Shortly after midnight on March 14, 1998, 16-year-old Benjamin Urias was walking on South Burlington Avenue, in the Pico-Union neighborhood in Los Angeles, California when a car approached. A youth got out of the back seat and asked Urias where he was from. When Urias replied that he was from nowhere, the youth pulled out a gun and fired a shot.
The shot missed and Urias ran up a nearby driveway and sought protection by crawling under a parked vehicle. The shooter followed and fired two more shots. One grazed Urias’s chest and the other struck him in the leg. The shooter ran back to the car, which sped off.
Officer Arthur Castro, who authored the initial police report, said Urias, who was a member of the 18 th Street gang, reported that the shooter ran with a limp and shouted “Burlington Locos,” the name of another street gang in the area. Based on that information, an officer in the Los Angeles police department’s Rampart CRASH (Community Resources Against Street Hoodlums) unit reported that just a few days earlier, on March 8, 1998, Oscar Eagle, who police said was a known member of the Burlington Locos, had been shot and wounded in his calf. Eagle, who had turned 18 on March 10, 1998, was “now walking with a limp” and was “possibly the suspect involved in the shooting,” Castro reported.
On March 18, 1998, CRASH Detective Joseph Caseres showed a photographic lineup to Urias. Caseres reported that Urias, “without hesitation,” identified Eagle as the shooter, saying, “That’s him. That’s the one who shot me.” The interview was not electronically recorded.
Not long after, Caseres arrested Eagle. According to a statement of facts prepared by a Los Angeles County deputy district attorney, Eagle was read his Miranda warnings, admitted he was in the neighborhood at the time of the shooting, but denied involvement in it.
When Urias failed to appear for a preliminary hearing, the prosecution dismissed the case. Eagle was released on May 14, 1998.
On June 3, 1998, police arrested Urias for violating his probation on a juvenile narcotics offense. Eight days later, on June 11, Detectives Thomas Murrell and Kenneth Wiseman, who were assigned to the homicide unit, took over the case. When they interviewed Urias, he asked why homicide detectives were involved. Murrell told him it was because of the involvement of the Burlington Locos. Later, Murrell would testify that the true reason they were involved was because Detective Caseres had been injured on duty and was on medical leave.
Murrell and Wiseman could not find the original photographic lineup that had been shown to Urias, apparently because it was lost. They created a new lineup with color photographs. Eagle’s photograph was the only one which did not have a booking number under it. The identification procedure was audio-recorded.
Before they showed the lineup to Urias, Detective Murrell asked Urias if he knew the name of the person who shot him. “They said Oscar Eagle,” Urias said. Detective Murrell asked who had said that, and Urias said, “One of the detectives.” Urias said they told him after he had viewed the lineup in March.
The recording showed that when Urias was presented with the lineup, Urias said, “No. No one, sir.” Five seconds passed and Murrell said, “Take a close look at it there.” Urias’s response was muffled, but a transcript of the recording said he again said, “No.”
Ten seconds later, Urias said, “Looks–sort of looks,” and Detective Murrell interrupted, saying, “Like number four?” Urias replied, “Yes, sir.”
“Okay,” Detective Murrell said.
Later in the interview, Urias was shown a black and white copy of the same photographic lineup. Detective Murrell said, “Okay, circle that guy.” He then told Urias to write the date and his initials. He reminded Urias, “Number four is the one you were pointing to.”
Asked if he had seen the shooter on any occasion prior to the shooting, Urias said he had not, but that a friend of his knew Eagle from “way back” in school. Urias said that after he had made the previous identification, the detectives said then that “they already got him, and his name is Oscar Eagle.” He added, “[B]ut they wanted me to go to court and I was scared because they said they were gonna give me–I don’t know what–more time if I didn’t show up to court.”
During the interview, Urias asked repeatedly if the detectives were going to help him on his revocation case. He wanted to be released to his grandmother on house arrest instead of going to a juvenile detention camp. On at least six occasions, the officers indicated they would try to help him. Near the end of the interview, Detective Murrell told Urias to write his grandmother a letter, and said they would deliver it to her. Urias said he would say that the detectives were going to arrange for him to stay with her, and added, “And I’ll help you guys, too.”
None of that colloquy was included in Detective Murrell’s report, which summarized the interview as saying that Urias “positively picked Eagle as the shooter.” The report stated that Urias had failed to appear for the preliminary hearing “out of fear” of Eagle, but that now he “wished to prosecute.” The audio tape contained neither statement from Urias.
On June 19, 1998, Eagle was arrested a second time. He was charged with attempted first-degree murder.
