SAN JOSE — Lionel Rubalcava has spent much of the last two decades in prison thinking about his fateful decision to stop in front of a home to talk to a girl standing outside, not knowing there had been a drive-by shooting there two days earlier.
That decision landed him in a police photo lineup, where the shooting victim and his brother picked out his image as the person they believed was behind the April 2002 attack. It was enough to eventually convince a conflicted jury to convict Rubalcava of attempted murder and condemn him to a sentence of life in prison.
Wednesday, Rubalcava, now 40, became a free man. After the Northern California Innocence Project, based at Santa Clara University, disproved those eyewitness accounts, his conviction was reversed last month. And Wednesday the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office performed the final step of formally dropping the original charges against him, 17 years after the shooting.
“We can prove that the case against him has collapsed,” Assistant District Attorney David Angel said in court Wednesday, later expressing “profound regret” over Rubalcava’s case on behalf of his office.
In the San Jose courtroom, two dozen members of Rubalcava’s friends and family sat in the gallery to hear the words they had waited so long for.
“It is with pleasure that I dismiss these charges,” Judge Eric Geffon said.
The family erupted in shouts of joy, and there was no call for order in the court. Rubalcava, in county jail clothes after being transported from Pleasant Valley State Prison, beamed. He was released Wednesday evening, and was mobbed by family members and the attorneys and former law students who helped him over the years.
As he stepped outside as a free man, he voiced simple desires: Recovering lost time with his family and a steak dinner.
He kept looking at the people around him, saying he “wouldn’t have been able to do it without them.”
“Them, and the fact that I knew I was innocent, that kept me going, hoping the evidence at some point would prove that,” he said.
Earlier, after the court hearing, his family expressed similar sentiment.
“It’s finally over. This nightmare is finally over,” Elsa Rubalcava, the exonerated man’s sister, said through tears. “Nothing will bring back all the lost time. But we would not give up. We knew he was innocent.”
Maria Guttierez, Rubalcava’s mother, offered a simple message as she absorbed the moment, saying in Spanish that she was, “very happy and excited.”
“This is the way it’s supposed to be,” said Linda Starr, director and co-founder of the Northern California Innocence Project. “This is the way it’s supposed to happen.”
Innocence Project attorney Paige Kaneb took the lead on Rubalcava’s case about five years ago and in January presented a compilation of exonerating evidence to prosecutors, who assigned their Conviction Integrity Unit to re-evaluate the case.
During their new investigation, the District Attorney’s Office re-interviewed the victim, who was paralyzed by the shooting. He told prosecutors that he was not confident about his identification of Rubalcava, and admitted that he only caught a glimpse of the shooter’s face. With the crux of the prosecution’s case in doubt — the DA’s office wrote in a filing that had they had the same evidence in 2002, they would not have charged Rubalcava — the office moved to get the charge dismissed.
“To their credit, they did this very wonderful stepback, and asked, ‘Do we really have the right person?’ ” Kaneb said.
After spending years obtaining documents and re-interviewing witnesses, the Innocence Project, working with investigators Dre McEwen and Grant Fine, and pro bono attorneys from the law firm Simpson Thacher, concluded that there was overwhelming evidence casting doubt on Rubalcava’s culpability.
Rubacalva’s trial attorney argued that the defendant wasn’t even in San Jose when the drive-by shooting occurred on Mastic Street on April 2, 2002. Rubalcava said that he was on a date in Hollister, and offered cell phone tracking evidence, as well as testimony from the woman who accompanied him on the date.
Kaneb said the main reason Rubalcava became a target of the investigation was because he was driving on the same street two days later and pulled over to talk to a woman standing outside the house where the shooting occurred. A neighbor saw Rubalcava and his car and called police. A few days later, Rubalcava was arrested, picked out of the photo lineup and charged in the shooting.
Kaneb said there had been neighborhood talk and some statements challenging the idea that Rubalcava was the shooter. There was no physical evidence tying him to the shooting, and no known connection between him and the victim. But the testimony of the victim prevailed.
“Everyone knew Lionel was innocent, but there was nothing to point somewhere else,” Kaneb said. Rubalcava’s parents went bankrupt paying for legal representation and traveling to visit him at prisons around the state.
Angel appeared at the Wednesday hearing backed by Assistant District Attorney Stacey Capps, who also green-lighted the case review, and his boss, District Attorney Jeff Rosen.
“We ask our prosecutors to seek the truth,” Angel said. “When the truth points toward innocence, that’s where it points to. We’ve embraced humility, and having the tenacity to fix it when this happens.”
Kaneb said the case highlighted concerns over the reliability of eyewitness testimony that she said have since been addressed. The case, she added, should stimulate more diligence and willingness to scrutinize authorities’ cases against criminal defendants.
“You still have to be concerned about whether there’s reliable evidence of guilt,” Kaneb said. “We’re breathing life back into the presumption of innocence. It’s something that really needs to happen.”
Rubalcava said there will be time to assess how he might seek compensation for what was taken from him, but that would be a bit later in the future that he has now reclaimed.
“I feel like I was robbed of 17 years of my life,” Rubalcava said. “But for now, I’m going to spend time with my family and enjoy this.”
