I fell into a state of depression.

“I fell into a state of depression, never to overcome it. I live with it right here today. Our lives were completely ruined. We became totally unprotected with no one’s help. Absolutely no one.” - Erlinda Franco

Erlinda Franco’s husband was abducted, tortured, and murdered because we he was a leader in the Revolutionary Democratic Front. He left his wife and four children. It happened on a day in November 1980 when Erlinda, her husband Manuel and their children were supposed to go to the eye doctor but cancelled because her husband had to give a speech at the San Jose School. Then later in the day Erlinda’s neighbor alerted her because she had heard a report on the radio that the bodies of six men were found on the side of the road on the way out of town. The radio report was sketchy on details but word started to travel fast. Erlinda reluctantly went to the funeral home to possibly identify her husband. She found him: shoeless, with four gunshot wounds, his pockets pulled out from his pants and a bad burn mark all the way around his neck from a metal torture device.

Nicolas Carranza’s attorney, Mr. Fargarson’s struggles a little bit during his cross examination of Erlinda Franco. Maybe he’s at a loss for words. Erlinda accuses him of asking questions to confuse her. She says, “I’m not in an optimum state.” Fargarson wants to point out that she was approached by a law firm about bringing this case against Mr. Carranza. The attorney who brought it to her attention was Almudena Bernabeu of the Center for Justice and Accountability. This more or less is one of the things the CJA does. Help people who have been victimized in this world. Apparently, the United States (probably not much to our surprise) has been something of a safe haven for human rights abusers for quite sometime. It started for CJA something like this: In 1976, the father of a young man who had been tortured and killed in Paraguay while in police custody saw the police inspector involved in his son's torture and killing walking the streets of Manhattan. The father called the INS, and the INS arrested the police inspector for overstaying his visitor's visa. The father and sister brought a claim against the inspector, and in 1980, the U.S. court in New York upheld their claims, opening the way for other claims using the Alien Tort Statute (which allows those who have had their rights violated (anywhere in the world) to sue the people responsible in United States Federal Court - this law has been on the books since 1789). Anyway, that’s got to be a hellva’ feeling walking down the block and seeing the person responsible for your son’s death just walking down the block too.