Essentially the most gratifying reminiscences from Juan Catalan childhood concerned shifting into a budget seats to look at one of the best of the sport contest. It’s a convention he took into his grownup years.
On Could 12, 2003, a 24-year-old Juan watched his beloved Los Angeles Dodgers lose to the Atlanta Braves 11-4 along with his six-year-old daughter, Melissa.
It was a sport that may find yourself defending his life. Three months later, Juan was accused of the homicide of 16-year-old Martha Puebla. Puebla had not too long ago claimed at a preliminary listening to a few gang homicide wherein Juan’s brother Mario had been charged as an confederate.
How It Began
On Could 12, 2003, 16-year-old Martha Puebla was shot to demise outdoors her home in Solar Valley, CA. Solely days earlier than her homicide, she had testified in opposition to younger Mario Catalan involving a gang slaying wherein Mario was charged as an adjunct.
Twenty miles away, Mario’s brother Juan was at Dodger Stadium along with his six-year-old daughter, watching his beloved Dodgers play the Atlanta Braves.
Since an eyewitness acknowledged Juan because the shooter and Juan had a prison file from his teenagers. Juan Catalan was dedicated in Grand Theft Auto, pressured by his older brother, for which he was caught and marked with a prison file that may later worsen his state of affairs, however that he was in a position to do away with due to a tape that positioned him in Dodger Stadium, in a jersey of then-pitcher Kevin Brown.
Police caught him and charged him with homicide. The police believed Juan – who had been within the courtroom on the time – had killed Puebla in revenge. Including perception to their case, an eyewitness stated they’d seen Juan pull the set off within the execution-style homicide.
Juan, after all, had an alibi. He was on the stadium with Melissa watching the Dodgers play the Braves on the time. However the police didn’t imagine him.
The prosecutor – who had by no means misplaced a case – was pushing for the demise penalty, and it regarded like Juan may die for against the law he didn’t commit.
“For the reason that day I used to be arrested, I simply felt like I used to be being framed,” Juan advised 60 Minutes Liam Bartlett in September this yr.
He spent almost six months in jail protesting his innocence whereas staring down the demise penalty.
It wasn’t till Juan’s decided lawyer was analyzing hours of tapes and noticed Juan within the crowd in the course of the Dodgers sport based mostly on outtakes from Larry David’s HBO collection Curb Your Enthusiasm that the DA was pressured to drop the homicide expenses and award him a settlement of $320,000.
Six Months of Torture for Juan Catalan
Juan Catalan turned a fan of the Dodgers. When he was very younger, his uncle took him to Dodger Stadium to look at the legendary Mexican pitcher Fernando Valenzuela pitch a sport.
And when he was eighteen, he caught a home-run ball because it sailed into the stands.
However being arrested for homicide months after the slaying—and being threatened with both dying in jail or through capital punishment—was a dwelling nightmare for a person who insisted he was at Dodger Stadium watching his favourite sports activities staff when the homicide occurred.
After his launch, he described to a reporter the psychological torture of being innocently jailed for homicide:
“I felt like I didn’t sleep for six months as a result of there was simply so many, a lot happening….l imply, I’d by no means seen so many individuals simply, you understand, crushed, you understand? While you hear a grown man, you understand, cry for assist, and also you’re like, helpless, it’s a sense like, man, simply of full…no hope.”
He additional stated: There’s like, in there, it’s similar to, you understand, that’s speculated to rehabilitate an individual? No. Not in my thoughts. That simply destroys an individual in there….My thought was, ‘Am I gonna die in right here?’…We’re introduced as much as assume that, you understand, the policemen are there to guard us, so simply understanding that they’re doing one thing that they shouldn’t, that adjustments every part.”
Todd Melnik defended Juan Catalan within the Courtroom
Juan had discovered from different inmates a few “badass” protection lawyer named Todd Melnik, and Juan frantically referred to as him, begging him to tackle his case.
Melnik agreed, and it could be the beginning of a lifelong emotional friendship between the 2. Regardless of the eyewitness and the alleged motive of taking revenge in opposition to somebody who had testified in opposition to his brother, Melnik believed Juan when he insisted he was harmless.
