Alvaro Hernández

Alvaro Luna Hernandez was a political organizer with Cesar Chavez and the Chicano Movement who in 1975, was charged with the murder of a motel clerk after a former employee told police they witnessed Hernandez kill him in a robbery. No money was actually taken from the motel and no other evidence connected Hernandez to the crime. The witness was granted full immunity for a number of unrelated offenses in exchange for her testimony and she later recanted and claimed and she was instructed to testify that Hernandez committed the murder under threat of prosecution. While in jail, Hernandez became a jailhouse lawyer and helped other inmates who had been falsely convicted appeal their sentences including death row inmate Aldape Guerra whose conviction was overturned after Hernandez gathered the evidence to show he was framed for killing a police officer.

In 1991, Hernandez was released after serving 16 years. Hernandez spent the next 5 years organizing politically until in 1996 the local Sheriff ordered a deputy to go to Hernadez's home and arrest him for a convenience store robbery based only on the fact the robber was described as being Hispanic. Police knew he hadn't committed the robbery as Hernandez was under police surveillance for activism at the time and undercover cops were watching him on the other side of town during the time of the robbery. Police also went against normal protocol by sending only a single deputy to arrest what they claimed was an armed criminal. Hernandez asserts that the deputy put a gun to head and made it clear he was about to kill him and he responded by knocking the gun from the cop's hand and fleeing the scene before later surrendering to police. Hernandez was convicted of assaulting the police officer by knocking the gun from his hand and given the maximum sentence of 50 years.

Chicano political prisoner, prolific jailhouse lawyer, and longtime member of the Movimiento de Liberacion Nacional Mexicano. His earlier life sentence arose from a murder prosecution in Pecos County, Texas; that imprisonment ended in 1991. His current sentence is 50 years for aggravated assault of a peace officer. According to documents obtained after trial, the state used perjured testimony and suppressed crime-lab reports and other favorable evidence that would have cleared him; he has consistently maintained his innocence. While incarcerated he became a leading prison-reform litigator in Texas, contributing to the landmark Ruiz v. Estelle systemwide class action and to a civil-rights suit charging the Texas Governor and Parole Board with racial discrimination against Chicano and Black prisoners. Spent eight consecutive years in solitary confinement in retaliation for his organizing — a 1984 prison report justified the isolation by quoting his "own statements concerning political beliefs." Held at Goree Unit and elsewhere in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. During that earlier imprisonment, he became eligible for parole in 1986 but was repeatedly denied before his 1991 release.