Speaker 1: On the night of July twenty third, two thousand and seven,
Speaker 1: Jamal true Love was hanging out in the common area
Speaker 1: of San Francisco's Sunnydale Projects with his younger brother, Joshua.
Speaker 1: Jamal's friend sel Kuka, drove up intoxicated, ripping off the
Speaker 1: side view mirror from Joshua's car. Jamal got between Cel
Speaker 1: and his brother. Then gunfire in the air would send
Speaker 1: Cel into an alcohol fueled rage. In search of a
Speaker 1: gun himself, Jamal tried to come sell again, who pushed
Speaker 1: him away and punched another man. Frustrated and fed up,
Speaker 1: Jamal left the scene, only to turn in time to
Speaker 1: witness his friend Cell being gunned down in the street. Now,
Speaker 1: since snitching is a surefire away to be sent to
Speaker 1: the same fate, Jamal kept his mouth shut. Cel's cousin,
Speaker 1: Priscilla Lualamaga, would go downtown to identify the shooter she
Speaker 1: claimed to see from her second story window, only to
Speaker 1: pass over Jamal's mugshot that was in plain sight. Police
Speaker 1: pressured her to name Jamal so they could coerce the
Speaker 1: identity of the shooter. Either he would name the killer
Speaker 1: or he'd go down for the murder. Himself. Jamal would
Speaker 1: receive fifty years to life. The prosecutor's closing argument would
Speaker 1: point to l Wallamaga's bravery in light of the supposed
Speaker 1: thread of Jamal Truelove. This comment, unsupported by evidence and
Speaker 1: unobjected to by counsel, would ultimately lead to a new
Speaker 1: trial in which Jamal's new lawyers would be able to
Speaker 1: successfully argue that ballistic evidence at the autopsy report proved
Speaker 1: that the shooter was out of the Wallamaga's second story view.
Speaker 1: Jamal was finally set free in twenty fifteen. This is
Speaker 1: Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flamm. Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction
Speaker 1: with Jason Flamm. That's me. I'm your host, and today
Speaker 1: I'm very excited because this this is a story I've
Speaker 1: wanted to tell from quite some time, and that's primarily
Speaker 1: because of the person who survived this incredible ordeal, Jamal Truelove.
Speaker 1: He has the best name on top of everything else.
Speaker 1: So Jamal, welcome, Hey, thanks for having me.
Speaker 2: Jason.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Man, Like I always say, I'm sorry you have
Speaker 1: to be here, but I'm really happy that you are here.
Speaker 1: So Jamal, this story touches me on a personal level
Speaker 1: because you were in the entertainment business before this horrible
Speaker 1: misidentification and all the other things that went wrong happened
Speaker 1: to you. Can you talk a little bit about that?
Speaker 1: Because you grew up in San Francisco.
Speaker 2: Right, Yes, grew up in San Francisco Sunnydale Projects. Always
Speaker 2: wanted to get into entertainment within music and acting, and.
Speaker 1: The ball was starting to bounce your way, so to speak. Right,
Speaker 1: because at the time of this incident, you had been
Speaker 1: recently featured on the reality TV show Popped, the show
Speaker 1: called I Love New York Too. Right, you were just
Speaker 1: a kid from the project with no connections, but you
Speaker 1: were making it happen anyway. How did you do that?
Speaker 2: Well, initially I was recording music. My friend had a
Speaker 2: studio which he would lend me some time to get
Speaker 2: into actually record, and then I had an opportunity to
Speaker 2: audition for this character for this show called I Love
Speaker 2: New York Too. So I figured if I could get
Speaker 2: on the show and put a name to a face,
Speaker 2: then I will get the exposure that I need to
Speaker 2: shine on to my music and to ultimately get into film.
Speaker 1: And sure enough you had now gone and shot this show.
Speaker 1: Which did you shoot in La or yeah, it was
Speaker 1: based in La and so this was like an exciting
Speaker 1: time for you. How old were you at the time, Jamal.
Speaker 2: Well, I started recording music when I was sixteen years old.
Speaker 2: When I ended up landing on the show, I was freshly.
Speaker 1: Twenty one, So a kid with big dreams and aspirations
Speaker 1: and you know, the ability to really manifest those things.
