We wrote our own appeal to prove my husband’s innocence

by Kendra Castaneda

Robbie_Riva_Kendra, We wrote our own appeal to prove my husband’s innocence, Abolition Now! My husband, Robbie James Riva, who currently resides at Calipatria State Prison in Imperial County, has maintained his innocence for the past 11 years. The police tried to portray the crime my husband was convicted of as a “gang crime” drive-by shooting. A woman did get shot in the butt, but no one was seriously hurt.

There was not enough evidence to convict my husband or give him such a harsh sentence, but he was convicted anyway and given 30 years to life in prison. During the trial in 2002, all of the prosecution witnesses the DA called to testify – including the victim – said the picture of my husband’s car was not the car they had seen at the crime scene, nor was the other evidence what they had seen, and they said they had never seen my husband before in their lives.

My husband, Robbie James Riva, who currently resides at Calipatria State Prison in Imperial County, has maintained his innocence for the past 11 years.

My husband had an alibi along with alibi witnesses who testified at his trial. The first trial ended with a hung jury, and the judge declared a mistrial because the defense asked for police reports from the DA and a new alibi witness came forward. The second trial was worse: It was a different judge, the DA didn’t hand over discovery and it didn’t matter that the alibi witnesses testified because he was convicted anyway.

Due to a poor defense and fabricated police testimony, the jury found him guilty and, in February 2002, sentenced my husband to five years in prison for attempted voluntary manslaughter. The jury ruled he was not guilty of a gang crime and not guilty of being a street gang member or of any gang activity.

Because that wasn’t the sentence the DA wanted for my husband, the DA asked the judge to sentence him to the maximum sentence, which was 25 years to life on a gun enhancement. Although there was no gun to produce in the case, the judge agreed. At 18 years of age with no adult prior convictions, my husband, who had been a college student working full time when he was arrested and had then spent a year in jail because we couldn’t raise the $1.5 million bail, was sentenced to 30 years to life and sent to Pelican Bay State Prison.

There was not enough evidence to convict my husband or give him such a harsh sentence, but he was convicted anyway and given 30 years to life in prison.

After my husbands’ previous habeas corpus appeal prepared by his appellate attorney was denied in 2009, I knew my husband felt as if all hope was lost. Because there was no more money to pay a lawyer to continue to fight to prove his innocence, in 2010 I decided to take it on myself.

It was tough with little to no support from anyone outside of the walls he was confined in, but I convinced him that I could do it. I knew in my heart something was not right. All the years his appellate lawyer had supposedly been fighting to prove his innocence, which had resulted in two failed appeals, his lawyer couldn’t even respond to my husband in a timely manner, many times ignoring him and failing to provide him with his appellate records, documents and transcripts.

For the past two years, I’ve used the power of attorney my husband gave me to gather strong new evidence of his innocence, including obtaining the crime scene police report that the DA originally withheld. I dug deep and found out that my husband’s appellate lawyer, who had represented him from 2003 to 2009, never once tried to find new evidence of his innocence. He never requested a police report, DNA evidence or gunshot residue test results.

The only thing his appellate lawyer used to file my husband’s appeals was an augmentation report from his defense attorney at trial. No wonder the previous appeals were denied: His appellate attorney never once challenged the evidence that convicted him, never challenged insufficient counsel by my husband’s trial attorney, never challenged prosecutorial misconduct with known Brady Law violations in my husband’s trial etc. I was the one to find all the new evidence of his innocence, track down the victim and witnesses who fought for my husband, stating he was not the man who shot the victim, and discover the records that his defense lawyer failed to present that would have shown my husband’s good character in court.

After my husbands’ previous habeas corpus appeal prepared by his appellate attorney was denied in 2009, I knew my husband felt as if all hope was lost. Because there was no more money to pay a lawyer to continue to fight to prove his innocence, in 2010 I decided to take it on myself.

I remember people laughing at me in these past two years because they never saw anyone try and obtain confidential records with just a power of attorney, but I let them laugh. Many people who didn’t know my husband told me that he was guilty based on what his previous appeal stated or because CDCR (California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation) was falsely labeling him as “worst of the worst.”

I remember looking at them and asking: “Have you read his transcripts in full front to back? Did you study them? Did you speak to those who were there and who have known him for years before he was wrongfully convicted?” When they couldn’t answer, they stayed quiet.

