Bruce Lisker is an American man who at age 17 was wrongly arrested, tried, and convicted for the March 10, 1983 murder of his adoptive mother Dorka, 66, in the family's

Sherman Oaks Sherman Oaks (founded in 1927) is a neighborhood of the city of Los Angeles, California within the San Fernando Valley region. The neighborhood includes a portion of the Santa Monica Mountains, which gives Sherman Oaks a lower population densit ...

residence. Lisker served 26 years, 5 months, and 3 days of a 16-years-to-life sentence in California prisons including the California Youth Authority (now the

California Division of Juvenile Justice The California Division of Juvenile Justice (DJJ), previously known as the California Youth Authority (CYA), was a division of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation that provided education, training, and treatment services ...

; 1986–87),

San Quentin State Prison San Quentin Rehabilitation Center (SQ), formerly known as San Quentin State Prison, is a California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation state prison for men, located north of San Francisco in the unincorporated area, unincorporated place ...

(1987-89), and Mule Creek State Prison (1989-2009). His conviction was overturned in a 2009 ruling by

United States district court The United States district courts are the trial courts of the United States federal judiciary, U.S. federal judiciary. There is one district court for each United States federal judicial district, federal judicial district. Each district cov ...

judge Virginia A. Phillips, in which she found that his 1985 murder conviction was obtained through the use of

false evidence False evidence, fabricated evidence, forged evidence, fake evidence or tainted evidence is information created or obtained illegally in order to sway the verdict in a court case. Falsified Evidence (law), evidence could be created by either sid ...

and

ineffective assistance of counsel In United States law, ineffective assistance of counsel (IAC) is a claim raised by a convicted criminal defendant asserting that the defendant's legal counsel performed so ineffectively that it deprived the defendant of the constitutional right gu ...

. Lisker was freed on August 13, 2009. On September 21, 2009, the

Los Angeles County District Attorney The District Attorney of Los Angeles County is in charge of the office that prosecutor, prosecutes felony and misdemeanor crimes that occur within Los Angeles County, California, United States. The current district attorney (DA) is Nathan Hochma ...

(LADA) dropped all charges in the matter due to lack of evidence.

Compensation

On October 15, 2015, a settlement was reached in a lawsuit Lisker filed against the

City of Los Angeles Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Southern California. With an estimated 3,878,704 residents within the city ...

in which he accused police detectives of fabricating the evidence that put him behind bars. Lisker was awarded $7.6 million in compensation. Confidential memos from the City Attorney to the L.A. City Council, obtained by the ''

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' is an American Newspaper#Daily, daily newspaper that began publishing in Los Angeles, California, in 1881. Based in the Greater Los Angeles city of El Segundo, California, El Segundo since 2018, it is the List of new ...

'', called Lisker's case "extremely dangerous" for the city should it have gone to trial, declaring that the potential results of such a trial could be "financially devastating" to the city.

Publicity

Lisker's case has been featured in numerous ''

'' articles, the first of which earned its authors, investigative reporters Matt Lait and Scott Glover, the prestigious

Heywood Broun Heywood Campbell Broun Jr. (; December 7, 1888 – December 18, 1939) was an American journalist. He worked as a sportswriter, newspaper columnist, and editor in New York City. He founded the American Newspaper Guild, later known as The Newspape ...

award on behalf of the ''Times''. The case was also featured in an hour-long episode of the

CBS News CBS News is the news division of the American television and radio broadcaster CBS. It is headquartered in New York City. CBS News television programs include ''CBS Evening News'', ''CBS Mornings'', news magazine programs ''CBS News Sunday Morn ...

television program '' 48 Hours Mysteries'', entitled "The Whole Truth" (2010) hosted by correspondent Erin Moriarty, as well as the documentary film '' Survivors Guide to Prison'' (2018). His time spent in the California Youth Authority is documented in an interview wit
Gladiator School, Stories from Inside YTS
His case was dramatized in the CBS All Access series ''

Interrogation Interrogation (also called questioning) is interviewing as commonly employed by law enforcement officers, military personnel, intelligence agencies, organized crime syndicates, and terrorist organizations with the goal of eliciting useful informa ...

''.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lisker, Bruce Living people 1965 births People from Van Nuys, Los Angeles American people wrongfully convicted of murder