Speaker 1: And I think people let meet you now still see
Speaker 1: that same spark. It makes it a certain way. It
Speaker 1: makes this wrong for conviction more tragic. So, Jamal, your
Speaker 1: life took a terrible turn because of events that occurred
Speaker 1: around eleven pm on July twenty third of two thousand
Speaker 1: and seven. And of course you know what I'm referring to,
Speaker 1: but it was that night that twenty eight year old
Speaker 1: sel Kuka, was a resident in your housing project, was
Speaker 1: shot nine times. How did this happen? How did you
Speaker 1: find out about it? And how did you get misidentified
Speaker 1: as the shooter.
Speaker 2: We were all kicking it in the projects in the
Speaker 2: area that would typically chill at and the incident had
Speaker 2: happened between Sale Kuka and my little brother Joshua. Sale
Speaker 2: was intoxicated driving up the street where he came real
Speaker 2: close to my brother's car and ripped off his Sime mirror,
Speaker 2: and you know, I've seen it but didn't think too
Speaker 2: much of it. Then somebody yelled down to me like
Speaker 2: there was some type of altercation between him and my brother.
Speaker 2: So I come through to diffuse the situation. I seen
Speaker 2: how my brother was contorting his face. Sells, one of
Speaker 2: my good friends. He's got some liquor in them, so
Speaker 2: you know, he's ramped up. He's not trying to take
Speaker 2: no blame, and they're getting closer to each other where
Speaker 2: it's gonna end up, you know, turning into a fight.
Speaker 2: So I intervened, you know, I told both of them chill, relaxed.
Speaker 2: Sale was hyped up to start being kind of a
Speaker 2: crowd people looking on, and next you know, we hear
Speaker 2: some gunshots going off kind of like I guess in
Speaker 2: the air, and I think, you know that field Sell
Speaker 2: that much more to feel some type of way, and
Speaker 2: he started heading down saying that he was gonna go
Speaker 2: get a gun. So me, I remember some of my
Speaker 2: other friends used to you know, kind of contain his
Speaker 2: anger when he's in this type of stake. So me
Speaker 2: trying to prevent anything from escalating. I kind of followed him,
Speaker 2: and he was asking somebody one of our other friends
Speaker 2: to give him a gun, and I'm telling him, no, like, bro,
Speaker 2: there ain't no reason for all of that. But he like,
Speaker 2: you know, m mess out here shooting and I'm like that
Speaker 2: ain't got nothing to do with us or this situation.
Speaker 2: So I got like close up on him. I like
Speaker 2: held him, like, you know, in a kind of bear hug,
Speaker 2: and he's like way bigger than me. I'm probably like
Speaker 2: one hundred and fifty pounds soaking wet at that point,
Speaker 2: and he's like two twenty two thirty at least, and
Speaker 2: he's listening, but you could definitely tell that he's kind
Speaker 2: of drunk. And then he kind of bust out of
Speaker 2: my bear hug in an angry type of way, and
Speaker 2: at that point it felt like, you know, he wasn't
Speaker 2: trying to hear me or calm the altercation. So I
Speaker 2: ended up leaving across the street, which I had my
Speaker 2: car inside the parking lot. I had a female friend
Speaker 2: inside the car. I bent down to let her know
Speaker 2: that we're about to get up out of here, and
Speaker 2: by the time I stood up from the side of
Speaker 2: the car, I seen sale skipping around the building right
Speaker 2: there from off of the street, and I seen the
Speaker 2: perpetrator already holding the gun in the shooting position. Before
Speaker 2: I could say stop, gunshots had already rained off. So
Speaker 2: I just got down until all the gunshots was overwood.
Speaker 2: And typically in situations like this in the project, regardless
Speaker 2: if you did something or if you didn't do it,
Speaker 2: you just h tail up out of there. So that's
Speaker 2: what I ended up doing.
Speaker 1: So I'm gonna ask you point blank, did you know
Speaker 1: at the time who the actual shooter was.
Speaker 2: Yes, I did, And there.
Speaker 1: Were a lot of witnesses. Thirty or more witnesses were
Speaker 1: there because as you described, it was a street team,
Speaker 1: a lot of people hanging out, of course, and it
Speaker 1: seemed like this a lot of people are going to
Speaker 1: be scared to come forward. Nobody wants to be labeled
Speaker 1: to snitch.
