A man who spent more than 26 years in prison for a Sunnyside murder he said he didn’t commit was released from prison on Thursday.
After three days of testimony in court proceedings to determine whether Evaristo Junior Salas should get a new trial, Yakima County Prosecutor Joe Brusic dismissed the charges with prejudice, meaning they cannot be refiled.
Yakima County Superior Court Judge Ruth Reukauf signed the order exonerating Salas.
Salas was released from Airway Heights Corrections Center in Spokane County on Thursday afternoon where he was greeted by his family and defense attorneys with hugs and tears.
Salas was 15 years old when charged, but was tried as an adult and sentenced to nearly 33 years in prison.
The motion from Brusic said testimony and evidence from this week’s hearing demonstrated that the case “has weakened considerably, beyond what would normally be expected with the passage of over 25 years since the case was originally prosecuted.”
Salas, now 42, has maintained his innocence since he was charged with the November 1995 shooting death of Jose Arreola on a foggy November night.
He was represented by attorneys Laura Shaver and John Marlow of the Washington Innocence Project, who argued the state withheld crucial evidence that would have helped Salas’ case.
Shaver has said Salas’ conviction was based on the testimony of two people, Arreola’s girlfriend and a police informant.
But in recent years evidence emerged showing that Arreola’s girlfriend, Ofelia Cortez (formerly Gonazlez) had the pickup in which he was shot to death removed from evidence three days after the shooting. Cortez then had the truck cleaned, repaired and traded it in for another vehicle, according to police reports obtained by Shaver.
Receipts of payments the informant, Bill Bruhn, received for working cases with the lead detective on the case, former Sunnyside Police Sgt. James Rivard, also were withheld from the trial, Shaver argued.
Shaver grilled Rivard on Wednesday about the pickup truck that was removed from impound and his working relationship with Bruhn, who later recanted his testimony.
Brusic said Thursday afternoon that Rivard’s testimony that he had paid Bruhn changed the dynamics of the case.
“He admitted under oath on direct examination that he provided some money to Mr. Bruhn and we were unaware of that,” Brusic said. “Prosecutors were unaware of that back then.”
George Trejo, the defense attorney who originally represented Salas, testified Tuesday that the state withheld evidence that would have helped his client’s case. Trejo said he wasn’t aware of the nature in which the truck was removed, nor evidence being destroyed; information that should have been provided.
Brusic said his decision was based on the state’s inability to prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt now.
“The nature of my decision wasn’t based on this defendant’s innocence,” Brusic said. “I’m not saying he was innocent.”
After the decision, about 30 family and friends gathered at the Yakima County Juvenile Court, where the hearing was held, expressed a mix of tears and joy.
Outside the courtroom, Evaristo Salas’ sister, Debbie Salas, said she was full of excitement for her younger brother.
“We’ve been waiting for this for a long time,” she said. “To me, justice has been served a little bit.”
The hearing came after a panel of state appellate judges sent the case back to Yakima County Superior Court to probe the merits of any new evidence.
Shaver filed the appeal after retired Yakima County Superior Court Judge David Elofson denied Salas a new trial. The appellate judges said Elofson erred by not allowing Salas a hearing to call witnesses and present the new evidence.
The case was featured in the “Wrong Man” documentary television series on STARZ in 2018.
Salas’ dad, Ruben Alvarado, cried with joy when Reukauf read the order and signed it.
“I feel very good for my son,” Alvarado said. “I said at the beginning when this happened that the truth is going to come out sooner or later. It’s here; it’s here today.”
Alvarado and Debbie Salas said life had been hard ever since Evaristo Salas was sent to prison.
Alvarado said the family never stopped supporting Salas.
“We’ve been through a lot of stuff,” he said. “It took a lot of work to be right there with him. And we’re going to be there for him — the whole family.”
Shaver began working on Salas’ case in June 2017.
“It’s incredibly hard to represent people who have been wrongfully convicted,” she said. “Junior wrote to me six years ago. For six years, I lived and breathed through ups and downs to right this wrong that robbed this 15 year-old kid of his entire future.”
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