In January of 2010, when he was only 15 years-old, he was arrested and charged with 1 count of carnal knowledge for allegedly having sexual intercourse with a 13 year-old girl back in September 2009 in Punta Gorda Town.

1 year later, he was tried in only a day and a half and without any legal representation. He was subsequently convicted and sentenced to serve the mandatory minimum 12 years in jail.

He appealed, but back in March of 2016, the Court of Appeal did not have a full transcript of his original trial. Well, the court had to re-build a record of the trial by getting guidance from the trial judge's notes, which were incomplete.

His attorneys, Simeon Sampson and Anthony Sylvestre, presented several grounds of appeal, including that the trial judge failed to properly advise him of the importance of getting an attorney to represent him in this case. They say that the trial judge aggravated the problem when he did not adjourn the case to allow Duenas a chance to get an attorney. Instead, the judge brought the trial up to an earlier date.

They say that the trial judge also failed to be of proper assistance to Duenas, a functionally illiterate minor without an attorney. They also submitted that the judge failed to provide sufficient explanation to him about his rights.

After considering the oral and written submissions, the Court of Appeal agreed with his attorneys that he didn't get a fair trial.

They set aside his conviction and sentence, and because they didn't think that a retrial was appropriate in this case, they entered him into an acquittal for the carnal knowledge offense.