Appeal Heard for Man Released After Almost 14 Years in Prison

New evidence that surfaced in the case of a San Fernando Valley man who was set free after being jailed for almost 14 years following his Northridge arrest proves his innocence, an attorney argued to a federal appeals court panel today, but a state prosecutor said any reasonable juror would still convict him.

Daniel Larsen was ordered released from state prison in March after testimony at a post-conviction evidentiary hearing persuaded a federal judge that his third-strike conviction for carrying a concealed weapon was unjust.

However, the state Attorney General's Office appealed, arguing that Larsen's lawyers missed a deadline for filing the writ of habeas corpus that led to his freedom -- and the defendant should be returned to prison post-haste to finish out his term.

During arguments today before a three-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in Pasadena, Assistant Attorney General Stephanie Brenan insisted that there has always been enough evidence in the case to warrant Larsen's conviction, and no new evidence would "prove actual innocence."

"Evidence he has brought forward isn't sufficient," she said, adding that Larsen never testified that he did not carry the knife.

"He wasn't even called," Brenan said. "He never said he didn't do it."

But Jan Stiglitz, co-director of the California Innocence Project, argued that Larsen's conviction was a "miscarriage of justice."

He said Larsen would be acquitted by a jury that heard new evidence presented in the case.

"What's relevant is what a reasonable juror probably would do," he told the panel, adding that the reason Larsen was not called to the stand was that "it wasn't necessary."

The CIP also contends that a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision found that evidence of innocence can trump the late filing of a release petition.

Larsen, 46, was convicted in 1999 of carrying a concealed knife and was sent to prison as a three-striker. Attorneys for California Innocence Project, however, found witnesses -- including a former police chief -- who said they saw a different man throwing away the dagger in question.

The defendant, a onetime member of the white supremacist Nazi Low Riders gang, was ordered released four months ago by U.S. Magistrate Suzanne H. Segal, under strict conditions, to the wife he met and married last year while he was in a Lancaster prison serving a 27 years-to-life sentence.

California Attorney General Kamala D. Harris argued that Larsen should not have been released, based on the technicality that Larsen's lawyers waited too long to file papers and missed a deadline.

The Innocence Project filed an appeal under habeas corpus that eventually reached the appellate court, which found Larsen to be "actually innocent," a legal term that allows him to be released from prison while his case works its way through the courts.

"Does innocence trump procedural delay?" is how Stiglitz summed up the legal question that recently came before the Supreme Court in McQuiggin v. Perkins.

After heated debate, the majority concluded that compelling evidence of innocence could overcome an otherwise untimely petition, a decision that Larsen's defense said bodes well for their client.

The appeals court panel did not immediately rule in Larsen's case after today's arguments.

--From City News Service