Wrongful Conviction With Jason Flom

In 1994, Angel Gonzalez was wrongfully convicted and sentenced to 40 years in prison for the rape and kidnapping of a woman in Waukegan, IL. On the night of the crime, Angel had been visiting his fiancé’s sister, who lived in the same apartment building as the victim. The victim’s boyfriend saw Angel leaving the parking lot that night, and she misidentified his car as the car that the assailants had been driving earlier in the evening. The police pulled Angel over and brought him in handcuffs to the victim, who was in the backseat of the squad car. From still inside the dark car, the victim identified Angel as one of her attackers, even though he didn’t match her original description of either perpetrator. Angel Gonzalez is Mexican and had only been in the United States for a little more than a year at the time, and he spoke very limited English. During the interrogation process, he wrote a statement in Spanish, which was then translated and read in English by Detective Lou Marquez. These two statements were