Santiago Ventura Morales

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Santiago Ventura Morales
Born Mexico
Occupation migrant farm worker
social worker

Santiago Ventura Morales is a social worker in the state of Oregon. Born in Mexico, he was falsely convicted of murder in Oregon in 1986.[1] The conviction drew national attention when some jurors worked to overturn the conviction, and he was released from prison in 1991. He later graduated from the University of Portland.

Contents

[edit] Early life

Santiago Ventura Morales was born in 1968 and grew up in San Miguel Cuevas in the Mexican state of Oaxaca where he completed school through the sixth grade.[2] At the age of 14 in 1982, Morales left his hometown in Mexico along with five cousins.[2] An indigenous Mexican of Mixtec heritage, he moved to the United States to work as a migrant farm worker.[2]

[edit] Murder conviction

In 1986, Morales was accused of murdering a 19 year-old migrant farm worker in an Oregon strawberry field after a fight.[1] Ramiro Lopez Fidel was found dead on July 14, 1986, from a stabbing in Sandy, Oregon.[2] Morales was arrested and out on trial in September. He was convicted on October 2, 1986, and sentenced to ten-years to life in prison after a trial in which he was provided a Spanish interpreter, despite the fact that as a Mixteco, Spanish was not his native language.[2] He maintained his innocence and several jurors later had second thoughts about the conviction and began advocating that he be released from prison.[2] Morales repeatedly appealed after the conviction, but these appeals were denied, with future Oregon Supreme Court justice Virginia Linder opposing the appeals for the state of Oregon.[3][4] However, the lack of an appropriate interpreter and other deficiencies in his trial led to his conviction being overturned when it was shown that a different person was responsible for the murder.[5]

While in prison he learned English and hoped to become a lawyer. The reinvestigation drew intense media attention locally and nationally.[1][6] Current Oregon Supreme Court Chief Justice Paul De Muniz was Morales’ primary defense attorney on the successful appeal.[1][6] On January 9, 1991, Santiago Ventura Morales was released from prison, and all charges were dropped in May.[2] Oregon governor Neil Goldschmidt had offered a conditional pardon for Morales after the conviction was overturned in case Oregon Attorney General Dave Frohnmayer appealed the decision that overturned the conviction.[7] In 1995, the state of Oregon passed a law that requires testing and certification of court interpreters as a result of the Morales case.[8]

[edit] Aftermath

After his release, but while waiting for the charges to be dropped, he enrolled at Portland State University in Portland, Oregon.[6] Morales briefly returned to Mexico before moving back to Portland, where he accepted a scholarship to the University of Portland.[2] While imprisoned he had earned his GED and taken some college level classes, which along with the injustice led to the school offering him a full-ride scholarship to the Catholic university.[9] He graduated in May 1996 from the school with a bachelors degree in social work and a minor in political science.[9] The legal injustice to Morales led the Oregon Supreme Court to adopt changes in the way language issues are dealt with to avoid future problems.[5] Morales would work in Oregon briefly before returning to Mexico. He later worked for the California Rural Legal Assistance in Fresno, California,[2] before returning to Oregon to work at the Oregon Law Center.[10]

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b c d Profiles. Willamette University College of Law. Retrieved on 2006-12-03.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Pulaski, Alex. Laboring in the filed of human rights – Santiago Ventura Morales rises from a nightmarish encounter with the justice system to be an advocate for his fellow indigenous Mexicans working in Oregon. The Oregonian, November 17, 2002.
  3. ^ 93 Or.App. 202, 761 P.2d 555 (1988).
  4. ^ 307 Or. 303, 767 P.2d 443 (1989).
  5. ^ a b Press Release regarding Oregon and Ohio. FindLaw.com. Retrieved on 2006-12-09.
  6. ^ a b c Ellis, Barnes C. Ventura murder case dropped. The Oregonian, April 12, 1991.
  7. ^ Ellis, Barnes C. Attorney general Dave Frohnmayer say his office won't appeal the ruling after Gov. Goldschmidt offers a pardon. The Oregonian, January 8, 1991.
  8. ^ Oregon Mandates Testing for Court Interpreters, The Oregonian, December 26, 1995, at B4.
  9. ^ a b Koglin, Oz Hopkins. From cellblock to sheepskin. The Oregonian, May 6, 1996.
  10. ^ National Latino Research Center: Oaxacan Community Workshop Aims to Educate Agencies in North County. California State University San Marcos, Fall 2004. Retrieved on February 22, 2008.