Dallas Attorneys, Working Pro Bono, Spring Wrongfully Imprisoned Mexican Nationals in Panhandle

Barry McNeil of Haynes and Boone

For six years, Barry McNeil, a partner at Haynes and Boone, has been trying to spring two Mexican nationals from a Panhandle prison, where they’ve been incarcerated for life for a murder they didn’t commit. And, yesterday, the Dallas litigator, working with two other members of the firm’s pro bono defense team, got justice for his clients: According to Haynes and Boone, Alberto Sifuentes and Jesus Ramirez will go free after a Lamb County grand jury refused to reindict the men for the August 6, 1996, murder of a Littlefield convenience store clerk.

This comes after a Texas Court of Criminal Appeals ruling earlier this year in which their convictions were reversed and vacated, due to a number of problems with the case dating back to a “bungled photo lineup” in 1996 and the original trial, during which prosecutors failed to tell jurors about “the existence of a known alibi witness, Pauline Robles, who would have testified the defendants were at a Lubbock nightclub at the time of the murder.” –Robert Wilonsky