On August 24, 1995, Villegas was convicted and sentenced to life in prison for the murder of two teens in El Paso, TX. Villegas, who was 16 years old at the time of his arrest, was convicted primarily on the basis of statements he gave to Det. Alfonso Marquez of the El Paso Police Department. He appealed his conviction, claiming that his statements had been coerced. but his appeal was rejected by the Eighth Court of Appeals in 1997. In 2007, Villegas filed for a writ of habeas corpus, seeking a new trial on the basis of ineffective counsel. The petition would later be amended to also include a claim of actual innocence, after two potential witnesses came forward. CWC lawyers Josh Tepfer, Laura Nirider and Steven Drizin assisted his team of local attorneys in preparing the amended petition. Judge Sam Medrano, Jr. held hearings in 2011 and ultimately granted the writ On Aug. 6, 2012. The judge recommended that Villegas receive a new trial, finding that Villegas had received ineffective assistance of counsel, in part, due to his attorney’s failure to argue that the confession was both coerced and unreliable. The judge also found that there was new evidence of innocence which pointed to two other suspects as the killers. The state appealed the ruling but the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed Judge Medrano’s finding that Villegas’s attorneys had been ineffective. Prior to Villegas’s new trial, Center on Wrongful Convictions team assisted his lawyers with a motion to suppress Villegas’s statements, a motion which was granted by Judge Medrano in 2014 on the ground that the statements were coerced and unreliable. In October 2018, a jury acquitted Villegas of all charges.
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