On the night time Los Angeles police declare he carried out an act of gangland vengeance, Oscar Eagle may barely stroll.
In March 1998, Eagle was solely 17 and utilizing crutches to get round after he was wounded in a drive-by taking pictures. The bullet continues to be in his leg to at the present time, marked by a coin-shaped indentation on his calf.
On the similar time that police allege Eagle opened hearth on an 18th Avenue gang member in an act of retribution, he says he was at an East L.A. hospital as a result of a good friend’s cousin was giving beginning, in accordance with courtroom data.
Oscar Eagle in his childhood neighborhood of Pico-Union in 1996.
(Courtesy of Megan Baca)
Eagle knew he was harmless. Witnesses positioned him on the hospital and he mentioned medical data may show he wasn’t cellular sufficient to hold out the crime.
However a mix of doubtful authorized illustration and an arrest made by members of a notoriously corrupt unit within the Los Angeles Police Division noticed Eagle sentenced to 25-years-to-life in jail.
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10:34 a.m. Sept. 14, 2025An earlier model of this story mentioned Eagle’s case was dealt with by the California Innocence Challenge. The group concerned in Eagle’s case known as California Innocence Advocates.
In July, a choose granted a joint movement from California Innocence Advocates and the L.A. County district legal professional’s workplace to vacate Eagle’s conviction, citing ineffective help of counsel and questions concerning the habits of LAPD detectives on the case.
For reform advocates, Eagle’s case epitomizes the issue with prosecuting teenagers as adults, nevertheless it additionally marks a constructive signal for the L.A. County district legal professional’s workplace’s conviction evaluate unit underneath Nathan Hochman, who personally appeared on the listening to the place Eagle was let loose.
“That is what I’ve been dreaming of every single day,” a tearful Eagle, 45, mentioned throughout an interview in late July.
Pelican Bay State Jail in Crescent Metropolis, California is surrounded by razor wire, tall fences and towers manned by guards with rifles.
(Mark Boster / Los Angeles Instances)
Shaped in 2015 and expanded underneath former Dist. Atty. George Gascón, Hochman has proven a continued dedication to the conviction evaluate unit. After going through criticism for recording simply 4 exonerations from 2015 to 2020, the unit has been concerned in 12 in simply the final 4 years, in accordance with a district legal professional’s workplace spokesperson.
“I believe {that a} D.A. sends a powerful message while you seem in courtroom, that it’s each a case of significant concern to the D.A.’s workplace, and it’s one the place you need to see justice accomplished,” Hochman mentioned.
Seeing L.A. County’s high prosecutor personally endorse his launch is a stark turnaround for Eagle, who spent most of his life believing police would do something to maintain him behind bars.
After getting into California’s grownup jail system as a young person, Eagle mentioned he watched a good friend die in a riot at Pelican Bay. He spent years in isolation after he says he was erroneously linked to the Mexican Mafia. Each of his dad and mom died whereas Eagle was locked up, and he can’t even point out their names with out tearing as much as at the present time.
Eagle mentioned he grew up in a piece of Pico-Union the place all his neighbors have been affiliated with a neighborhood gang set, the Burlington Locos. A younger tagger who glided by “Clown,” he too wound up a part of the crew.
Within the late Nineteen Nineties, Eagle turned a goal of detectives with an notorious LAPD unit often called C.R.A.S.H., brief for Group Sources In opposition to Avenue Hoodlums.
On the time, the LAPD’s Rampart division was dwelling to C.R.A.S.H. officers who falsified experiences and framed civilians, later triggering a scandal that ended with the U.S. Division of Justice inserting the LAPD underneath a consent decree.
Officers watch from contained in the entrance entrance of the LAPD’s Rampart Station within the Westlake district in 2010 as protesters exhibit exterior towards police brutality.
(Reed Saxon / Related Press)
Eagle says that in 1996 he was wrongfully arrested for gun possession as a juvenile by Rafael Perez, the central determine of the Rampart scandal. Perez later admitted the report that led to Eagle’s first arrest was falsified, in accordance with courtroom data.
However it was Eagle’s subsequent run-in with police that proved much more consequential.
In March 1998, 18th Avenue Gang member Benjamin Urias was shot twice on Burlington Avenue in what police believed to be retribution for a previous assault on a Burlington Locos member, courtroom data present. Urias, who was hospitalized for 2 days and launched, instructed police the shooter walked with a limp.
Investigators from a C.R.A.S.H. unit primarily based in Rampart locked onto Eagle, because of his gang connections and the truth that he was mentioned to be strolling with a limp after he was injured in a taking pictures, in accordance with his legal professional, Megan Baca, of the California Innocence Challenge.
