, standing outside the jail. “I want to see him walk through the doors.”

The euphoria of friends and family who gathered outside Theo Lacy Jail was tempered when sheriff’s deputies said they would have to detain Carmona, or at least until they obtained permission from the state Department of Corrections to release him. There was a chance late Monday that Carmona might be taken to the state prison in Blythe, where he has been serving his sentence, before he could be freed.

A large Los Angeles law firm, Sidley & Austin, had agreed to handle Carmona’s appeal free of charge after talking to Carmona’s pastor and reading about the case in The Times. Their campaign targeted Reed’s allegedly ineffective assistance during the trial. They said he should have sought to exclude the eyewitness identification because of the hat incident.

Reed said he adequately challenged the identification before the jury. He said he was pleased by Carmona’s release.

“I’m happy that he’s out of custody. . . . I never thought the kid should be in,” Reed said.

Reed arrived in court Monday expecting to testify about the quality of his defense. He brought an attorney, Michael Molfetta, to represent him. After Carmona’s release, Molfetta said Reed was unfairly targeted by the appeals lawyers. He said the prosecution, not Reed, should take the blame for Carmona’s conviction.

“Kenny Reed is the only guy who stood up from the beginning and said he’s innocent,” Molfetta said. “He’s a good lawyer, but he’s been hung out to dry.”

Irvine Police Lt. Sam Allevato defended his department’s role in the case, particularly an officer’s decision to place the hat on Carmona’s head during a field lineup in which witnesses identified him as the robber. He said officers might repeat the tactic.

“It’s not for me to pass judgment on Arthur Carmona,” said Allevato, a department spokesman. “It’s only my job and my investigators’ job to present evidence to a jury.”

Rackauckas took the opportunity during his news conference to send a stern warning to Carmona.

“Arthur, it’s a rare event that a convicted defendant gets this kind of break. Take advantage of it. Don’t let yourself or your supporters down. When you get out, understand you are getting a second chance. Improve your skills. Work to have a good and productive life. Do not--I repeat, not--commit any crimes!”

And he said that he believed the criminal justice system could not be faulted in the handling of the case.

Instead, he said witnesses who identified Carmona during the trial recanted their testimony under pressured questioning from Times columnist Dana Parsons, who wrote 14 columns about the case in a little over a year. Without those witnesses, an attempt to retry the case now “would create a situation in which we would be unable to win.”

He accused Parsons of pushing an agenda and asking questions in a way that would encourage witnesses to recant their testimony.

“If our office treated witnesses like some newspaper reporters have treated witnesses, we would be run out of town on a rail,” he added.

And he accused the columnist of crossing an ethical line.

“There is an ethical question that reporters have to answer for themselves: whether to observe and report the news, or to make the news. I think Mr. Parsons went over that line of observing news and made news.”

Times editors rejected the allegation. “Parsons pursued the case because he believed it had weaknesses,” said Michael Young, managing editor of The Times’ Orange County Edition. “The court’s action today speaks for itself.”