Biography
Moisés Morales was a La Raza Unida Party activist in Rio Arriba County, New Mexico, who challenged the county's longtime Democratic political boss and sheriff, Emilio Naranjo. In 1975, Naranjo's men planted marijuana in Morales's truck — and in that of fellow activist Antonio "Ike" DeVargas — in what Morales's lawyer called one of the most obvious cases of planted evidence and political retaliation he had ever seen. At a December 6, 1976 trial, a jury heard testimony that the sheriff had framed him and acquitted Morales. Naranjo was afterward convicted of perjury in connection with the planted evidence, though the New Mexico Supreme Court overturned that conviction in 1980. Morales later won civil settlements over the frame-up.
