Sister Janet Harris swore she would never do it again.
Three decades ago, her dogged gumshoe work helped win a retrial and an acquittal for a young gangbanger convicted of attempted murder during a supermarket heist. Harris' efforts took almost two years and left her emotionally drained.
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Friday October 28, 2005 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 2 National Desk 1 inches; 42 words Type of Material: Correction
Cathedral High School -- An article in Wednesday's Section A about a man convicted of murdering a Cathedral High School student nine years ago said the school was in Monterey Hills. The school is near downtown Los Angeles, just north of Chinatown.
But when Harris learned the details of the case of Mario Rocha, a 16-year-old Highland Park youth convicted of murder and attempted murder, she couldn't help but launch into amateur detective mode once again.
"Well, God has boxed me in," Harris remembered thinking. "He said that even if I fail, I have no choice."
For nine years, the dedication, zeal and self-acknowledged pestering of the 75-year-old Roman Catholic nun have spurred a campaign to free Rocha. The case has galvanized members of California's Catholic community, prompted filmmakers to make a documentary on juvenile justice, and attracted the pro bono commitment of the high-powered law firm Latham and Watkins.
Petitions filed by the firm have persuaded an appeals court to hear new oral arguments in Rocha's case. A hearing is scheduled for today.
Harris was drawn to the case by creative writing assignments Rocha completed in a juvenile hall where she worked as chaplain. She met Rocha not long after the events of Feb. 16, 1996.
That night in Highland Park, a fight erupted after some gang members crashed a party, witnesses told police. Fisticuffs exploded into gunshots. A bullet struck Martin Aceves, 17, in the chest. Witnesses testified that he had been trying to break up the brawl.
Aceves was an honors student at Cathedral High School in Monterey Hills who had just been accepted to Cal State Northridge.
Friends and school officials remember Aceves as an outgoing sports enthusiast who kept stats for the basketball team and dreamed of becoming a sportscaster. School officials said he left behind a son, born five months after his death.
"It was a monumental loss for the school," said Oscar Leong, Cathedral's director of admissions and development. "Everybody loved this kid. Everybody knew who Martin was."
Another partygoer, Anthony John Moscato, then 20, was shot in the hand as he tried to flee.
A few days later, police broke down the door to the Rocha family's Highland Park apartment. They pulled out Virginia Rocha and arrested her sons Mario and Danny. Eventually, Danny was released, but Mario, who had attended the party with his brother, was charged with murder.
"I didn't know what to do," Virginia Rocha recalled. "I was crazy. We thought [Mario] was going to come, because I knew he was innocent."
At juvenile hall, Rocha was selected at random for the writing class Harris had started. As she watched from the back of the classroom and listened to the young men read their work, Rocha stood out.
"He had a kind of quietness and calmness and maturity about him that resonated with others and they respected," Harris said. She remembered how one boy said his aim was to "model myself after Mario."
Rocha was polite, nonconfrontational and, surprising for juvenile hall, deferential to authority, she said. He was the youngest of three sons to Mexican immigrants, a factory worker father and janitor mother.
Virginia Rocha said her son had always been a good student and a well-behaved boy.
"He was always with me," she recalled. "He was never in trouble."
Rocha, who is being held at the state prison at Calipatria, could not be reached for an interview.
His writing blossomed while awaiting trial, his supporters say. He wrote essays about violence, street gangs and wasted lives; poetry about poverty, loneliness and love.
"I gained a feeling that reminded me of when I used to paint and draw with my mother as a child," Rocha wrote. "It was a feeling of freedom, controlling the art's destiny -- a free will to produce what my spirit desired."
Harris didn't worry about a conviction. She had worked with young offenders for three decades and thought she knew the type well. In her role as chaplain, she met with Rocha and others every Sunday. He just didn't strike her as a killer, and she thought the jury would see that, too.
What few details she knew of the case didn't seem strong enough for a conviction. She didn't even write the court on Rocha's behalf or attend the trial. "That's how confident I was," Harris said.
The jurors heard witnesses who placed Rocha at the scene and described how he aimed and fired a gun. They also listened as the prosecutor painted Rocha as a gang thug.
Rocha, a first-time offender, was convicted and was sentenced to 29 years to life for the attempted murder of Moscato and 35 years to life for the murder of Aceves. Anthony Guzman and Raymond Rivera, Highland Park gang members in their 20s, were also convicted of the crimes.