Speaker 2: Because I know what that actually means. Something happened to
Speaker 2: me my family.
Speaker 1: But one woman did come forward and she became a
Speaker 1: key part of this whole awful scenario, right And this
Speaker 1: woman's name was Priscilla Lualamaga, and she claimed to have
Speaker 1: seen the whole thing from her second story window. Already,
Speaker 1: my spidy sense to start tingling because it's eleven o'clock
Speaker 1: at night, it's dark. It sounds like a pretty dicey
Speaker 1: scenario to think that she's going to identify somebody. But okay,
Speaker 1: so she told police that her distant relative was just deceased.
Speaker 1: Sell Kuka was chasing another man around a car who
Speaker 1: she identified as your brother, Joshua. And then she further
Speaker 1: claimed that while chasing Joshua, Kuka bumped into a knockdown
Speaker 1: another man who got up, chased him down the street
Speaker 1: and sloping downhill and open fire close range, so this
Speaker 1: is important. She gets taken to the police station and
Speaker 1: showing thirty four mug shots that were set up on
Speaker 1: a bulletin board, and she recognized many of the mugshots
Speaker 1: at spaces from her neighborhood, understandably. But then in the
Speaker 1: two hours she was in that room with the bulletin
Speaker 1: board of mugshots, she didn't recognize your face, correct, which
Speaker 1: was immediately above Joshua Bradley's mugshots. So that's even weirder, right,
Speaker 1: it was right there in front of her face, and
Speaker 1: she still didn't recognize it, okay, correct. So two days
Speaker 1: later the cops come to her workplace and take us
Speaker 1: from there.
Speaker 2: Two days later the police came to her workplace, but
Speaker 2: the day before that, it is real interesting that they
Speaker 2: actually came to her house showing her a mugshot picture
Speaker 2: which we believe to have been me, and they denying
Speaker 2: that it was me that didn't run side by side
Speaker 2: to what you ultimately ended up coming out when it
Speaker 2: comes down to the lineup and the mug shots. So
Speaker 2: they told her that if we were to bring a
Speaker 2: photo lineup with the person who did it inside the
Speaker 2: lineup which be able to identify it. So the next
Speaker 2: day they went to her job. They brought her a
Speaker 2: six pack lineup with really me wearing an orange jumpsuit
Speaker 2: and everybody else in playing clothes. But she had already
Speaker 2: identified the other people, you know, not being the person
Speaker 2: and people that she already knows.
Speaker 1: It's even worse than that, right, because of the fact
Speaker 1: that she said that you quote unquote looks like the
Speaker 1: guy who could have shot Kouka, right, So that's pretty
Speaker 1: damn weak.
Speaker 2: The six pack lineup, it had two standout things. It
Speaker 2: had me inside of an orange jumpsuit and then it
Speaker 2: also had the dates that came off of the system
Speaker 2: when they brought up the mug shots where my date
Speaker 2: was dated different than the other dates that came off
Speaker 2: of the system. Because they had me down as the
Speaker 2: shooter on day one.
Speaker 1: Why do you think the detectives had it out for
Speaker 1: you or they just like, whoever, we just got to
Speaker 1: close the case. It doesn't matter.
Speaker 2: I wasn't somebody that was out there. I was always
Speaker 2: trying to do something positive. I was doing music, you know,
Speaker 2: I'll hang around, of course, but with my name coming
Speaker 2: up on the day that actually happened, whether they wanted
Speaker 2: questions from me or them saying oh it was the
Speaker 2: guy that Jamal was with, they was like, okay, this
Speaker 2: is how we gonna get him. We're gonna pressure him.
Speaker 2: It's aid either tail on the person who did it,
Speaker 2: or we're gonna make sure that he goes down for this.
Speaker 1: And then no weapon was recovered, but hl casings were
Speaker 1: found down hill from the body, in the trail leading
Speaker 1: up to the body, which means that what she said
Speaker 1: was false because she said the shooter was chasing Kuka downhill.
Speaker 1: So now we know, and they should have known that
Speaker 1: she didn't know what the fuck she was talking about.
Speaker 2: So to be honest right, her representation of what actually happened.
