Recently, Ramirez got a tattoo regarding the Lady that is blindfolded of on her behalf shoulder combined with the date of her exoneration.

Cassandra Rivera

After hitting theaters from jail, Rivera stressed about getting task being a convicted intercourse offender and felon. She had her son, now inside the twenties that are early simply just take her around city trying to find work. She got fortunate as soon as the supervisor regarding the Wash Tub, automobile clean chain in San Antonio, learned all about her instance and stated he’d be proud to employ her just fourteen days after her launch. At that work, she met Tiffany Hurtado, another manager during the Wash Tub, and felt some shared attraction. Ultimately, Hurtado asked her down, plus the two hitched in 2016 december.

Rivera left The Wash Tub and ended up being trying to puzzle out her next move. Neighborhood attorney Rosie Gonzalez required aid in her workplace. She had become friendly aided by the San Antonio Four after assisting with regards to instance and reached off to Rivera, seeking assistance distributing your message. Rivera decided she desired to use the part.

Rivera joined up with any office final summer time, where she helps run what the law states company and Gonzalez’s campaign. Rivera didn’t understand whom Gonzalez ended up being whenever she ended up being locked up, but she later learned exactly exactly how involved Gonzalez had become along with their instance. “She had been certainly one of our sounds out hereshe was certainly one of our advocates,” Rivera says. “She felt a good belief in us and place the term out, and as a result of her, much more people learned about us.”

Gonzalez raves about Rivera as an important person in notice team and praises her work ethic, smarts, resilience, and good attitude. She states having Rivera at the office really assists brings the objective of their work house and offers a perspective that is unique.

Rivera states Gonzalez is a separate lawyer whom fights for just what she thinks in, making the partnership a fit that is ideal. “I favor her drive and I also desire to be an integral part of that,” Rivera says. “We’re a team so we focus on the instances together, and I’m learning the way the system works inside and outside. It’s amazing.”

She’s additionally motivated when you’re element of and learning a great deal in regards to the system that failed her, she claims. Since many of Gonzalez’s situations include Child Protective solutions, Rivera claims she’s additionally gotten to understand the particulars of how it operates.

Her work usually has her during the courthouse in downtown San Antonio, where she’s come across the prosecutor from her and Ramirez’s test.

“But it will make me feel well to learn we’ve been exonerated, we’ve been completely cleared and innocent, and I’m in a position to head into that courthouse every single day and so they note that; they understand me,” Rivera says that they didn’t break. “It also makes me personally pleased that my children observe how strong we am and that I’ve be one thing. We never ever thought I’d be where i will be today.”

After being accused of one thing therefore unsightly, Rivera does often feel on guard around kiddies, also those inside her household. But she attempts to maybe perhaps maybe not allow it to arrive at her excessively. Just like the other ladies, Rivera enjoys every one of the speaking possibilities and distributing the message that life should be taken for n’t granted and can be studied away from you right away. She says she and her young friends had no familiarity with how to deal with their appropriate issues, plus in retrospect, managed every thing therefore wrong. When speaking, especially to youth, Rivera states it is crucial that you teach them to their legal legal rights sand how to handle encounters with police force.

“We would like them become knowledgeable in the justice system; if something similar to this occurred to us, it may happen to anybody,” Rivera says. “We thought we had to cooperate completely, which we did because we’d absolutely nothing to conceal. But we didn’t have our attorneys current, and there have been therefore things that are many need to have done at our trial.”

She specially enjoys talking at high schools and universities, in order for young adults can early hear their messages. “We need certainly to start early and grow the seed young with it,” she says so they grow.

Rivera states she additionally frequently stocks all about Facebook, such as for example just what wrongful conviction does to individuals and exactly how we could assist more and more people prevent wrongful conviction. She additionally assists the Innocence Project up to she can and it is passionate about LGBTQ causes.

“There’s a great deal you want to do,” she says. “A great deal of men and women are like, why do you wish to remain in it? You’re virtually straight straight back for which you started. We remain here it go because we can’t let. Many people would would like to forget, but we can’t forget.” Across Rivera’s forearm now read the tattooed words “Innocent 11-23-16.”