After a few months with Juan in jail, his girlfriend reminded him he had been on the Dodger sport that night time along with his daughter. She was even keen to supply the ticket stubs, and Juan was able to take a lie-detector take a look at, however prosecutors refused. Based on Melnik:
I advised him. “‘I’m gonna get you outta right here.’… I gotta discover the Holy Grail of Juan’s protection. I would like to position my shopper at Dodger Stadium on that night time. Juan remembered they may have been filming one thing there that day….We have been in for an unlimited combat. They prosecutor they’d assigned to the case had by no means misplaced. She favored to select off individuals with the demise penalty. I checked out tape after tape.”
Ultimately, Catalan, who had handed by way of a filming session on the fateful sport along with his younger daughter Melissa, found that it had been Larry David and HBO filming there.
He didn’t acknowledge the title of the present—and later confessed that on the time, he’d by no means heard of Curb Your Enthusiasm—however he did keep in mind listening to that Tremendous Dave Osborne, whose actual title is Bob Einstein and performed the character Marty Funkhouser on Curb, was one way or the other concerned within the filming.
By unbelievable luck, the plot of that “Curb Your Enthusiasm” episode revolved round David misusing the carpool lane with the intention to get to the sport extra shortly.
Melnik, who had pored over numerous hours of stadium surveillance footage however couldn’t discover something clear sufficient to determine Juan, contacted HBO and requested if he might evaluate their outtakes for the present. They agreed.
Based on Curb creator and star Larry David:
“The episode was that I picked up a hooker within the carpool lane and took her to Dodger Stadium….We shot in two sections in Dodger Stadium….[Letting them review the tapes] sounded very cool as a result of my life is so missing in something fascinating….It did appear to be sort of a lame story, however I advised the lawyer, ‘Go forward, go loopy. Have a look at something you need.’ And we hooked him up with every part from the stadium, all of the footage we shot that night time…. I’m there for possibly 5 minutes, and the lawyer screams out, ‘There he’s!’…We couldn’t imagine it. We rewound the tape, and simply as I’m strolling up the aisle in a single shot, this man is sitting proper there. After which there was one other shot the place he was standing up.”
Nonetheless, the prosecutor wouldn’t budge because the tapes have been time-stamped and situated Juan on the stadium round 9 PM, and the homicide didn’t happen till round 10:30. She argued that Juan had loads of time to go away the stadium and drive the 20 miles to commit the slaying.
However lastly, Melnik was in a position to find a telephone name between Juan and his girlfriend that pinged proper close to Dodger Stadium when it could have been bodily unattainable for Juan to achieve the crime scene in time to commit the homicide.
Upon listening to all of the proof, the decide dismissed all the fees, and Juan was a free man.
Compensation did Juan Catalan Obtain.
Juan filed a lawsuit in opposition to the Metropolis of Los Angeles for police misconduct Catalan would ultimately obtain $320,000 for the wrongful accusation. Each Juan Rodríguez and Martín Pinner admitted that they tried to coerce a false confession out of Catalan.
Though it later was revealed that the 2 police who investigated Juan and named him because the shooter had framed him—and that amazingly, considered one of them remains to be employed as a cop—Juan says he forgives them:
You recognize, hate is, nobody ought to stroll round with hate in them. That’s poison in our our bodies that, you understand, it doesn’t damage the particular person you hate, it hurts your self, and it eats away at your soul.
Documentary on Netflix
A loyal follower of the Los Angeles Dodgers, he knew that his staff’s nearer in that long-ago 2003 season, Canadian Eric Gagne, hardly missed the diamond.
Nonetheless, on the night time of Could 12, the pitcher was a catastrophe, and the lifetime of a person of Hispanic origin would change radically.
A couple of years after the settlement, Netflix produced a brief documentary about Juan’s case titled Lengthy ShotThe documentary ‘Lengthy Shot,’ obtainable on Netflix, tells the story of Juan Ignacio Catalan, a person with a hard life throughout his youth, who, as a result of he was with the fallacious individuals, at a foul time, was about to be sentenced to demise, had it not been for that sport that the Los Angeles Dodgers misplaced 11-4 to the Atlanta Braves and an inexpensive comedy shoot.
Netflix documentary notes that if Juan had merely gone dwelling that night time and hadn’t watched the sport and been filmed by HBO, he could be on Dying Row proper now.
