He was released at 5 p.m, that afternoon after Warren Wolfson, his lawyer, obtained a writ of habeas corpus, making no statement to the police.
During his questioning, Escobedo was tricked into saying he knew that DiGerlando had killed Manuel, making him an accomplice.
He was then found guilty of first degree murder and was sentenced to jail for 20 years, with his "confession", which he had later recanted.
Bernard Weisberg argued for the American Civil Liberties Union in favor of Escobedo, with Walter T. Fisher.
The ruling reversed Escobedo's conviction and stated that "Under the circumstances of this case, where a police investigation is no longer a general inquiry into an unsolved crime but has begun to focus on a particular suspect in police custody who has been refused an opportunity to consult with his counsel and who has not been warned of his constitutional right to keep silent, the accused has been denied the assistance of counsel in violation of the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments; and no statement extracted by the police during the interrogation may be used against him at a trial."