In 1994 Macias was convicted of drowning her niece, 4-year-old Lynette Orozco, in a trial where the prosecution’s case was based solely on the testimony of Macias’s children, Gilbert, Melody, and Frankie Alvarez. Attorneys and students with the California Innocence Project of California Western School of Law have spent the past four years tracking down Macias’s children who all say the testimony they gave as children was false.

“Dolores is innocent. Her children were manipulated into testifying against her by their grandmother,” said Professor Jan Stiglitz, co-director of the California Innocence Project and Macias’s attorney.  “Science has shown that the testimony of children can be extremely unreliable and they often have a great deal of trouble determining the source of their memories.  Children will take what is told to them by adults and turn it into a memory.  We believe that is exactly what happened here.”

Frankie, Gilbert, and Melody Alvarez took the stand in Los Angeles to say that they lied during the original trial and that their mother was not involved in the drowning. Frankie Alvarez, 23, testified on March 9, declaring that his grandmother repeatedly discussed the drowning with him and that these discussions led to his false testimony against his mother.

Gilbert Alvarez admits his grandmother manipulated him into implicating his mother. "My grandma was telling me what to say when I was younger," he said in the Los Angeles courtroom of Judge Stephen Marcus on Jan. 19, 2007.  Gilbert, now 21, was 5 at the time of the incident and 8 at trial.

Lynette Orozco drowned in a small pool on July 21, 1990 in her backyard where she lived with her mother and Macias’s sister Olivia Orozco. Macias and Orozco were both at the house at the time of the drowning. Gilbert and his siblings were sent to stay with his paternal grandmother, Sara Alvarez, who was granted custody of the children just two days after the drowning. Macias wasn’t charged with the murder until her children had been living with Sara Alvarez for more than two years.

In addition to admitting that she had no memory of her mother drowning Lynette, Melody Alvarez, 21, testified in January that she recalls fighting with her cousin Lynette in the pool at the time of the drowning.

Victim’s mother: “Macias did not murder my daughter”

At trial, Macias was convicted despite the fact that Orozco – the prosecution’s only adult witness and the mother of the victim – testified that Macias was in the house with her when Lynette drowned.

“Dolores Macias did not murder my daughter, Lynette…[Dolores] tried to save her life after I carried her into the house,” Orozco said in a signed affidavit given to the California Innocence Project.

Judge Marcus ordered an evidentiary hearing specifically to hear testimony from Macias’s children. Though Orozco won’t be called to testify again, Innocence Project attorneys insist the fact that the mother of the victim was present at the time of the drowning, and consistently stated before the trial, during the trial, and since the trial that Macias is innocent is the clincher in their case. “Olivia Orozco’s testimony has remained stead-fast since the 1994 trial,” says Professor Justin Brooks, director of the California Innocence Project. “Dolores was no where near that pool.”

Macias was convicted of murder on March 28, 1994 and was later sentenced to 19-years-to-life in prison.

The evidentiary hearing is scheduled to resume March 9, 2007, at 10 a.m., and, at the conclusion of the hearing, the judge has the option to reverse Macias' conviction.

“All three witnesses were coerced into lying as children,” Brooks said, “and without their testimony the state would have had no case against Dolores. It says something that all of them feel compelled to come forward now and tell the truth.”

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California Western School of Law is the independent, ABA/AALS-accredited San Diego law school that advances multi-dimensional lawyering by educating lawyers-to-be as creative problem solvers and principled advocates who frame the practice of law as a helping, collaborative profession.  California Western is home to several innovative centers and institutes including the California Innocence Project, the Center for Creative Problem Solving, the Institute of Health Law Studies, and the Institute for Criminal Defense Advocacy.  In addition to a J.D. program, the law school offers several dual degree programs in conjunction with local universities; an LL.M. in Federal Criminal Law; and an M.C.L./LL.M. for foreign law graduates.                                                                                                 

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