Prices towards Eagle have been initially dismissed after Urias failed to point out up for a preliminary listening to. However a month later, LAPD murder detectives Thomas Murrell and Kenneth Wiseman prodded the taking pictures sufferer to choose Eagle out of a photograph lineup, in accordance with the movement to vacate his conviction.
Urias initially instructed police he didn’t acknowledge anybody within the lineup, data present.
“OK, circle that man … Quantity 4 is the one you have been pointing to,” Murrell mentioned to Urias, in accordance with a recording of the interview described in courtroom data.
An LAPD spokesperson declined to remark. The audio recording that known as the validity of the identification into query was by no means raised at Eagle’s trial, in accordance with Baca.
Regardless of considerations concerning the habits of the detectives, Hochman mentioned he was not instantly ordering a evaluate of different instances involving Murrell and Wiseman. Neither Rampart detective was a part of a C.R.A.S.H. unit.
Murrell denied any wrongdoing and instructed The Instances he remembered Eagle’s title as a result of the then-teenager was a suspect in a number of gang homicides on the time.
He didn’t supply specifics, however dismissed Eagle’s medical alibi, contending the teenager “wasn’t on crutches” when police arrested him.
“If he made an ID, we didn’t cheat, I can inform you that … I’ve by no means accomplished that,” mentioned Murrell. “We did every part by the ebook.”
Makes an attempt to contact Wiseman have been unsuccessful.
Eagle mentioned issues have been solely made worse by his former legal professional, Patrick Lake, who didn’t make a gap assertion at trial or elevate any of Eagle’s alibi proof. When Eagle questioned his lawyer, Lake joked that he was “saving the most effective for final.”
Oscar Eagle together with his protection legal professional, Megan Baca of the Innocence Challenge.
(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Instances)
As Eagle’s household grew annoyed within the gallery, he mentioned his mom handed him a observe that merely learn “hearth him.” Eagle tried to eliminate Lake, however a choose denied his request. Eagle was convicted of homicide. And since he was tried as an grownup, he confronted 25-years-to-life.
Lake didn’t reply to a request for remark. Baca mentioned she had one dialog with Lake, wherein he claimed he didn’t bear in mind Eagle or his case.
On the time, prosecutors in California may straight file costs towards teenagers in grownup courtroom, sending a whole lot of youngsters yearly to grownup prisons comparable to Pelican Bay, the place Eagle wound up. That apply has been abolished by a change in state legislation, however Baca mentioned she’s encountered too many instances the place teenagers had their lives stolen as a result of they have been wrongfully convicted and tried as adults.
“It’s egregious, however I believe that it occurs on a regular basis,” Baca mentioned. “So a lot of my shoppers have been juveniles they usually bought grownup life.”
Eagle mentioned his keep in jail was lengthy and painful. He spent six years in segregated housing, primarily isolation, after Baca mentioned her shopper was wrongly labeled as a Mexican Mafia affiliate. He denied any affiliation with the highly effective prison-based syndicate. Eagle mentioned jail officers took a leap in logic to hyperlink him to the gang primarily based on a “kite,” or jail observe, despatched by one other inmate.
As he grew older behind bars, Eagle began to learn voraciously. His father despatched beneficial books. Eagle says he gravitated towards the Bible.
Oscar Eagle at an L.A. County juvenile detention camp in 1997.
(Courtesy of Megan Baca)
Though he knew he hadn’t dedicated the crime that put him in jail, Eagle mentioned he nonetheless realized there have been issues about his life that wanted to alter.
“I used to be 30 years previous. My perspective began to alter. And I began to see this previous life that I used to be dwelling was nonsense,” he mentioned. “I began to have a conscience.”
In 2023, after repeated failures to get his case overturned on attraction, a few of Eagle’s buddies bought the eye of Baca and the California Innocence Challenge, which labored to deliver the case earlier than the conviction evaluate unit. On the similar time, Eagle mentioned, he began exchanging letters with an ex-girlfriend from highschool, a girl named Monica.
In July, the 2 squeezed subsequent to one another on Baca’s sofa on the lawyer’s Lengthy Seashore dwelling, fingers interlocked. They’ve since gotten married and need to transfer to Arizona, away from town and county that just about took every part away from Eagle.
There’s nonetheless lots for Eagle to get used too — he’s by no means pushed a automotive, the idea of Uber continues to be weird to him — however Monica says there’s one silver lining to the jail time period Eagle by no means ought to have served. She wouldn’t have married the man who was despatched away all these years in the past.
“He’s an entire new particular person from when he went in,” she mentioned.