In May 1998, the Los Angeles police department created the Rampart Corruption Task Force to investigate corruption in the Rampart unit and, in particular, officer Rafael Perez. Perez was arrested in August 1998 on corruption charges. He would later make sweeping allegations of corruption in the CRASH unit, igniting a scandal that led to his conviction and the dismissal of more than 100 convictions obtained by Rampart CRASH unit members.
In March 1999, Eagle went to trial in Los Angeles County Superior Court. By that time, Martha Torres, who was 20 years old at the time of the shooting, had been charged as well. She was accused of being the driver of the car, although she had repeatedly told police that she was innocent. She said she didn’t have a driver’s license and didn’t know how to drive.
The prosecution contended that Eagle was seeking retribution for being shot in the leg. They claimed Eagle and Torres were friends and both were also motivated because Torres’s brother, Roberto, also a member of the Burlington Locos, had been murdered on November 22, 1997, allegedly by a member of the 18th Street gang.
Urias testified and denied that he was a member of the 18 th Street gang. He identified Eagle as the shooter. Although Eagle’s defense attorney, Patrick Lake, had a copy of the audio tape of the identification procedure, he did not attempt to impeach Urias based on the contents.
During cross-examination by Lake, Urias admitted that the shooter, who was wearing shorts, did not have a cane or crutches and that he did not appear to have any bandage on his leg.
After Urias left the witness stand, the jury was informed that Torres was no longer a part of the case. In fact, Torres had pled no contest to a charge of non-premeditated attempted first-degree murder and had been sentenced to five years in prison.
Detective Murrell testified about the identification procedure, saying that Urias had positively identified Eagle as the shooter. Lake did not confront Detective Murrell with the audio tape of the identification procedure.
At the close of the prosecution’s case, Lake told the trial judge he was not ready to begin presenting the defense, noting that the prosecution’s case had moved more quickly than anticipated. He said his witnesses would be present the following day, though he said that he had hoped to have the physician who had treated Eagle for his gunshot wound present that day, but they happened to be in surgery that afternoon.
Lake, who had not made an opening statement at the outset of the trial, again waived an opening statement when the defense case started the next day.
Becky Chavez testified that Eagle was a friend of hers and that on the night of the shooting, he had been with her and two of her friends watching television at Eagle’s home when she was paged by her cousin, Susana Balderas. Chavez said she telephoned Balderas, who said she was going into labor and wanted Chavez to accompany her to the hospital.
Chavez said she and Eagle dropped off her friends and then went to the hospital, where they remained for about 90 minutes. She said that she had been interviewed by detectives and had told them about going to the hospital. She said her photograph was taken on the day after the shooting. Lake did not point out that there was no police report of that interview, although the prosecution file contained a photograph of Chavez.
When Chavez left the witness stand, Lake said the rest of his witnesses were not present. He said that he had spoken to them the previous day and left a message that morning on the answering machine at the Balderas residence. The judge said that if the witnesses were not there in 20 minutes, the defense case was going to be closed.
After a recess, the court asked Lake if he had “any further information that would tell me that it’s reasonable to wait for the witnesses any longer.”
“No, Your Honor,” Lake replied.
Before Eagle took the witness stand, he asked for a hearing to discharge Lake as his lawyer. When the judge asked him why, Eagle told the judge: “This is my life.” He said he did not feel comfortable with the way the trial was progressing.
“You mean it’s not going as good as you hoped it would,” the judge said.
“No,” Eagle replied. “I’m innocent, and there’s no way to prove it. And no one is talking for me. Through the whole time I been here this whole week, [Lake] only said a couple of sentences, and the DA is talking a lot, and [Lake] is not standing up for me.”
The judge denied the motion for a hearing.
Eagle testified that on the day of the shooting, he spent most of the day sleeping because of the medication he was taking for his gunshot wound. He said that at about 10:30 p.m., Chavez and friends arrived, and they watched television. He recounted how Chavez got a page and talked to Balderas who said she was going into labor. He said they dropped off Chavez’s friends and went to the hospital. He said he remained in the waiting room. “There was a camera in there,” he recalled. “And when I first got arrested, I asked for the Camera so it could show what condition I was in, and the time, and–but they said they destroyed it; that it was taped over.”
Lake did not ask Eagle any questions about his injury or his physical condition at the time of the shooting. At the end of his testimony, before he left the witness stand, Eagle asked the judge, “Excuse me? Could I–could I show them my leg?”
The judge told him no and ordered him to step down.
Eagle’s medical records were entered into evidence, although there was no testimony about what the records said. The records showed that Eagle had suffered a gunshot wound to his left calf, and the bullet remained in his leg. A drain had been inserted, a dressing was put on the wound, and it was wrapped with an Ace bandage. He was prescribed multiple medications, and he left the hospital on crutches.
The defense rested without calling any medical witnesses.
