Giovanni Hernandez was 14 when he was convicted and sentenced to life in prison for a murder he didn’t commit. Miguel Solorio was 19 when he was sentenced to life without parole for a murder he didn’t commit. Combined, the two teenagers spent more than 43 years in prison before being released based on evidence of their innocence.
Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón announced last month the exonerations and release of Giovanni Hernandez and Miguel Solorio,
“It’s truly devastating when people are wrongfully convicted, especially when they were so young at the time of their arrest,” Gascón said.
Hernandez was arrested and charged for a 2006 drive-by shooting in Culver City that resulted in the death of 16-year-old Gary Ortiz. His first trial in December 2010 ended in a hung jury. Two years later, he was convicted of all charges in his second trial.
Hernandez and his family had always maintained his innocence, insisting he was at home with his family at the time of the shooting. The LADA’s Conviction Integrity Unit denied his first claim in 2015. Still, he resubmitted a claim to the CIU in 2021, and a new investigation, headed by Marisa Harris of the Juvenile Innocence and Fair Sentencing Clinic at Loyola Law School, revealed new witness testimony and additional evidence indicating his innocence. He was released after serving 18 years.
Solorio was arrested in 1998 for a fatal drive-by shooting in Whittier and sentenced to life without parole. In 2021, he submitted an innocence claim to the LADA’s Conviction Integrity Unit, which, working with the Northern California Innocence Project, uncovered new evidence indicating that Solorio was misidentified as his brother in a photo lineup. He was released from prison after serving 25 years.
The exonerations marked the third and fourth exonerations in California in 2023.