"'Latinos En El Corredor De La Muerte."
Discovery En Español presents the story of Juan Balderas, sentenced to death, and how his wife struggles to prove his innocence in "'Latinos En El Corredor De La Muerte." Photo: Discovery en Espanol

Discovery En Español presents the story of a case that involves a crime and a woman willing to do anything to save her husband's life. Time is running out and if the appeal fails, the alleged murderer will be executed with a lethal injection. This is the story of Juan Balderas, one of the 375 Latino prisoners on death row. “Latinos In The Corredor De La Muerte” opens on Sunday, January 28 at 10pm ET as part of the investigative block ''Discovery a Fondo.”

In the United States there are 2,843 prisoners on death row, of which 60 Latinos are in Polunsky prison, Texas. Juan Balderas, of Mexican origin, is one of them. He is accused of the murder of a member of the same Latino gang of which he was a member. He spent 8 years waiting for a trial and says he is innocent. He no longer has many options to avoid the lethal injection, but his wife Yancy Balderas, a Salvadoran immigrant, has been trying to prove his innocence for 12 years and also trying to prove that the irregularities in the sentence make a new trial necessary.

Juan Balderas
Juan Balderas, sentenced to death, and how his wife's struggle to prove his innocence Photo: Texas Department Of Criminal Justice

On December 6, 2005, a hooded man broke into a house in Houston, Texas, and killed Eduardo Hernandez, a member of a local gang called La Tercera Crips. Days later, Wendy Bardales, the sister of the victim's girlfriend, identified Juan Balderas and he was imprisoned in the county prison where he waited eight and a half years for a trial. Yancy, Balderas' wife, then decides to quit her job and take law courses at the University of Houston.

Narrated and directed by the journalist and producer of the hit series '' Clandestino,'' David Beriain, “Latinos In The Corredor De La Muerte” includes testimonies from Balderas' relatives, spokesmen of the Department of Criminal Justice, experts in capital punishment, and Juan Meléndez, the last Hispanic who managed to rectify the United States judicial system in case of death penalty.

The new Discovery en Español documentary is a one-hour production by Michela Giorelli, Rafael Rodriguez and Carlos Cediel. It was made by the production house 93 meters.

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