Angel Echavarria. Photo by Michael Lovett.
By Thomas Grillo
LYNN — The city is fighting a lawsuit by a man who spent 21 years in prison for a murder he denied committing.
Angel Echavarria, 50, filed suit in U.S. District Court in June seeking unspecified cash damages. He alleged Lynn and Massachusetts State Police officers, who investigated the 1994 shooting death of Daniel Rodriguez, framed him for the crime. Echavarria was released from prison last year when a judge approved his bid for a new trial based on ineffective counsel and the state later dropped all charges.
But attorneys representing the city, Cosgrove, Eisenberg & Kiley PC of Boston, argue that the suit should be dismissed because the three-year statute of limitation has elapsed and Echavarria was granted a new trial due to a bungled defense, not the suppression of evidence.
“Against this backdrop, it is unreasonable to infer a direct link between the alleged policies, practices and customs of the city of Lynn and the plaintiff’s alleged constitutional deprivations,” the city’s response said.
While the suit does not mention a dollar amount, juries have compensated innocent persons who have been wrongfully convicted from $1 million a year times the number of years served to $4 million annually. If Echavarria can convince a jury of his claim, he stands to get as much as $84 million.
In Massachusetts, anyone whose conviction has been overturned can collect up to $500,000 in state money. A decision has not been made on his state claim.
Echavarria was convicted of the execution-style killing of Rodriguez, 37, of Lawrence, who was found bound and shot to death in an apartment at 501 Washington St., near Central Square in 1996. He was sentenced to life in prison while a co-defendant, Juan Rodriguez, was acquitted of all charges.
Last year, Superior Court Judge David Lowy overturned the conviction. In the ruling, the judge noted that the eyewitness evidence against Echavarria was questionable.
Echavarria, who now lives in Florida, could not be reached for comment. He was freed last year based on the investigative work of the Schuster Institute for Investigative Journalism at Brandeis University.
His lawsuit alleges that former Lynn and Massachusetts State Police officers fabricated false eyewitness identifications and false witness statements used to implicate Echavarria in a crime he did not commit. In addition, these police officers allegedly suppressed evidence that a key eyewitness had identified another man as the perpetrator of the crime, a man who the police officers had arrested for a similar shooting weeks earlier. Instead of investigating the actual perpetrators of the murder, the officers named in this lawsuit framed Echavarria for something he had not done, the suit said.
No physical evidence ever connected Echavarria to the crimes. Eyewitness descriptions of the perpetrators did not match Echavarria, who had a “solid alibi” on the night of the crime, his lawyer said.
Still, city attorneys say the lawsuit falls short on its allegations of misconduct by 10 law enforcement officers who worked for at least three governmental agencies.
They cited a previous case against a municipality that was dismissed by the court where “the complaint alleged misconduct from many separate actors, but gave no guidance about which acts were properly attributable to the municipal authority,” the city’s response said. “It is unclear, based on the vague allegations of the complaint, which alleged practices, policies and customs are properly attributable to Lynn, as opposed to the Massachusetts State Police, the commonwealth or the District Attorney’s office. Thus, there is not enough in this complaint to support the claims against the city of Lynn.”
Thomas Grillo can be reached at tgrillo@itemlive.com.