Santiago Ventura Morales

In 1986, Morales was accused of murdering a 19-year-old migrant farm worker in an Oregon strawberry field after a fight.^[1] Ramiro Lopez Fidel was found dead on July 14, 1986, from a stabbing in Sandy, Oregon.^[2] Morales was arrested and put on trial in September. He was convicted on October 2, 1986, and sentenced to ten-years to life in prison after a trial in which he was provided a Spanish interpreter, despite the fact that as a Mixtec, Spanish was not his native language.^[2] He maintained his innocence and several jurors later had second thoughts about the conviction and began advocating that he be released from prison.^[2] Morales repeatedly appealed after the conviction, but these appeals were denied, with future Oregon Supreme Court justice Virginia Linder opposing the appeals for the state of Oregon.^[3][4] However, the lack of an appropriate interpreter and other deficiencies in his trial led to his conviction being overturned when it was shown that a different person was responsible for the murder.^[5]

While in prison he learned English and hoped to become a lawyer. The reinvestigation drew intense media attention locally and nationally.^[1][6] Paul De Muniz, who became Oregon Supreme Court Chief Justice in 2001 and retired in 2013, was Morales’ primary defense attorney on the successful appeal.^[1][6] On January 9, 1991, Santiago Ventura Morales was released from prison, and all charges were dropped in May.^[2] Oregon governor Neil Goldschmidt had offered a conditional pardon for Morales after the conviction was overturned in case Oregon Attorney General Dave Frohnmayer appealed the decision that overturned the conviction.^[7] In 1995, the state of Oregon passed a law that requires testing and certification of court interpreters as a result of the Morales case.^[8]

After his release, but while waiting for the charges to be dropped, he enrolled at Portland State University in Portland, Oregon.^[6] Morales briefly returned to Mexico before moving back to Portland, where he accepted a scholarship to the University of Portland.^[2] While imprisoned he had earned his GED and taken some college level classes, which along with the injustice led to the school offering him a full-ride scholarship to the Catholic university.^[9] He graduated in May 1996 from the school with a bachelor's degree in social work and a minor in political science.^[9] The legal injustice to Morales led the Oregon Supreme Court to adopt changes in the way language issues are dealt with to avoid future problems.^[5] Morales would work in Oregon briefly before returning to Mexico. He later worked for the California Rural Legal Assistance in Fresno, California,^[2] before returning to Oregon to work at the Oregon Law Center.^[10]