Speaker 2: If anything, she could have only seen what was on
Speaker 2: the side of that building. She didn't see when the
Speaker 2: person was actually shooting.
Speaker 1: She told police that Sela Kuka was chasing another man
Speaker 1: around the car and then Kooka bumped into a knockdown
Speaker 1: another man who got up, chased him down the street
Speaker 1: and sloping down on hill and open fire close range.
Speaker 2: It wasn't me who sail had knocked down?
Speaker 1: What was her agenda here? Do you know?
Speaker 2: Her whole thing? And the family which I was deeply
Speaker 2: connected to, felt like they weren't scared of me, they
Speaker 2: were scared of the person who actually did it, right,
Speaker 2: So by way of throwing me in there, they felt
Speaker 2: that I was going to tell on the person who
Speaker 2: actually did it.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: So that's the big boom right there.
Speaker 1: And then things take another crazy turn, right because the
Speaker 1: TV show airs the show that you were in, which
Speaker 1: should have been a cause for celebration. She happens to
Speaker 1: see the TV show, right, and then she comes back
Speaker 1: and says, oh, now I know it's definitely him.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So they were getting her closer and closer to
Speaker 2: that it was me one hundred percent, and then on
Speaker 2: top of her saying that she talked to her cousin,
Speaker 2: and then on top of the detectives really trying to
Speaker 2: get somebody to go to jail for this. You know,
Speaker 2: that's what brewed up to what that ultimately ended up being.
Speaker 2: But even still that didn't work. What ultimately ended up
Speaker 2: happening was I said. About fourteen months later, the police
Speaker 2: had did a traffic stop with this other woman named Letitia,
Speaker 2: who had a gun in her lap, had cracked cocaine
Speaker 2: on her baby in the back, had her boyfriend who
Speaker 2: was on parole in the passenger seat. Pulled over. She's
Speaker 2: going to jail, and she goes down and they basically say, well,
Speaker 2: if you could tell us X, Y, and Z about
Speaker 2: this case, everybody basically goes free. She initially tells them
Speaker 2: that it was daylight and this altercation happened, and then
Speaker 2: she said she looked through the window and looked all
Speaker 2: the way down the block and seeing that this happened,
Speaker 2: and just threw my name in there. So there was
Speaker 2: a lot of things is wrong with that, right as
Speaker 2: if first, she says that she's seen it for fifty
Speaker 2: yards away on a slant heel in the daylight, when
Speaker 2: it didn't happen in the daytime, it happened at night.
Speaker 2: But what got the arrest warrant was the write up
Speaker 2: that detectives had rolled up. They were guiding her the
Speaker 2: whole way, making everything like it was a clear record,
Speaker 2: and then wrote at the bottom extremely credible. So now
Speaker 2: when they take that to the DA, now they feel
Speaker 2: they have two witnesses saying the same exact thing.
Speaker 1: So this is a crazy timeline too, because the crime
Speaker 1: we know happens in two thousand and seven, you don't
Speaker 1: get brought in and rested until two thousand and eight,
Speaker 1: over a year later, and then the trial doesn't happen
Speaker 1: till twenty ten.
Speaker 2: Correct.
Speaker 1: So during that time were you in jail, did you
Speaker 1: bail out? How did that unfold? After you arrested?
Speaker 2: Well, after I was arrested, they wanted to question me. Obviously,
Speaker 2: there's two things you can do. You can give up information,
Speaker 2: but never mind that because in that situation, which you're
Speaker 2: taught in the streets, is you know it's not to snitch,
Speaker 2: not to give up information. Something happened to me my family,
Speaker 2: you know, So I balanced that with also knowing that
Speaker 2: it's not my duty to put somebody else into jail.
Speaker 2: That's for them to actually get it right. And that
Speaker 2: was my way of going at it. So it actually
Speaker 2: took me about a year and a half to go
Speaker 2: to trial. It was hard trying to get the thirty
Speaker 2: people that was out there to actually come in, you know,
Speaker 2: not say who did it, you know, but to say
Speaker 2: I didn't do it. I wasn't trying to put nobody
Speaker 2: in no situation where I was trying to have somebody
Speaker 2: else tell on the assailant because I wasn't going to
Speaker 2: do anything like that. Then I have to go what
Speaker 2: hide for the rest of my life or something. That's
Speaker 2: just not my job. That's up to the system to do.
