New Trial For Two Men Convicted of Capital Murder
By: Lauren Murphy
Updated: January 18, 2008
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals reversed the conviction of two men accused of killing a Littlefield woman.
For the last twelve years, Jesus Ramirez and Alberto Sifuentes have been in prison for a murder they've always maintained they did not not commit.
"I'm delighted, and it's about time. The cases should never have been brought," said Barry McNeil, of Haynes and Boone LLP.
The Court of Criminal Appeals decided the two men did not have adequate defense.
Now, theywill return to Lamb County, where they could be retried, McNeil says it probably won't get that far.
"They will be released. They will not be tried because there's no evidence on which to retry them."
In August of 1996 Evangelina Cruz was working the graveyard shift at the Jolly Roger in Littlefield.
Around 2 a.m. Cruz was shot nine times, but before she died she managed to give police a description of her killers...two hispanic males between the ages of eighteen and twenty.
An hour later, police pulled over Sifuentes and Ramirez.
Ramirez was forty-eight at the time of his arrest.
Also, the original defense team never attempted to locate a key alibi witness who later swore the men were at a Lubbock nightclub until 2 a.m., the time of the murder.
The state's star witness was a woman who said she saw the men at the Jolly Roger around two, but surveillance video later showed that witness was there at midnight.
The defense says they are confident Sifuentes and Ramirez will be released within a few months, but they understand why the two men might be skeptical.
"They will not believe that justice will occur until they walk out of here free men."
