Wrongfully charged man seeks an official 'factually innocent' declaration
Los Angeles prosecutors are asking for a man who wrongfully spent 38 years in prison for a crime he didn't commit to be declared factually innocent of the crime.
Tuesday, Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascon announced that his office will join Maurice Hastings in asking a Superior Court judge on Wednesday to find Hastings factually innocent of a 1983 abduction and murder of a woman in Inglewood, after DNA testing exonerated him and freed him from a wrongful lifetime prison sentence.
Hastings was convicted for the kidnapping and murder of Roberta Wydermyer and the attempted murder of both her husband Billy Ray and friend George Pinson in 1988.
After he spent 38 years in prison, newly tested DNA evidence cleared Hastings and identified a different individual in the crime. He was released from prison on October 28, 2022.
"I'm not pointing fingers. I'm not standing up here a bitter man," Hastings said during a downtown Los Angeles news conference at the time of his release. "But I just want to enjoy my life while I have it. And I just want to move forward."
His conviction was overturned due to a joint effort from the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office and the Los Angeles Innocence Project.
Paula Mitchell, the Los Angeles Innocence Project's director, said Tuesday that a factual innocence ruling will be the "next huge step in Mr. Hastings' journey toward clearing his name fully."
Hastings had consistently proclaimed innocence over the years. "The system failed you," said Gascon at the time of his October release. "The system failed the victims."
Gascon applauded Hastings Tuesday for his "character" and his "commitment" to his innocence, saying he had talked with Hastings several times multiple times and never sensed any bit of anger or hate.
The actual murderer identified by DNA died in 2020, when he was serving time in prison for a separate case of kidnapping and rape.
Back in 1983, Wydermyer is said to have gone on a late-night trip to a market in Inglewood, but never came home. Her husband and friend attempted to find her, they found her car, which had been stolen. As they pursued the vehicle, the suspect fired several shots at them, wounding Billy Ray Wydermyer.
Police say that the man robbed Roberta, sexually assaulted her, and then shot her in the back of the head before hiding her in the trunk of her car.
Hastings was arrested months later. His initial trial ended with a hung jury, but he was convicted at his retrial. He had faced a potential death sentence, but jurors instead recommended that he be sentenced to life in prison without parole.