He couldn’t get back the time he spent in prison, but Eduardo Caba thought he could at least get back his good name.
That was until a Bronx judge refused to vacate an armed robbery conviction that even prosecutors now admit was fatally flawed.
Caba, his wife, his attorneys and a group of law students went into a Bronx Court Monday fully expecting the case that has haunted him for 30 years would finally go away.
But even though Caba’s lawyers and prosecutors from the office that put him in prison agreed jailing him was a mistake, the judge said nothing had changed.
“It is like a life sentence,” Caba said while fighting back tears in Bronx Criminal Court. ”But I know I’m innocent. It’s like the whole world has crashed on my back.”
Caba spent 13 years in prison before his 2010 release.
Prosecutors said at the time Caba was part of an armed robbery crew in 1995, he grabbed a woman and her 5-year-old outside their home, pushed her inside, tied her up and forced her to hand over a key to a safe where she kept jewelry and cash.
The victim identified Caba after poring over nearly 1,500 mugshots in nine different photo books, where she chose a snapshot of Caba, who did not match the original description of the perpetrator, except for a tan jacket.
The mugshot had been taken years earlier.
At a subsequent lineup several weeks later, Caba wore what looked like a tan jacket while all the other men in the lineup wore dark jackets.
Aside from the identification from the one witness, there was no other evidence tying Eduardo Caba to the crime.
Caba, 63, was the only suspect ever arrested. He was convicted of robbery, burglary and unlawful imprisonment, after which a judge sentenced him to 15 years in prison.
But Judge Alvin Yearwood said he was not convinced the conviction was a mistake.
“I am not inclined to sign the order,” Yearwood told a stunned courtroom. “In this case, I just don’t think it’s appropriate”
An audible gasp rose from the crowd, and visitors whispered “outrageous” when Yearwood dashed Caba’s hopes.
Both sides said they thought the vacate order was a mere formality, including Bronx DA Darcel Clark, who had issued a statement supporting the order before it was denied.
“At the time the crime was committed, we believed the witness who viewed many photos before picking out Mr. Caba’s photo,” Clark said. “We now know, based on social science advances, that the greater number of photos viewed, the less reliable the identification.”
But Yearwood said overruling the jury’s decision would open the floodgates for other felons and threaten the integrity of other lawful convictions.
“This is selling the people of Bronx County short,” Yearwood said. “That is what you’re doing. And that does not work in this courtroom. I respect people who take time off for this court. They sit and listen to the evidence and make decisions based on that evidence.”
But Caba’s attorney, Adele Bernhard, of New York Law School’s Post Conviction Innocence Clinic, said Caba’s conviction was an isolated case.
“You’re not making a decision that rules on all the other cases,” Bernhard said. “What I’m saying is they have new evidence now, which if they had then, they would make different decisions.”
Caba was arrested in 1992 for possession of a gun, which he said he carried to protect the cash from his family’s supermarket. Caba received probation for the charge, but his mugshot remained on file.
Caba said he pleaded guilty to the earlier gun charge, but still maintains his innocence about the armed robbery.
“I am very unhappy,” he said.
