California Sought the Death Penalty – 38 Years Later, the Defendant is Exonerated

In a case that demon­strates the risks inher­ent in the death penal­ty, Maurice Hastings was found ​“fac­tu­al­ly inno­cent” in Los Angeles of the crime that could have sent him to death row and even­tu­al exe­cu­tion. On March 1, 2023, Judge William Ryan dis­missed all charges and freed Hastings, who was serv­ing a sen­tence of life without parole.

The District Attorney’s Office had sought the death penal­ty for Hastings, which enables the pros­e­cu­tion to obtain a jury that is will­ing to impose a death sen­tence, and there­fore may be more con­vic­tion prone. The jury may believe that if the death penal­ty is being sought, there is prob­a­bly lit­tle doubt about the defendant’s guilt. During his incar­cer­a­tion, Hastings main­tained his inno­cence. The DA’s Office repeat­ed­ly denied his request for DNA test­ing until final­ly in June of 2022, with the help of the Innocence Project and the DA’s Conviction Integrity Unit, a DNA test essen­tial­ly exclud­ed him from the murder.

The cur­rent DA, George Gascón, com­ment­ed, ​“Maurice Hastings sur­vived a night­mare. He spent near­ly four decades in prison exhaust­ing every avenue to prove his inno­cence while being repeat­ed­ly denied. But Mr. Hastings has remained stead­fast and faith­ful that one day he would hear a judge pro­claim his innocence.”

At a news con­fer­ence, Hastings, now 69, stat­ed, ​“I was real­ly over­whelmed. It was kind of unre­al. In a sense, you want it to be true, but then you don’t want to be dis­ap­point­ed. I’ve been dis­ap­point­ed. I had tears. I asked, ​‘Could this be it? Could this be the end?’ I was very emotional.”