Man To Walk Free After Serving 32 Years For A Murder He Says He Didn't Commit

San Francisco CA

19 April, 2022

4:28 PM

Description

By Eleni Balakrishnan, Mission Local April 18, 2022 A man convicted of murder in a 1991 case botched by police investigators and his defense attorney now expects to walk free within days, decades after he was declared guilty. Joaquin Ciria, who has spent most of his adult life behind bars, has been fighting to prove his innocence since he was first incarcerated at age 29 for the murder of his friend, Felix Bastarrica, on Clara Alley in SoMa in 1990. He had petitioned against his wrongful conviction for years, but in recent years got the backing of the Northern California Innocence Project, which presented Ciria's case to the DA's Innocence Commission, established by DA Chesa Boudin in 2020. To read the full article, click here. Mission Local covers San Francisco from the vantage point of the Mission, a neighborhood with all of the promise and problems of a major city. You can support Mission Local here.