MISCARRIAGES OF JUSTICE
IN POTENTIALLY CAPITAL CASES (1987)
by Hugo Adam Bedau and Michael L. Radelet

Excerpt from Appendix A: Catalogue of Defendants

GARCIA, FRANCISCO (Hispanic). 1913. New Mexico. Garcia was convicted of voluntary manslaughter and sentenced to seven to eight years in prison. Garcia had been shot by the victim and was unconscious when another man committed the homicide. The appellate court reversed the conviction and noted that it was “physically impossible for Francisco Garcia to be guilty of any crime in this connection.”1 It later asserted that “[a] man has been convicted . . . where there is, not only no evidence to support the verdict, but where the evidence conclusively established his innocence.”2 A new trial was awarded, and the charges were dropped.3

Footnotes

1. State v. Garcia, 19 N.M. 414, 418, 143 P. 1012, 1013 (1914).

2. State v. Garcia, 19 N.M. 420, 422, 143 P. 1014, 1015 (1914) (order upon rehearing).

3. Records of the District Court Clerk, No. 773, Union County, N.M. (indicating no action taken after new trial was ordered).