Judge frees man awaiting retrial - evidence gone S.F. COURTS

A man whose conviction in a 1990 drug-related killing in San Francisco was set aside after he had served 21 years behind bars was ordered freed Friday after prosecutors learned that evidence in the case had been destroyed.

The release of Maurice Caldwell, 43, was set in motion in December when Superior Court Judge Charles Haines overturned Caldwell's conviction in the shooting death of a man named Judy Acosta. Prosecutors said Acosta was shot over a drug deal gone bad at San Francisco's Alemany public housing project.

Caldwell was serving a sentence of 27 years to life at Folsom State Prison and appeared to have exhausted his legal appeals, until the Northern California Innocence Project, a group of legal advocates based at Santa Clara University, argued that he had been represented by ineffective counsel at his trial.

Haines agreed and ordered a new trial.

Caldwell's conviction had hinged on the testimony of a single witness, Mary Cobb, who identified him as one of two gunmen who killed Acosta.

The innocence project noted that Cobb had originally told police that she didn't know who the killer was. Cobb died of cancer in 1998, and prosecutors hoped they could present her testimony in transcript form at a new trial.

Recently, however, they learned that the exhibits from Caldwell's 1993 trial - including 10 crime scene photos and diagrams that prosecutors showed Cobb during her testimony - had been destroyed around 1995.

Prosecutors sought to use other evidence in lieu of those exhibits, but Haines ruled that Cobb's notes and marks on the now-destroyed exhibits were needed to assure Caldwell a fair trial.

"Because of the court's ruling, the people have no further evidence," prosecutor Eric Fleming told the judge Friday.

As Acosta's family watched, Haines explained that he felt "compelled" to make his ruling. He acknowledged that the jury at Caldwell's trial had believed Cobb, who testified that Caldwell had threatened her if she testified.

"The jury heard Mr. Caldwell's case; the jury believed she told the truth beyond a reasonable doubt," the judge said, adding that he believed she was a "decent, moral person."

However, Haines said of Caldwell, "this court has no reason to hold him."

Caldwell's lawyer, Steve Olmo, declined to comment.

In a statement issued through the innocence project, Caldwell said, "All the things I dreamed about when I was young, I can now bring to life. I can't find a way to say what this means to me and what (the innocence project) means to me. I'm just sorry my mother isn't here to see this day finally come."

Raelyn Acosta, the victim's cousin, said the family was still convinced Caldwell was guilty.

"There is a person missing," she said of Judy Acosta. "He would still be here but for this man - 21 years is not enough."