Judge Frees Oxnard Man Convicted of Murder

After four years behind bars, an Oxnard man serving a life sentence for murder was released from custody Friday after the Santa Barbara County judge who sentenced him concluded he was wrongly convicted.

Overwhelmed and crying, Efren Cruz, 27, walked through the doors of a Santa Barbara jail and into the arms of his weeping mother.

Cruz spoke only briefly, thanking his defense lawyers, the judge and Ventura County law enforcement officials whose investigation last year uncovered new evidence that led to his release.

“I want to thank God, my Lord savior Jesus Christ, for blessing me with this freedom,” Cruz said. “I want to thank my family and friends and everyone who believed in me and my innocence from the beginning.”

The emotional scene came six hours after Superior Court Judge Frank Ochoa ordered authorities to immediately let Cruz out of the jail, where he had been transferred from state prison pending a hearing on his petition for release.

The judge found that evidence uncovered by an Oxnard police detective proves that another suspect--not Cruz--was the gunman who allegedly shot two men during a Jan. 26, 1997, gang fight at a parking garage in downtown Santa Barbara.

“It is clear,” Ochoa wrote in his ruling, “that Mr. Cruz was incorrectly convicted of serious charges at jury trial in this case.” Ochoa, who presided over Cruz’s original trial, set aside the murder and attempted murder convictions and instructed Cruz to return to court Oct. 22.

Prosecutors are expected to announce at that time whether they will retry him on the same charges or file new ones.

Ochoa’s ruling was cheered by Cruz’s family members who waited anxiously in the courthouse hallway Friday morning for prosecutors and defense lawyers to walk out of a private meeting in Ochoa’s chambers.

The judge had notified lawyers two days ago that he had finished his written opinion on the defense petition for release.

When the 65-page decision was handed to the lawyers, the judge’s secretary slipped outside the courtroom and told Cruz’s mother, Adela Reyes, that an order had been issued to release her son.

“I’m just happy justice has been done,” Reyes said, her eyes welling with tears. “I’m just going to keep him in my arms for a long time.”

But whether Cruz will stay a free man remains to be seen.

Santa Barbara County Deputy Dist. Atty. Hilary Dozer, who prosecuted the case against Cruz four years ago, still contends that he was the shooter. Dozer said Friday that officials in his office will pour over Ochoa’s ruling and decide how to proceed.

Defense lawyers Phil Dunn and Kevin DeNoce believe prosecutors may be legally precluded from retrying Cruz as the gunman, but could attempt to retry him on suspicion of murder under an aiding and abetting theory.

They hope prosecutors will decide to drop the charges against Cruz and instead focus their attention on the man Ochoa and Ventura County law enforcement officials believe is the actual shooter, 28-year-old Gerardo Reyes.

An Oxnard gang member and Cruz’s cousin, Reyes was arrested and charged with murder after the shooting. But he was later cleared, as prosecutors focused their case on Cruz.

Two years ago, Oxnard Police Det. Dennis McMaster received a tip from a police informant that Reyes wielded the murder weapon and let his cousin take the blame.

Ventura County prosecutors stepped in last year, negotiated a deal with the informant to wear a recording device and obtained a secretly taped jailhouse confession in which Reyes admits to the shooting.

But their counterparts in Santa Barbara refused to back down, and contested Cruz’s petition for release.

“For the last four years, they have set sail in the wrong direction,” DeNoce said of Santa Barbara authorities. “What they need to do is get the compass on the real shooter in this case.”

According to Ochoa’s ruling, all the evidence points to Reyes.

A gang member with a history of violent conduct, Reyes was present at the time of the shooting. He later admitted to firing the deadly rounds. According to some witnesses, he made credible threats to harm anyone who identified him as the gunman.

“Taken in its totality, there is clearly more than a preponderance of the substantial credible evidence to prove that Gerardo Reyes, and not Efren Cruz, was the shooter in Lot 10,” the judge wrote.

Dozer said it was premature to discuss what action may or may not be taken against Reyes, who is serving an 11-year prison sentence for assault in an unrelated Oxnard case.

The first issue, he said, will be deciding whether to press ahead with a retrial of Cruz.

“We are going to review the decision of Judge Ochoa,” Dozer said. “We have varying options that are open to us. We have to decide what the next step is.”

Michael Torres, 23, was killed during the shooting at the city parking, and Jesus Miranda, then 21, was severely injured by a shot to the neck.

Dozer said his effort “to achieve justice” for those men continues.

Defense attorneys, meanwhile, are determined to fight for Cruz, whom they say would probably still be in prison if not for the efforts of Ventura County law enforcement officials.

“I’m really glad that we live in a country where injustices like this can be corrected,” DeNoce said. “It sounds kind of like apple pie, but it’s true.”

Ochoa also praised Ventura County authorities.

McMaster, a gang expert, helped secure Cruz’s conviction at trial. But “when he received information that the wrong man might have been convicted, he pursued the evidence with vigor,” Ochoa wrote.

“When a police officer is as eager to pursue evidence to exonerate the innocent, even post-conviction, as he is to convict the guilty, we have an example of police conduct we can, and should, be proud of,” the judge wrote.

Ochoa also praised Ventura County Deputy Dist. Atty. Bill Haney, saying the prosecutor “acted to root out the truth, irrespective of the consequences.”

As for Cruz, Ochoa concluded that his false testimony to the jury at trial was a “major factor” in his conviction. Cruz recently told Ventura County authorities he lied about his actions because he was afraid of Reyes.

Finally, the judge defended the jury’s decision four years ago, saying if jurors had had the evidence presented during recent proceedings “their decision would have undoubtedly been different.”

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Times staff photographer Spencer Weiner and staff writer Fred Alvarez contributed to this report.