His ads call him 'California's top-ranked habeas attorney.' Where's the evidence?
LOS ANGELES — Through his arrest, at age 19, for a murder in South L.A., through the trial where he received a sentence of 72 years to life, and through fruitless appeals, Abel Soto maintained his innocence.
In 2020, after he had been in prison for more than a dozen years, his family and friends set out to hire a lawyer who would prove once and for all that he was wrongfully convicted.
They went with Aaron Spolin — a decision Soto and his supporters would come to deeply regret. Rather than thoroughly investigate his case to turn up exonerating evidence, Spolin produced a thin court petition that contained unsubstantiated claims and was quickly rejected by a court.
"He told me, 'If they give us a hearing, then that is when we will introduce the evidence,'" Soto said in a phone call from the state prison in Soledad. "That didn't seem right to me. How are you expecting to get an evidentiary hearing without any evidence?"
