Bruce Lisker is a 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 is a neighborhood in the city of Los Angeles, California located in the San Fernando Valley, founded in 1927. The neighborhood includes a portion of the Santa Monica Mountains, which gives Sherman Oaks a lower population density than ...

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), is a division of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation that provides education, training, and treatment services fo ...

; 1986–87), San Quentin State Prison (1987-89), and

Mule Creek State Prison Mule Creek State Prison (MCSP) is a California State Prison for men. It was opened in June 1987, and covers located in Ione, California. The prison has a staff of 1,242 and an annual operating budget of $157 million. As of July 31, 2022, MCS ...

(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 U.S. federal judiciary. There is one district court for each federal judicial district, which each cover one U.S. state or, in some cases, a portion of a state. Each district co ...

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 could be created by either side in a case (in ...

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 gua ...

. Lisker was freed on August 13, 2009. On September 21, 2009, the Los Angeles County District Attorney (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 ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...

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'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the U ...

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

References

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