His Murder Case Dragged On for 20 Years. Thousands Could Be Released Because of It.

MEXICO CITY—Daniel García saw hundreds of men cycle through Dormitory 2, Cell 6 of the Barrientos State Prison. But after nearly two decades behind bars, his trial dragged on. 

Seventeen years after his arrest for murder, García was eventually released in 2019, still without a verdict, wearing an ankle monitor to ensure he didn’t leave his home in the State of Mexico as his case moved forward at a snail’s pace. 

On the outside, the most pedestrian things about Mexico surprised him. Newspaper stands on every corner were no longer a thing, everybody carried smartphones in their hands, and sex shops had sprung up, to his shock. He heard applause for the first time since his arrest. His children—aged 12, 15, and 18 when he was arrested—had become adults with their own families.

García’s case underscores what critics say is one of the worst flaws in Mexico’s justice system: the prolonged detention of thousands of people behind bars, many of them innocent. As of June, a stunning 40.8 percent of Mexico’s prison population—92,595 people of 226,917 total—hadn’t been convicted, according to the Secretary of Security. In the U.S., which has the largest prison population in the world, around 20 percent of inmates are in pretrial detention.

But a series of court challenges seems poised to change the pretrial detention process in Mexico, fueled by media attention of García’s case and international pressure. In doing so, they could upend what left-learning President Andrés Manuel López Obrador says is a pillar of his security strategy—the Constitutional right of the government to automatically imprison people accused of serious crimes. 

Since taking office in December 2018, López Obrador has increased the number of offenses that trigger automatic detention to include crimes such as femicide to gasoline theft. 

The Inter-American Court on Human Rights is expected to rule by year’s end on whether Mexican authorities tortured Garcia and his co-defendant, Reyes Alpízar Ortiz, and arbitrarily imprisoned them. It’s feasible the court could order Mexico to modify its Constitution based on a violation of human rights. Mexico’s Supreme Court has also agreed to hear two cases on the topic, and could rule as early as next week on whether the practice violates the American Convention on Human Rights. 

“It’s a virtuous fight for me. It’s like they are fighting to be the first to remove this shameful clause from our Constitution,” said Luis Tapia, a human rights lawyer based in Washington, D.C., adding that automatic imprisonment “violates the right to liberty and the presumption of innocence.”

Should the high court eliminate the practice, a judge could still decide, as they do with lesser crimes, whether a defendant should remain behind bars based on factors like their criminal history and flight risk.

García, 57, is closely watching the debate play out from the home he shares with his wife and dog.

In 2021, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights—which brings cases to the Inter-American court—found that García and Alpízar had been physically and psychologically tortured, and that a judge refused to let them present evidence that could prove their innocence. It recommended that Mexico pay compensation to the men for the torture and injustices inflicted on them.

Instead, a judge convicted them in May—20 years after their arrest on murder charges, while they were living on supervised release—and sentenced them to 35 years in prison. The sentence has been suspended until an appeals court reviews the decision, said their lawyer, Simón Hernández.

It is one more chapter in a dystopian odyssey that began in 2002, five months after the assasination of María de los Ángeles Tamés, a council member in Atizapán de Zaragoza, about an hour’s drive outside of Mexico City. García, who worked as the mayor’s secretary, was arrested and accused of ordering the council member’s murder.

A local prosecutor told García to sign declarations implicating the mayor and others, or else his family would suffer, García told VICE World News. Garcia refused, but in the following months, his father, brother and cousin were arrested and accused of being co-conspirators. With every arrest, the prosecutor arrived and asked, “Are you going to finally sign?,” García recalled. He eventually relented. His relatives were released and never charged.

Six months after García’s arrest, police accused Alpízar, a local artisan, of helping carry out the murder. Alpízar signed a confession, as well as statements incriminating others. Among them was one that said García paid $300,000 pesos, around $15,000 dollars, to have the council member assassinated. But Alpízar later recanted, and testified that police tortured him into signing the statements. 

Authorities eventually dropped charges against the mayor who allegedly helped mastermind the killing. But García and Alpízar’s trial lingered as judges came and went—13 in all. The government blamed the delay on the multiple defense motions filed by their team.

In the years since García’s arrest, the Mexican Supreme Court limited automatic pretrial detention to two years. López Obrador, Mexico’s president, argues that eliminating it entirely would hinder efforts to combat corruption and impunity in a country where more than 90 percent of violent crimes go unpunished.

García disagrees. “It affects people who are the neediest, the poorest, the most vulnerable,” he said. “A judge should decide whether people stay in prison or not.”

He said when he completes his sentence, or it’s overturned, he wants to go to the theater in Mexico City. And he dreams of working on a farm raising cattle, like he did as a young man.

“They left me with absolutely nothing.”