Speaker 1: So nobody would want to be in that situation. But
Speaker 1: you were in it, and you're still just a young
Speaker 1: guy without you know, resources, and so you roll with
Speaker 1: it and you go to trial.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so we thought the case added an identity case,
Speaker 2: you know, identity testify. We didn't call nobody to testify
Speaker 2: or whatever. So it took three days and then it
Speaker 2: took five days of deliberation. Ultimately they came back with
Speaker 2: a murder one conviction. It was it was definitely tough
Speaker 2: I stayed optimistic because I know I didn't do it
Speaker 2: at the end of the day, and that's what, ultimately,
Speaker 2: you know, kept the wools turning in my mind on
Speaker 2: how do I figure this out?
Speaker 1: And you were convicted, of course, and you were sentenced
Speaker 1: to fifty years in prison.
Speaker 2: So I want you to understand this right before I
Speaker 2: get since it's to fifty the life I'm inside of
Speaker 2: my cell, I become we're doing a retrial motion right
Speaker 2: to ask for a retrial before a sentence. I'm come
Speaker 2: back from church, come aside. It's a twelve man like
Speaker 2: tank and this kid by the name of Oliver Bart
Speaker 2: sentence comes up to me. Now I don't know who
Speaker 2: this kid is. He comes up to me and he
Speaker 2: asked me, like, you know, is your last name true Love?
Speaker 2: And I say yes. He said, did you go to
Speaker 2: jail like in seven I'm like no, but that's when
Speaker 2: my case happened. He said yes. I remember being in
Speaker 2: a police station at the time where some like some
Speaker 2: mooning girl and some detectives came in and she was
Speaker 2: crying and they were pointing out a picture saying are
Speaker 2: you sure it ain't something something? True Love? And I'm
Speaker 2: like whoa, you know, and it blows my mind that
Speaker 2: it just so happens that I run into this guy
Speaker 2: and he had just been transported from sam Bruno Jail
Speaker 2: to San Francisco County on his way to prison. And
Speaker 2: he's seen in the newspaper when he was in saying
Speaker 2: Bruno about my case, and he remembered the last name
Speaker 2: that was the first spark. And then when he ended
Speaker 2: up in a sale with me the name again, that's
Speaker 2: when he actually approached me and told me these things.
Speaker 2: So I called my attorney immediately and tell my attorney
Speaker 2: about him, and my attorney came up and you know,
Speaker 2: talk to him, got his statement, and come to find out,
Speaker 2: he was at the police station at the exact same
Speaker 2: time that Lula Lamanga had came into the police station.
Speaker 2: He was a sixteen year old kid come to the
Speaker 2: bench watching all of this unfold. So what he ended
Speaker 2: up saying was big in my case because remind you
Speaker 2: that that photo, that photo and the six pack lineup
Speaker 2: that had the date that was different from everybody else's
Speaker 2: which we called in the question made that much more
Speaker 2: sense because they had me down as the shooter on
Speaker 2: day one, and what made more sense from his testimony,
Speaker 2: is why she never put it at my picture on
Speaker 2: the wall, because on day one she was saying that
Speaker 2: it wasn't me. Even on day two she was saying
Speaker 2: it wasn't me. Now this is newly found evidence. There
Speaker 2: was no way that we could have knew that this
Speaker 2: kid was inside the police station. So there's no way
Speaker 2: we could have called him. Now, just in the heap
Speaker 2: of that time, what was going on in San Francisco.
Speaker 2: You got you know, Kamala Harris, who's going to try
Speaker 2: to be Attorney General. You have another case which got overturned,
Speaker 2: and then you have a big drug scandal that's happening
Speaker 2: in San Francisco also at the exact same time. So
Speaker 2: in the retrial motion hearing when we put him on
Speaker 2: the stand to testify, Linda Allen, the city's attorney, attacked
Speaker 2: Oh that he was a gang member and he's trying
Speaker 2: to do this for a favor for the blacks, like
Speaker 2: some prison politics type stuff. And neither one of us
Speaker 2: have ever been to prison, and we just don't know
Speaker 2: each other at all. So in this moment though that
Speaker 2: this is new discovered evidence, I feel like I was
Speaker 2: politicked out because if they were to grant me a retrial.