I wasn’t going to depend on anyone else to dig up this evidence. I wasn’t going to wait years again for someone to investigate and help us write an appeal in hopes the court would reopen his case. So I took it into my own hands to obtain the new factual evidence to prove my husband innocent, and I am proud that I did.

I had also helped him file with the California Innocence Project in early 2010. After a year and a half, they declined to take his case in October 2011. They hadn’t obtained any new evidence of innocence nor looked deeply into what I had pulled up. Since they are a great organization, I figured they had too many cases to take on one more.

Even while my husband and I have been helping fight for the human rights of all prisoners throughout the state of California and trying to find legal help for others, we never asked an attorney to help us individually. We always put our needs last to ensure others who weren’t as proficient in law received legal help first. That’s just the type of people we are, and the denial by the California Innocence Project did not discourage us.

I wasn’t going to depend on anyone else to dig up this evidence. I wasn’t going to wait years again for someone to investigate and help us write an appeal in hopes the court would reopen his case. So I took it into my own hands to obtain the new factual evidence to prove my husband innocent, and I am proud that I did.

For the past year, since my husband has been put in segregation, he has been studying how to write an appeal himself. He came to believe he could do it because he had been challenging his validation by CDCR. He currently has a writ filed with the California Supreme Court challenging his validation and prison conditions which he wrote himself. If his appeal is granted, it will overturn his false validation that has him placed in segregation.

Robbie is a very intelligent man and while he studied his transcripts that I provided him, I would use Google search to find court cases that people had won based on evidence similar to what my husband is using to prove his innocence. He found more case cites in his own research.

We put our minds together, our strength, our love and we told each other we could do this and we did. He wrote his appeal himself with the documents I sent him. I compared his appeal to his previous appeals that were filed in court, and I must say I am very proud of my husband for being so dedicated and working so hard on it.

My husband filed his appeal in September in pro per in Long Beach Superior Court with Judge Joan Comparet-Cassani, and he filed in pro per with the attorney general in Los Angeles. This would be the first time in 11 years that an appeal in my husband’s case has new evidence that backs up his innocence. My husband is requesting an evidentiary hearing, he’s requesting appointment of counsel with declaration of indigency and he’s asking the court to obtain legal declarations from his trial counsel and appellate counsel.

We put our minds together, our strength, our love and we told each other we could do this and we did. He wrote his appeal himself with the documents I sent him. I compared his appeal to his previous appeals that were filed in court, and I must say I am very proud of my husband for being so dedicated and working so hard on it.

These are the new grounds he’s raising in his appeal:

Ground 1: Petitioner’s conviction violates due process of law. Evidence is insufficient to support the conviction in violation of petitioner’s rights to due process as guaranteed by the United States Constitution and the Fifth, Sixth, Eighth and 14th Amendments.

Ground 2: Ineffective assistance of counsel at trial and on appeal violates petitioner’s right to effective assistance of counsel as guaranteed by the United States Constitution and the Fifth, Sixth and 14th Amendments and Article I, Section 15, of the California Constitution.

Strong new factual evidence that backs up these new grounds includes prosecutorial misconduct: The prosecution failed to disclose exculpatory evidence to the defense – evidence that could have exonerated my husband of all charges. Brady Law violations by the prosecution during my husband’s trial never were mentioned in his previous appeals. The police purposely destroyed notes and withheld more evidence they had gathered during interrogation that was never handed over to the defense.

Ineffective assistance of counsel applies to both trial counsel and appellate counsel. Trial counsel failed to call officers to testify who were at the crime scene. It is the responsibility of the defense to call any and all officers and witnesses to testify if it could help prove my husband’s innocence.

If I were in my husband’s situation, I know he’d do the same for me. I love my husband so much; he’s my best friend. I’ve known him for 18 years and I will continue to help him fight to overturn his wrongful conviction. If this appeal he just filed is denied, if he is denied a new hearing, if he is denied new counsel with declaration of indigency, I will be the first one to raise hell with the state of California, because it’s been 11 years since he was wrongfully convicted. That’s too long and he needs to be freed. My husband, Robbie Riva, is innocent!

A big thank you to Mary and Willie Ratcliff at the San Francisco Bay View for publishing stories that enable many men and women to tell their stories of injustice and for fully supporting my husband and me.

Please wish us luck.

Kendra Castaneda is a prisoner human rights advocate whose husband Robbie Riva has not only been fighting his wrongful conviction for 11 years, but he’s being tortured in segregation at Calipatria State Prison ASU. She can be reached at kendracastaneda55@gmail.com.