By Steve Neavling
A federal appeals court has reversed the murder conviction of a man sentenced to life in prison for the 2010 killing of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry in southern Arizona.
The killing exposed the botched gun-walking operation known as “Fast and Furious.”
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned Heraclio Osorio-Arellanes’s convictions on Frida, citing a violation of his constitutional due process rights, and remanded the case to the U.S. District Court in Arizona for further action.
Osorio-Arellanes was convicted of first-degree murder and other charges and sentenced to life in prison in 2020.
The appeals court said Osorio-Arellanes was interrogated in a Mexico City prison when he confessed to “essential elements”of the U.S. government’s case.
Osorio-Arellanes appealed the conviction, arguing he was entitled to a new trial because his confession violated his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination and his Sixth Amendment right to effective assistance of counsel.
“Our holding does not decide Osorio’s ultimate responsibility for his actions. The Government can still retry this case,” the appeals court said in its new ruling. “Nevertheless, his direct appeal reaffirms the potency of our Constitution’s procedural protections for criminal defendants, which ‘are granted to the innocent and the guilty alike.'”
