Press Coverage

Claims Of New Evidence Win Convicted Killers Court Hearing

P. Christine Mills

Avalanche-Journal

Alberto Sifuentes and Jesus Ramirez happened upon an old acquaintance in a Lubbock nightclub on the night of Aug. 5, 1996, and left the place when it closed down at 2 a.m. the next day, according to court documents.

However, for about seven years the two men have been serving life prison terms for the shooting death of a convenience store clerk that occurred at 2:08 a.m. on Aug. 6, 1996, in Littlefield, 35 miles northwest of Lubbock.

Claims of new evidence, and the witness' statement that says she was with Sifuentes and Ramirez until 2 a.m. in Lubbock, are part of a volume of documentation that has helped to grant the men a hearing that begins in 99th District Court at 9 a.m. today.

Sifuentes

Appointed Judge Marvin Marshall will hear testimony throughout the week to determine if Sifuentes and Ramirez should remain in prison or receive another chance at proving their innocence.

Dallas law firm Haynes and Boone LLP filed Writs of Habeas Corpus on behalf of Sifuentes and Ramirez, claiming newly discovered evidence - the alibi witness, the confession of two other men, testimony from two witnesses placing the new suspects at the scene of the crime near the time it occurred, physical evidence connecting the new suspects to the scene of the crime, incorrect testimony by the state's eyewitness which helped convict Sifuentes and Ramirez and two witnesses who say the state's prison informant committed perjury.

Haynes and Boone LLP became involved in the cases after a lawyer for the Mexican Foreign Ministry asked the firm to look at the original trial transcripts, said Barry F. McNeil, a Haynes and Boone attorney who represents the two men in the habeas proceedings. The firm took on the case pro bono.

"He thought that these two men were innocent," McNeil said. "We did some investigating and concluded that they were innocent."

Ramirez

Juries convicted Sifuentes and Ramirez of murdering Evangelina Cruz, a Jolly Roger convenience store clerk, during an armed robbery. Before dying of multiple gunshot wounds, Cruz was able to call 911 to report that she had been shot by "two Hispanic males, one with long hair and one with short hair, about 18 to 20 years of age," according to the court documents.

At the time, Ramirez was 48 years old and Sifuentes was 23 years old.

"The problem here was that there was a flawed investigation by the state from the outset," McNeil. "Once they found (Sifuentes and Ramirez) they latched onto them and never really investigated legitimate leads."

Ramirez's trial ended with the guilty verdict on May 7, 1998 and Sifuentes was found guilty on Oct. 19, 1998.

During the hearing beginning today, two attorneys from the Texas Attorney General's Office will represent the state.