On December 18, 2015, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (Court) published its decision [3] (judgment only available in Spanish) in Ruano Torres v. El Salvador, ruling that El Salvador had violated the American Convention on Human Rights [4] (Convention) in the trial of José Agapito Ruano Torres for kidnapping. There had been serious doubt throughout the criminal proceedings whether Torres was in fact the person with the alias “El Chopo,” who had allegedly participated in the commission of the crime. According to the press release [5] (only available in Spanish) the Court found that the trial had violated the guarantees of the presumption of innocence and the right to defense, noting that the state should have exhausted its options in investigating and identifying unequivocally the person behind the alias. The Court noted that the prosecution did not investigate the facts presented by Mr. Torres to establish his innocence. The Court concluded that the presumption of innocence should have prevailed in this situation of uncertainty regarding the identity of the alias. The Court further noted that Mr. Torres had not been given the right to cross-examine one of the witnesses who had given testimony against him, which diminished the weight the testimony should be afforded and violated Articles 8.2 and 1.1 of the Convention. Finally, the Court addressed the right to defense, finding that the state was not responsible for the actions taken by the defense attorneys and highlighting the independence of the profession and respect for their professional judgment. The state’s obligations instead consist of an adequate selection process of defense attorneys, development of control mechanisms and periodic training. In this particular case, the Court noted, the performance of the defense attorneys had been so poor, and included such flagrant errors as the failure to lodge an appeal, that Mr. Torres’ situation was equivalent to having no legal representation at all. Therefore, the state’s responsibility to assure legal representation included a proper oversight by the court system. The Court concluded that the judicial authorities failed in their duty of acting as guarantors for the effective implementation of the right to defense and concluded that the obvious errors in the actions of the defense attorneys and the failure of the judicial authorities to respond adequately and effectively placed Mr. Torres in a situation with no defense in violation of Articles 8.1, 8.2 and 1.1 of the Convention.