We like to think this can't happen ...

but a death penalty case not getting the wide attention it deserves shows it still can.

Vicente Benavides Figueroa, a 68 year old former farmworker, has been warehoused on California's death row for 24 years. He was convicted in Kern County in 1993 of sodomizing and murdering a 21-month old child when his girl friend left him in charge of the little girl. The California Supreme Court just ruled that the evidence that that child had been molested was simply not true.

"The evidence now shown to be false was extensive, pervasive and impactful," Justice Carol A. Corrigan wrote for the court.

The jury in the case was told that the child's body showed damage to her anus.

Medical experts now attribute her injuries to repeated and failed efforts to insert an adult-sized catheter into her, rectal temperature taking, a paralytic medication and physical examination.

Nurse Anita Caraan Wafford, who helped treat Consuelo at the first hospital, declared that no one there noted any anal or vaginal trauma.

Dr. William A. Kennedy II, an expert in pediatric urology, said he believed "to a high degree of medical certainty" that Consuelo had not suffered anal or vaginal penetration.

The court could have reduced Benavides' conviction to second degree murder -- something killed the child on his watch -- but instead sent him back to Kern County for retrial.