Campos

ORDER GRANTING PETITION FOR A WRIT OF HABEAS CORPUS

I. INTRODUCTION

The habeas petitioner in this case, Primitivo Campos, was convicted in state court of molesting a child at the day care his wife ran in their home. Aside from the child victim’s testimony (which suffered from inconsistencies, was at times controverted by third party witnesses, and may have been influenced by a similar allegation her friend had recently made against a different person), the only evidence against Campos was an incriminating series of statements that investigators extracted from him during a custodial interrogation. The investigators, in their attempt to get Campos to confess, performed fake fingerprint and DNA tests on him. They insisted repeatedly and forcefully, but falsely, that the fake tests demonstrated to a certainty that Campos had touched the child’s genitals. When Campos continued trying to deny ever touching the child’s genitals or molesting her in any way, the investigators repeatedly interrupted him and insisted that this could not possibly be the truth in light of the fingerprint and DNA evidence. They yelled “no, no, no!”, insisted their evidence “doesn’t lie,” and said things like:…