April.23.2013
Working with the Northern California Innocence Project (NCIP) at Santa Clara University School of Law, we recently convinced a federal court judge to overturn the wrongful conviction of George Souliotes for arson and triple murder. Mr. Souliotes, 72, has served 16 years of his three life terms sentence.
In granting his release, District Judge Anthony W. Ishii found that Mr. Souliotes had received ineffective assistance of counsel at trial. That finding came a year after his attorneys persuaded the judge of Mr. Souliotes' "actual innocence," successfully arguing his conviction was based on faulty fire science and that no reasonable juror today would convict him.
"It has been an incredibly long road, but we are very happy to be nearing the end of it," said Jimmy McBirney. "Mr. Souliotes has always maintained his innocence, and the evidence has now proven it. There is absolutely no basis for a retrial, and we look forward to seeing him set free."
The judge ordered his release unless the State of California not only notifies the court that it intends to retry Mr. Souliotes, but also takes concrete and substantial steps to do so within 30 days.
"Mr. Souliotes' conviction was a tragedy, and we now know it was based on faulty fire science that has since been discredited," said Linda Starr, NCIP's legal director. "We hope the California Attorney General will honor the judge's ruling and not take any further action that might needlessly delay Mr. Souliotes' long overdue return home."
Orrick and NCIP have represented Mr. Souliotes for more than 10 years. Our team was led by Jimmy McBirney with Shannon Leong and Alexis Yee-Garcia, and supervised by Thomas McConville.