After a teen was convicted of murder, Sister Janet Harris fought to get him released from jail. However, lawyer after lawyer turned her away until she found Latham & Watkins. It all began many years ago when police charged gang member Mario Rocha with two separate shootings outside Los Angeles. One victim died and the other was badly wounded.

Sister Janet met Rocha in Juvenile Hall when she was there, running her creative writing program. She said she knew he was innocent and pushed to have someone take over Rocha’s case. Initially, it seemed hopeless but after the firm had the teenager take a lie detector test to ensure that they were, in fact, fighting for an innocent kid, they hired a private investigator to find missing witnesses. Sure enough, several people revealed that on the night of the shootings, everyone was gathered at a party and Rocha was nowhere near the gun fire.

After gathering new evidence, a judge listened to the lawyers and ruled that Rocha had to be re-charged. He was held on $1 million bond. In 2006, after the firm raised money to get him released, Rocha walked out of prison. Latham then hired an expert criminal attorney, Michael Adelson, to prepare his trial. Talking about having Rocha plead guilty to a lesser charge in order to secure his release on a sentence of time served, Rocha said no way!

Last Tuesday, all the charges were dropped against him.

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