Manuel Velez: Texas: Released on bail after spending six years on death row and eight years on prison for murder of one-year-old boy. (His conviction was based on the false testimony of his live-in girlfriend and mother of the child. She failed to admit she had pleaded guilty to inflicting her son with head injuries the day she died. (ACLU); The Brownsville Herald.

STORY: "Judge grants bail for manuel Velez," by reporter Mark Reagan, published by the Brownsville Herald on November 20, 2013.

GIST:   "A Brownsville man who spent six years on death row and eight years in prison was given bail this morning. State District Judge Elia Cornejo Lopez granted Manuel Velez $500,000 bail under a pre-trial release program, which means his family will have to pay $15,000 for his release. He still faces one count of capital murder......... Manuel Velez was arrested on Halloween in 2005 for the death of his then girlfriend’s 1-year-child. In 2008, he was convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death. In 2012, the 13th Court of Criminal Appeals threw out his death sentence based off of false testimony during the sentencing phase of his trial. Last month, that same court overturned his conviction for capital murder and remanded the case back to Cameron County of re-trial."

The entire story can be found at:

http://www.brownsvilleherald.com/news/local/article_29e502e0-5204-11e3-a3e7-0019bb30f31a.html

From an American Civil Liberties release prviously published on this Blog: "Manuel Velez was sentenced to death in 2005 for the murder of a one-year-old boy based on the false testimony of his live-in girlfriend and mother of the child," the release continues. "The woman, Acela Moreno, failed to admit she had pleaded guilty to inflicting her son with head injuries the day he died. Medical experts made clear these injuries were consistent with those that led to the child’s death. At Velez’s trial, Moreno testified she pleaded guilty not to committing violence against the child but rather to having failed to alert authorities that Velez had allegedly been hurting the child. The special prosecutor in the case negotiated the plea deal with Moreno and so knew she was covering up her own abuse of the child; indeed, he told the judge presiding at Moreno’s plea that she had injured the child. But at Velez’s trial, he did nothing to set the record straight. He then presented Moreno’s false testimony as fact during closing arguments, repeating that she was guilty only of having failed to alert authorities. “The Constitution requires that our judicial system be fundamentally fair, and this case was riddled with unfairness,” said Brian Stull, senior staff attorney with the ACLU Capital Punishment Project, who presented arguments in the case. “We should never be comfortable with sending a man to his death when we know that the state has relied on falsehood to convict him. In cases where the irreversible sanction of the death penalty is involved, it is imperative that due process be fully upheld to ensure that innocent people aren’t executed.” Velez has maintained his innocence, there are no eyewitnesses accusing him of the crime and no forensic evidence links him to the murder."

http://smithforensic.blogspot.ca/2011/10/manuel-velez-american-civil-liberties.html

 PUBLISHER'S NOTE:

Dear Reader. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog. We are following this case.

I have added a search box for content in this blog which now encompasses several thousand posts. The search box is located  near the bottom of the screen just above the list of links. I am confident that this powerful search tool provided by "Blogger" will help our readers and myself get more out of the site.

The Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. The Star has a "topic" section which focuses on recent stories related to Dr. Charles Smith. It can be found at:

http://www.thestar.com/topic/charlessmith

Information on "The Charles Smith Blog Award"- and its nomination process - can be found at:

http://smithforensic.blogspot.com/2011/05/charles-smith-blog-award-nominations.html

I look forward to hearing from readers at:

hlevy15@gmail.com