The prosecution called Detective Murrell in rebuttal. He presented two photographs. One showed Eagle holding a gun and the other showed Eagle standing next to someone who was holding a gun. He admitted that he didn’t know when the photographs were taken or whether the guns were real.
On March 12, 1999, the jury convicted Eagle of attempted first-degree murder. He was sentenced to life in prison plus 25 years. His conviction was later upheld by the California Appellate Court.
Later that year, when Perez pled guilty in the Rampart scandal, he admitted that CRASH Unit officer Nino Durden had falsely arrested Eagle in 1996 for possession of a firearm. Eagle had been convicted of the gun charge as a juvenile and spent a year in a juvenile camp.
In 2014, Eagle submitted a request to the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Conviction Review Unit (CRU) to re-investigate the case. The request was declined because no new evidence was presented with the request.
In 2022, Eagle submitted another request to the CRU, which was later renamed the Justice Conviction Review Unit. In 2023, California Innocence Advocates was created to investigate wrongful convictions and subsequently attorney Megan Baca began representing Eagle. In 2024, his case was assigned to the District Attorney’s office Habeas Corpus Litigation team.
On July 7, 2025, Baca and the prosecution filed an agreed “letter” which both the defense and the prosecution agreed was a joint petition for a writ of habeas corpus. The 19-page petition said that Eagle’s conviction should be vacated because of ineffective assistance of counsel.
Defense attorney Lake, according to the petition, failed to:
• impeach both Detective Murrell and Urias regarding Urias’s rejection of Eagle in the photographic lineup, as established by the audio-recorded interview;
• call an eyewitness expert to explain the significance of the Urias’s repeated rejection of Eagle in the lineup;
• impeach Detective Murrell and Urias regarding the issue of potential bias, as established by the audiorecorded interview, based on Urias seeking help from the police;
• impeach Detective Murrell regarding Urias’s lack of prior familiarity with Eagle;
• impeach Urias with the facts of his prior conviction;
• present evidence of Eagle’s compromised physical condition at the time of the shooting;
• investigate and present corroborating witnesses and evidence to support Eagle’s alibi.
The petition said, “What the jury did not see or receive any information about” included medical records showing Eagle’s condition “on the day of the shooting.” Those records showed that on the day before the shooting, Eagle visited the doctor and was unable to be weighed because he could not place any weight on his injured leg. On March 13, the morning before the shooting, Eagle had been evaluated. “On that date, the doctor confirmed that Eagle did not suffer any fractured bones, but that bullet fragments remained…The record indicates the plan moving forward was to remove the sutures, remove the drain and instruct Eagle on dressing changes,” the petition said.
Moreover, a medical record from the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department showed that Eagle had been evaluated in custody on March 19, 1998, five days after the shooting. The record said Eagle had a “dressing on left leg,” “problems walking,” “unsteady gait,” and was using “two crutches.”
The petition said that Balderas had been interviewed prior to Eagle’s trial and confirmed that she had gone to the hospital because she believed she was in labor (it turned out to be false labor). She had said that Chavez and Eagle were there. In an interview in 2024, Balderas said her family did not have an answering machine and that she had never been contacted by Lake to testify at the trial, as Lake had claimed at the time.
The petition also said that Dr. John Wixted, an eyewitness identification expert, had reviewed the case. Dr. Wixted noted that “on the first test of his memory, Urias unambiguously and without hesitation identified Eagle as the person who shot him…However, complicating this…is that … just three months later, Urias unambiguously rejected a photo array containing a picture of Eagle. Only after explicit suggestions from the police officers to focus on lineup member #4 and after a specific suggestion from one of the police officers to circle that photo did Urias do so.”
Dr. Wixted said, “It’s hard to imagine Urias’s memory of Eagle being so strong that it would support an immediate, high-confidence ID of Eagle in March of 1998 (with his memory being strengthened even further by seeing Eagle’s photo) and then, in just three month’s time, the memory fading to the point where he would completely forget Eagle’s face…despite clearly remembering that the police told him Oscar Eagle’s name three months earlier.
“Given the field’s current scientific understanding of the mechanisms of human memory,” Dr. Wixted said, “there is no plausible explanation for a true memory being very strong on 3-17-1998, fading completely away by 6-11-1998, and then returning in full force by 7-17-1998.”
He added that the audiotape of the June 11 1997, interview showed that Urias “rejected the lineup containing a photo of Oscar Eagle, and that outcome provides evidence of Eagle’s innocence.”
The petition said that District Attorney Nathan Hochman and Baca were jointly requesting that the conviction be vacated. On July 10, 2025, Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge William Ryan vacated Eagle’s conviction. The prosecution then dismissed the charge, and Eagle was released, more than 26 years after his conviction.
– Maurice Possley
Posting Date: 09-24-2025
