SAN ANTONIO, Texas
– They didn’t get to watch their children grow up into young adults. They missed saying goodbye to grandparents, and in one case, a father, before those loved ones passed away.
But three women who were released from prison on Monday after spending more than a decade behind bars – for crimes they say they didn’t commit – said they relished their new-found freedom and would continue fighting for their full exoneration.
“I got to meet my son for the first time since he was 4,” said Liz Ramirez, 39, who along with the other women spoke with NBC News on Tuesday in their first interview since their release. “It was an amazing feeling, being in his arms.”
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That finding was debunked on Monday, when the Bexar County Criminal District Attorney’s office and Ware said that scientific advances undermined the doctor’s testimony, leading to the three women’s release from prison. The women now await a decision by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals on whether to grant them a new trial. If that happens, the district attorney will decline to prosecute them, and their convictions would be overturned, said Rico Valdez, the chief assistant criminal attorney who oversees the office’s post-conviction review.
The new scientific information was allowed to be presented under a “junk science” law passed in Texas earlier this year that gives defendants the chance to submit findings that may cast doubt on their conviction.
The agreement between the attorneys was a huge breakthrough for the women, who had felt they were railroaded at trial, partly because they are lesbians.
“I want to apologize to them. It’s hard,” she said, breaking down into tears. “I’m sorry for everything. I should have just spoken out a long time ago when I was a kid.”
http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/11/19/21540535-san-antonio-4-speak-out-after-prison-release-were-actually-innocent?lite&ocid=msnhp&pos=1
