Franky Carrillo is running for Congress

In 2011, Franky Carrillo won release from prison after 20 years in prison where he had been serving a life sentence for a crime he didn't commit. From ages 16 to 37, the state locked him up.

Los Angeles cops needed someone to charge for a drive-by murder in the suburb of Lynwood. Suspecting Franky, they showed other boys in his friendship set a photo of him until one fingered him for the shooting -- and the "witness" then persuaded the other boys present to go along. Carrillo protested his innocence. It took two trials, but eventually the police got to notch a win and Franky was sent away.

The Northern California Innocence Project took up Carrillo's case. The wheels of justice ground slowly, but ...

The conviction was overturned after the six eyewitnesses all admitted that they did not really see anything and had been influenced to identify Carrillo. In addition, two other men confessed to the shooting and said that Carrillo was not involved.

Carrillo has always been a person who worked to improve himself and to give back to other victims of injustice. After prison, he completed college studies and formed a family. I met him when he appeared in the only TV ad we could afford to run on behalf of the 2012 initiative campaign to end the California death penalty. The guy was a natural and he had a story of legalized miscarriage of justice to tell. Too bad we couldn't afford enough TV to get the message out further. (We lost that round narrowly, but probably separated elite opinion in the state from capital punishment and made room for Governor Newsom's subsequent blanket repudiation of the practice.)

Now Franky aims to win a seat in Congress. CD-27 is one of the few truly swingy seats in the state. He explains that he knows in his bones that ..

there are people who abuse their power and benefit from the system. I fought a rigged system and won my freedom.... Now, I’m running for Congress to reform the rigged systems that leave working Californians behind.

I don't know if Carrillo can defeat the incumbent, Republican Mike Garcia. I don't even know if Carrillo can emerge from the primary as the Democratic standard bearer. A lot of Dems are going to want to challenge Garcia.

But I sure love the idea of someone who knows the injustices in the system so viscerally sitting in the House of Representatives in DC.