Christopher Ochoa:
From prison to graduation
by  Laura Salinger
     The University of Wisconsin-Law School's graduation ceremony on May 12 was filled with all the usual "pomp and circumstance." But one thing set the ceremony apart. One of the graduates, Christopher Ochoa, beat all the odds when he walked down the aisle to receive his law degree.
     A decade ago, the possibility that Ochoa would one day be graduating from law school would have seemed almost laughable. At that time, he was serving a life sentence in a Texan prison for rape and murder.
     In 1988, Nancy DePriest was murdered while opening the Pizza Hut she managed in Austin, Texas. With no witnesses and little to go on, police focused on Ochoa and Richard Danziger as suspects after Pizza Hut employees called the police because the two looked "suspicious" when they entered the same restaurant several weeks after DePriest's murder. Then 22, Ochoa was picked up at his workplace and questioned.
     According to the Wisconsin Innocence Project, Ochoa was interrogated by police for two full days. The police told him they knew he was guilty. They used intimidation tactics including yelling, pounding on the desk, and even throwing a chair in his direction. They convinced him that unless he confessed, he would get the death penalty, saying, "White guys always walk, and the Hispanics always get the needle." In order to avoid what he came to believe was his inevitable death, Ochoa confessed to the crime.
     In 1999, Ochoa wrote a letter proclaiming his innocence to the Wisconsin Innocence Project, a UW-MadisonLawSchool program that provides legal assistance to inmates who have provable claims that they were wrongly convicted. They agreed to take his case after discovering that untested DNA evidence still existed. After 12 years in prison, DNA and other corroborating evidence proved that Ochoa was indeed innocent. In 2001, he was exonerated and released from prison.
     After his release, Ochoa returned to school and received his B.A. from the University of Texas-El Paso. He then headed to law school at UW-Madison where he worked with the very program that freed him -- the Wisconsin Innocence Project -- and interned with the Green County District Attorney's Office.
     "Spending years in prison for a crime you didn't commit is a very damaging experience," Wisconsin Innocence Project co-director Keith Findley said. "That Chris was able to get out of prison, complete his undergraduate degree, and then make it through law school speaks volumes about his character."
     Ochoa addressed a large audience at the Alliant Energy Center during the Law School graduation ceremony. Tears filled his eyes as he delivered a short, but emotional speech to his fellow law students and their friends and family. He encouraged his colleagues to use compassion in their new career endeavors.
     "We need to have compassion for each other in times of adversity," Ochoa said. "It is our compassion in our hearts that sets us apart."
     The crowd erupted in exuberant applause as Ochoa ended his speech. One-by-one, the audience rose to their feet to pay tribute to Ochoa's courage and determination. Ochoa, in turn, paid respect to his colleagues and the University for their role in making his experience at UW-Madison a positive one.
     "They treated me like one of their own and treated me just like any other person in society and because of that, I no longer am shy or distrust people," Ochoa said. "UW has helped me grow and adjust to the free world at a faster rate than normal."
     Ochoa credits the people at UW-Madison for minimizing the emotional trauma that often accompanies wrongful convictions.
     "A wrongfully convicted person must go through many, many years of therapy after he or she is released, to learn how to socialize with society," he said. "I did not need many years of therapy because the undergraduates, graduate students, faculty, and, of course, Bucky, made me feel part of their family."
     While Ochoa expressed gratitude to the University, others were quick to express their gratitude to him for the impact that he has had on their lives.
     "We are so lucky to have had Chris as a client, a student, and soon, a colleague in the profession," Findley said. "He has taught us a lot about the criminal justice system, about what it means to be a lawyer, and about how to handle overwhelming adversity with strength, grace, and compassion."
     Ochoa will now be part of the very system that wrongfully put him away. Ironically, he plans to be a prosecutor. Having already served as an assistant prosecutor in Green County, he plans to go on to make sure that the right people are charged and prosecuted.
     Ochoa is finally where he deserves to be -- on the right side of the law. He is living proof that although justice sometimes seems unattainable, it is always possible.
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