[Ppnews] After 23 years in prison Rosie Sanchez deported to Mexico

[Political Prisoner News]

LA woman paroled in deadly fire deported to Mexico

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/18/AR2010031803035.html

By RAQUEL MARIA DILLON

The Associated Press
Thursday, March 18, 2010; 10:07 PM

LOS ANGELES -- A clothing store owner who spent 23 years behind bars 
for a deadly arson fire after proclaiming her innocence was paroled 
from state prison and deported to Mexico on Thursday.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials said Maria Rosa "Rosie" 
Sanchez was released from the state California Institution for Women 
in Chino and deported by immigration authorities at the San Ysidro 
border crossing.

ICE spokeswoman Virginia Kice said Sanchez is a convicted felon with 
no lawful status in the U.S.

"She was made aware of her rights and the process was explained to 
her," Kice said. She declined to describe Sanchez's response.

Sanchez, who owned a small clothing store, said she was at home when 
another store in the same building went up in flames in December 
1985. A man died in the fire, and Sanchez was convicted of 
first-degree murder and arson. In 1987, she was sentenced to 25 years to life.

She always maintained her innocence. With the help of a law clinic 
for women at the University of Southern California Law School, she 
got the state parole board to recommend her release.

Sanchez met with Mexican consular officials after she was processed 
by immigration officials, Kice said.

The USC law students who helped Sanchez win parole are preparing to 
ask Gov. 
<http://www.whorunsgov.com/Profiles/Arnold_Schwarzenegger>Arnold 
Schwarzenegger to pardon Sanchez so she can visit with her adult 
children, who waited for years to bring their mother home.

Last week, prison officials told Sanchez she would be released to her 
daughter, also named Rosie Sanchez, who lives in Anaheim, said her 
son, Gustavo Sanchez.

His sister bought furniture, fixed up a room for their mother to live 
in and prepared her young children to welcome their grandmother, he said.

"She's pretty upset because she keeps looking at that empty room. 
She's been sleeping in there since we found out," that their mother 
would be deported instead of released, Gustavo said, as he prepared 
to leave for Tijuana to meet his mother.

Sanchez was picked up by her sister at the border, and she will live 
with her in Mexicali, her son said.

Jennifer Farrell, a second year law student at USC who represented 
Sanchez at her parole hearing, said the whole family got their hopes 
up when the prison said she could stay in the U.S. and live with her 
daughter, but Sanchez had told the parole board she would go to Mexicali.

"It was the best strategy before the parole board, but partly I think 
that after 23 years of wrongful incarceration, she was just fed up 
with the American dream," Farrell said.

Sanchez said she had been approved for a green card and would have 
received it if she hadn't been arrested, said USC Law professor 
Michael Brennan said. She was deported primarily because as a 
convicted felon without U.S. citizenship she's not allowed to travel 
or live in the U.S.

Farrell said that Sanchez's public defender was ineffective during 
the 1987 trial and the sole witness who placed her at the scene was 
unreliable. Farrell also said Sanchez didn't have a financial motive 
as prosecutors had claimed.

The prosecution relied on an 18-year-old witness, Adan Ramos, who 
said he saw Sanchez and another woman while he was trapped in the 
burning building, she said. Ramos' father, Epiphanio, was sleeping in 
the store and died in the blaze.

Attempts by The Associated Press to find telephone numbers to reach 
the Ramos family were not successful Thursday. The Los Angeles County 
district attorney's office had no family contact information for the 
25-year-old case and Sanchez's public defender during the trial has died.

"I'm glad I'll get to see her but it's temporary," he said. "I guess 
like everyone else we have to travel to see our mom and for her to 
see her grandkids."



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