Gordon Cordeiro, who spent more than half his life in prison for a murder he denied committing, walked out of a Maui correctional center on what he called “Freedom Friday” thanks to new DNA evidence.
Hours after a judge ruled that the outcome of another potential murder trial against him would likely be altered by the new evidence, Cordeiro was met with cheers, hugs and Hawaiian lei greetings when he emerged from the correctional facility.
“I thank all these people,” he said, referring to relatives, friends and members of his legal team who greeted him outside, according to video from CNN affiliate KHNL. “These are the people that got me out. Without them, I wouldn’t have made it.”
Cordeiro, now 51, was in his 20s when he was convicted of the 1994 murder of Timothy Blaisdell during a drug deal robbery in Maui, according to the Hawaii Innocence Project, which took up his case and argued that new evidence – including DNA test results – showed he was not at the crime scene at the time of the murder. Project lawyers also pointed to what they said was false testimony against him and misconduct by prosecutors.
On Friday, Circuit Court Judge Kirstin Hamman in Maui vacated Cordeiro’s murder and robbery convictions and his sentence of life without parole, according to KHNL and The Associated Press. Cordeiro, sitting in court in a prison jumpsuit, wiped away tears as the ruling was delivered.
His father, Dennis Cordeiro, fighting back tears, told KHNL he felt relief, joy and happiness “that my son can finally do some family celebrations before I leave this world.”
Cordeiro’s first trial ended in a hung jury, with a single juror voting to convict, according to the Innocence Project. At a second trial, with the testimony of jailhouse informants looking to lessen their own sentences, prosecutors secured a conviction, Cordeiro’s legal team said.
“This is a case that when you hear the facts of the case, you know somewhere deep in your heart there’s been some fundamental unfairness going on,” Kenneth Lawson, co-director of the Hawaii Innocence Project, told reporters after Friday’s ruling.
The Innocence Project said on its website that “additional DNA testing on multiple items from the crime scene” was conducted, and that new evidence showed Cordeiro was “not present anywhere at the crime scene.” It also obtained and compared DNA samples from potential suspects to DNA at the scene, the site said.
In a court document filed last May in support of the petition to vacate the judgment, attorneys wrote that post-conviction DNA tests “on multiple key pieces of physical evidence have all excluded Cordeiro as the source of the DNA on Blaisdell’s body and other critical crime scene evidence.”
The court filing said modern DNA tests showed “there was an unknown person or persons who went into Blaisdell’s pant pockets after he was murdered.”
Maui prosecutors could still refile charges against Cordeiro. Robert Rost, a deputy prosecuting attorney, told KHNL that while DNA evidence could be compelling in a decades-old cold case, he doesn’t believe Cordeiro’s lawyers “met the standard to have this conviction set aside.”
Gina Gormley, an attorney for Cordeiro, said: “If they really sat down and took the time to look at evidence that came out, they should not re-try this case.”
In a court filing, the Hawaii Innocence Project accused the state of relying on “incentivized jailhouse informants and their fabricated evidence and testimony” about murder-for-hire plots – claims the judge rejected, according to The Associated Press.
Cordeiro’s lawyers maintain that on the day of the crime, he was building a shelving unit in the garage at his parents’ house. The alibi, they said, was backed up by friends and others who saw him in the garage as well as receipts from where he purchased the shelving supplies.
Cordeiro’s legal team believes that another suspect, who the AP reported died in 2020, set up the victim to be robbed during a marijuana deal that ended in a fatal shooting.
