Quintin Lee Alonzo spent nearly 17 years in prison for a murder he didn't commit — a crime a notorious cop killer had privately confessed to years ago.
Alonzo, 38, walked free Wednesday after he was declared innocent during a short hearing before state District Judge Carter Thompson.
Thompson ruled that Alonzo had been convicted on false evidence, including witness testimony that identified the innocent man as a murderer.
"But for a violation of his constitutional rights, he would not have been found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt," the judge said.
"It's the court's hope that you can move past the injustice done to you," Thompson told Alonzo.
Defense attorneys and prosecutors had worked quickly to free him so he could attend his daughter's graduation party this week.
After the hearing, Alonzo kissed and hugged relatives and posed for a photo with other men who had been wrongfully convicted.
Instead of saying, "cheese," they grinned and said, "exonerees!"
Alonzo didn't say much about his freedom, other than, "It feels good."
He dodged TV cameras and reporters to get out of the courtroom. He held onto family members as he walked free outside the Frank Crowley Courts Building, opting not to speak publicly about his release.
He is the first person declared innocent in Dallas County since 2015, when Steven Mark Chaney was freed after serving 25 years for a conviction that was based on a bite mark.
Alonzo was convicted of murder and two counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon in 2003 and sentenced to life in prison for the slaying of 18-year-old Santos Gauna and the shootings of Gauna's parents.
Gauna was gunned down at his high school graduation party where a fight broke out with uninvited guests. His parents were injured in the shooting.
The teenager was set to join the Marines.
Police originally suspected Licho Escamilla, but a witness identified Alonzo in a lineup as the killer.
Public defender Julie Lesser said Alonzo was convicted because of "a lot of misstatements, a lot of false evidence."
She said police homed in on Alonzo only because of one eyewitness after Escamilla fled.
"The police did an incredibly poor investigation in this case," Lesser said. "They arrested Mr. Alonzo, and that was basically the end of the investigation."
Escamilla went free. In November 2001, he killed 26-year-old Michael Torres in West Dallas. Weeks after that, Escamilla killed Officer Christopher Kevin James, 34, at a nightclub where James was working an off-duty security job.
At the time of the nightclub shooting, authorities had issued a warrant for Escamilla's arrest in Torres' slaying.
James and another officer ran to help Escamilla, a known gang member, to keep other men from attacking him. Escamilla shot James in the arm and hit the other officer.
Then Escamilla shot James three times in the head.
Before his death penalty trial, Escamilla told his defense attorney that he was also the gunman at Gauna's graduation party, but because of attorney-client privilege, the attorney didn't tell anyone. Escamilla famously threw a water pitcher at the jury after he was sentenced to death.
The condemned man again confessed to killing Gauna before he was executed in 2015. Escamilla also waived his attorney-client privilege before his execution, allowing his former defense attorneys to share what he told them.
That's when attorneys in the Dallas County District Attorney's Office took on the case and interviewed witnesses to corroborate Escamilla's story and prove Alonzo's innocence.
If he hadn't been declared innocent, Alonzo wouldn't have even been eligible for parole until 2031. The case will now be sent to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals for Alonzo to be officially exonerated.
Before Alonzo walked from the courtroom, Dallas County District Attorney Faith Johnson apologized to him for the time he spent in prison.
"I don't want any person, not one person, to spend a day in jail when they're really innocent," she said later.
