Carlos Cervantes

Artist Carlos Cervantes is the only person in New Mexico convicted of a nonviolent crime who is still on parole under indeterminate sentencing laws that were repealed 45 years ago. Credit: Gustavo Martínez Contreras

In 2025, Carlos Cervantes celebrated his first birthday in almost 50 years as a free man. My reporting on his decades-long parole, due to an outdated and overturned law, resulted in his being released from parole.

Carlos Cervantes wearing a Lupita shirt and holding the document releasing him from parole. — Carlos with the document affirming his release from parole.

Carlos Cervantes is a muralist and acclaimed Chicano artist from Santa Fe, New Mexico, who spent 41 years on parole. Despite his murals and recognition, his case was forgotten until I met him while documenting his Virgen de Guadalupe artwork and uncovered his story—buried and blurred by bureaucracy, substance use disorder and traumatic brain injuries—to fight for the discharge of this cultural icon.

Cervantes' story helped shed light in old forgotten sentencing laws and a time when the Chicano movement stood up for those in the Barrios of Santa Fe, a story that is rarely told in this town where cultural pride is mostly associated with Spanish heritage.