{"id":2004215,"date":"2023-08-17T20:09:01","date_gmt":"2023-08-18T00:09:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/man-exonerated-of-murder-conviction-after-26-years-in-prison\/"},"modified":"2023-08-17T20:10:37","modified_gmt":"2023-08-18T00:10:37","slug":"man-exonerated-of-murder-conviction-after-26-years-in-prison","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/man-exonerated-of-murder-conviction-after-26-years-in-prison\/","title":{"rendered":"Man freed from prison after 26 years for wrongful murder conviction."},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">22<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fman-exonerated-of-murder-conviction-after-26-years-in-prison%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=2004215&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><h2>A Man \u2064Wrongfully \u2062Convicted for Murder Released After 26 Years in \u200bPrison<\/h2>\n<p>A judge signed a dismissal of charges on Thursday, bringing an end to the harrowing ordeal of Evaristo Junior Salas. Salas, now 42, was <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/he-was-wrongly-convicted-of-rape-and-spent-40-years-in-prison-now-hes-free\/\" title=\"He Was Wrongly Convicted Of Rape And Spent 40 Years In Prison. Now He\u2019s Free.\">wrongly convicted<\/a> for a murder\u2062 that occurred\u200d nearly 28\u200d years ago. The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/famed-producer-scott-rudin-accused-of-bullying-abuse-every-day-was-exhausting-and-horrific\/\" title=\"Famed Producer Scott Rudin Accused Of Bullying, Abuse: \u2018Every Day Was Exhausting And Horrific\u2019\">incident involved<\/a> the shooting and killing of Jose Arreola, who was just 24 years old at the time, while he sat in his truck in a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/man-exonerated-of-murder-conviction-after-26-years-in-prison\/\" title=\"Man freed from prison after 26 years for wrongful murder conviction.\">convenience store parking lot<\/a>. Despite being only 15 years old when the crime took place, Salas was tried as an adult and sentenced\u200c to 33 years in prison.<\/p>\n<p>However, after a three-day period of testimonies, Yakima County Prosecutor \u2063Joe Brusic\u2062 made the decision to dismiss the case with \u200dprejudice. This means that Salas cannot be\u200b charged again\u200c for the same crime. The court proceedings\u2063 from \u200cthe nineties\u2064 were thoroughly\u200d examined, leading\u2064 to the conclusion that Salas&#8217;s conviction was unjust.<\/p>\n<h3>The Fight for Justice<\/h3>\n<p>The Washington Innocence Project, in collaboration with Salas&#8217;s lead counsel Laura Shaver, \u200chas been working tirelessly since 2019 to prove his innocence. This nonprofit organization credits Shaver&#8217;s exceptional cross-examination of the lead detective involved in the \u2062case \u2064for ultimately overturning \u200bSalas&#8217;s conviction.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We are humbled by Junior&#8217;s grace in the face of a lifetime of injustice,\u2062 thrilled for his family that \u2064he will finally be back with\u2062 them where he belongs, and heartbroken for the family of\u2062 Jose Arreola who have \u2063not seen justice,&#8221; \u200cexpressed the Washington Innocence Project on Facebook.\u2062 &#8220;We look forward \u2064to formally welcoming Junior to \u2064Washington Innocence Project&#8217;s Freed Family!&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Salas&#8217;s original attorney, George Trejo, testified that crucial evidence was withheld from him by the prosecutors at the time. For instance, he \u2063was never informed that the police had taken \u200dpossession of Salas&#8217;s truck with\u2063 the \u2063cooperation of his girlfriend at the \u200dtime.<\/p>\n<p>Prosecutor Joe Brusic acknowledged that the \u200dcase against Salas had significantly weakened over the years. In a motion, he stated, &#8220;The strength of the\u2064 case \u200dagainst Salas has weakened considerably, beyond what\u200d would normally\u200c be expected with \u200cthe\u200b passage \u2063of over \u206425 years since the case was originally prosecuted.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>It is important to note that \u200dthere is no other suspect in the murder of Jose\u200c Arreola. Sadly,\u2063 this case highlights the alarming\u2063 statistic that 39% of\u2063 exonerations in Washington involve police or <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/oklahoma-lawmakers-activists-call-on-governor-to-sign-reprieve-of-death-row-inmate\/\" title=\"Activists and lawmakers in Oklahoma urge Governor to sign reprieve for death row inmate.\">prosecutor misconduct<\/a>, as reported by the Washington Innocence Project.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Click here to read more from \u2062the Washington Examiner.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A man convicted of a 1995 murder and imprisoned for 26 years had his charges dismissed by a judge on Thursday. Evaristo Junior Salas, 42, was accused of fatally shooting Jose Arreola, 24, in a convenience store parking lot while he sat in his truck nearly 28 years ago.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2004216,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[538],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2004215","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-washington-examiner"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2004215","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2004215"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2004215\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2004216"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2004215"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2004215"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2004215"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}