A man imprisoned for 20 years following false accusations of murder is now free thanks to the efforts of a Shearman & Sterling pro bono litigation team and the Legal Aid Society. The team’s work on behalf of the client, Carlos Morillo, was recently featured in a Wall Street Journal article, which described Shearman & Sterling’s critical role in helping Morillo successfully overturn his conviction for a 1991 murder.

Both Morillo and a co-defendant were convicted of the fatal shooting of a man in the Bronx. In 2006, Morillo’s co-defendant was freed after his attorneys produced evidence demonstrating that he was in the Dominican Republic at the time of the crime. Following the co-defendant’s release, the Legal Aid Society asked Shearman & Sterling to take on Morillo’s case.

At trial, the prosecution’s case had rested entirely on the testimony of one woman who claimed to have witnessed the crime from a fourth-floor apartment window. While her testimony was rife with inconsistencies and no physical evidence corroborated her story, a Bronx jury convicted, and Morillo was sentenced to 25 years-to-life.

Once the Shearman & Sterling team, including partner Brian Polovoy and associates Michael Haidas and Melissa Godwin, took on Morillo’s case, they began investigations on several distinct fronts. Ultimately, the team’s hard work paid off. When the purported eyewitness was tracked down, she confessed that she had not, in fact, seen the crime take place. The team also located an actual eyewitness to the crime—the purported witness’s son—who was 14 years old at the time of the murder, had seen the perpetrators just feet away from him, and recalled the shooters’ faces in sufficient detail to confirm that Morillo was not one of the men that he had seen that night. Finally, the team collected additional evidence calling into question the actions of the detective who worked on the case.

Over the course of a seven-day hearing, Shearman & Sterling and the Legal Aid Society, through the testimony of 10 witnesses, demonstrated that Morillo had been falsely identified, with the original “eyewitness” taking the stand to recant her trial testimony and make a heartfelt plea to Morillo for forgiveness.

“The day that the recanting witness took the stand was an incredible day of testimony,” said associate Melissa Godwin. “In her opinion vacating the conviction, Judge Clancy described the recanting witness’s testimony as ‘chilling’ and ‘moving,’ but even those words don’t fully convey how powerful it was.”

Godwin continued, “In a courtroom packed with observers, the weight of the testimony was suffocating—looking around the room as the witness begged our client for forgiveness, it became clear to everyone there that our client had lost 20 years of his life for no good reason at all, and many, many people were crying.”

Justice Clancy vacated Morillo’s conviction and he walked out of prison on November 9, 2011.

Morillo, who was 29 at the time of his conviction, was only recently reunited with the son he had not seen in almost 20 years, and a grandson he had never met. The Wall Street Journal article, which focuses on the challenges facing Morillo as he adjusts to life outside of prison, reports on the firm’s role in reuniting Morillo with his son, who was an infant at the time of his conviction. Shearman & Sterling and the Legal Aid Society team helped locate the son’s mother after a long search.

“Obtaining justice for Mr. Morillo took years of dedicated effort by our team,” said Brian Polovoy. “I’m particularly proud of the associates who devoted so much time and skill to seeing that our client’s name was cleared. This case is yet another example of why we are so pleased to be partnering with the Legal Aid Society to help New Yorkers obtain valuable—and often life-changing—legal services.”

Michael Haidas, who began work on this case as a first-year litigation associate, joined the Legal Aid Society in 2009 as part of the firm’s External Development Program, and is now a staff attorney with Legal Aid. The other members of the Shearman & Sterling team included New York litigation associates Jennifer Rimm and Edward Timlin.