A University of San Francisco law professor and her students helped free a wrongfully-convicted Louisiana man who was sentenced to 60 years in prison after an alleged robbery he didn't commit in 2012.
Yutico Briley was just 19 years old when a man who was robbed of $102 was driven by police to identify his attacker in New Orleans.
"He was too afraid to get out of the car so he’s peering through the windshield and about 20 feet away is our client handcuffed surrounded by police officers and they ask him ‘is this the person?’" USF law school professor Lara Brazelon explained. "That’s how the ID was done and it is the absolute worst way to do an ID."
Brazelon got wind of the case when Briley wrote to a penpal.
"He said dear Miss Karen you asked me what happened, here’s what happened to me and so he just explained it in this letter and it was incredibly compelling," Brazelon said. "I looked up the case and the more I read the more I realize that there was no chance he actually committed the crime.”
Brazelon and the USF Criminal and Juvenile Justice Law Clinic took a deep dive into the case, and helped formulate the winning defense.
Briley was freed from prison on March 19.
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