A federal appeals panel on Wednesday overturned the murder conviction of an upstate man who has spent the past 22 years behind bars for the 1987 strangulation and rape of his ex-girlfriend in Syracuse.
The Second Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan ordered a new trial or release from jail for Hector Rivas, who was convicted in 1993 for the killing six years earlier of 28-year-old pediatrics nurse Valerie Hill.
The panel found that Rivas’ lawyer at trial presented “no defense at all” and determined jurors probably would’ve acquitted him if they were aware of medical information and police reports that Rivas’ current lawyers uncovered in recent years.
Rivas at trial was represented by Richard J. Calle of Queens, who was disbarred years later in 2002 after being convicted of unrelated obstruction of justice and fraud offenses.
Hill was found dead and naked by her father in her apartment days after her death with her bathrobe tie used to strangle her. A jilted Rivas had been stalking Hill since their breakup, and his fingerprints were found on an ashtray and a bottle of wine at the crime scene.
The panel notes that the chief medical examiner shortly after the incident estimated the time of death between March 28 and March 29 of 1987 but nearly six years later at trial testified Hill died on March 27 – providing Rivas no alibi.
“Despite its critical importance to his client’s case, defense counsel failed to investigate the basis for Dr. [Erik] Mitchell’s apparently revised findings regarding the time of death and instead relied principally on Rivas’s effectively irrelevant alibi for the remainder of the weekend,” the panel said.
Rivas claims he visited Hill on March 26 and then swung by apartment again on March 27 – but left because she wasn’t home. He has friends who could vouch for him that he was partying with them March 28 into early March 29
watching Syracuse University advance to the NCAA Finals in men’s basketball.
Rivas’ lawyer Richard Langone called the ruling by the three-judge panel “an absolute wonderful decision,” but added that his client has already served nearly all of a 25 years-to-life prison sentence. He said he would seek to get his client released on bail — whether a retrial is sought or not.
Onondaga County District Attorney William Fitzpatrick told The Post-Standard of Syracuse his office plans to appeal the panel’s ruling. If his office loses, he said it would “absolutely retry this defendant.”