Speaker 2: That would have been two murder cases with convictions granted
Speaker 2: retrial before conviction. And plus the drug scandal that was
Speaker 2: national attention. So ultimately, even what Oliver Barcon is, they
Speaker 2: still denied my retrial motion. That's when I got sentenced
Speaker 2: to fifty to life in prison.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it's important to look at the role
Speaker 1: that politics played in this because there was a lot
Speaker 1: going on and now things are really looking a lot
Speaker 1: better in San Francisco with the new DA Chase A. Boudin,
Speaker 1: who is doing incredible, incredible thing is probably the most
Speaker 1: impactful six months of any new prosecutor in the history
Speaker 1: of this country, I would say, in terms of what
Speaker 1: he's been able to accomplish. But that's a separate issue.
Speaker 1: Mss Harris at the time does not come out. I mean,
Speaker 1: we can't sugarcoat it. I mean, she was one of
Speaker 1: the villains in this story, in your story, and in
Speaker 1: too many other stories that took place around this time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the think about Kamala Harris as a senator, she
Speaker 2: talks a lot of things that ploys towards the African
Speaker 2: American community, and you know it's good, Like if I
Speaker 2: didn't go through the experience that I went through, then
Speaker 2: I will probably be on the side of what Kamala
Speaker 2: Harris actually talks about. And that's if you know, I
Speaker 2: didn't find out about me. But when we talk about
Speaker 2: being a progressive prosecutor, I think of chase A Boudin
Speaker 2: Kamala Harris at the time she had opportunity to alleviate
Speaker 2: this case and dive into it, especially a murder charge.
Speaker 2: Any head DA is overlooking any murder charge that's happening
Speaker 2: inside of their city. But also just knowing politics at
Speaker 2: that time. I know four people who went to jail
Speaker 2: innocently for murders. In every single last one of them
Speaker 2: got convicted. They call it a street sweep. Once elections
Speaker 2: come up, they come through and they sweep any case
Speaker 2: that they have. They say, arrest them, arrest them, marest them,
Speaker 2: and look. I went to jail right before elections and
Speaker 2: one of the detectives my dad had ran into before
Speaker 2: I went to trial, Kevin Noble, had told my dad.
Speaker 2: My dad was like, yo, why you got my son?
Speaker 2: And he said, oh, you know how it is. And
Speaker 2: during election time, you know DA's they just come and sweep,
Speaker 2: you know, everybody up any case that they got and
Speaker 2: see if they can pressure people into taking deals. Because
Speaker 2: they offered me a deal, you know, before I went
Speaker 2: to try my first time, they was like, you know,
Speaker 2: you complete out and take voluntary man slid, don't take
Speaker 2: thirteen years under her watch. So my feeling on Kamala
Speaker 2: Harris being in that position, being African American, coming from
Speaker 2: the Bay Area and being hard on crime the way
Speaker 2: that she was, and how many people that was going
Speaker 2: to jail for marijuana chargers at one of the highest
Speaker 2: rates in the country, you know, played a big part
Speaker 2: of mass incarceration and also to gentrification in San Francisco.
Speaker 2: So I cannot unfeel that or see that, or when
Speaker 2: I'm getting sentenced, you know, or my conviction, she's in
Speaker 2: there smiling and you know, proud of what this is,
Speaker 2: what this conviction is, and what it means to her career.
Speaker 2: And then right after I lose my case, she wins
Speaker 2: you know, Attorney General. So that all tells a story,
Speaker 2: you know, just within itself.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And what a sick thing to say to your father.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's I mean, that's as cold as it gets,
Speaker 1: like it's your father, for fox sakes.
Speaker 2: So Kevin Noble before I went to trial, and this
Speaker 2: was not turned over to us. Kevin Noble actually came
Speaker 2: in with a confidential format saying that somebody else did it.
Speaker 2: So he was out there investigating and he found somebody
Speaker 2: saying that this person did it, and they took it
Speaker 2: and they tucked it under the rug. You know, they
Speaker 2: felt like they had their God at the actually sold
Speaker 2: on on doing it.
Speaker 1: Jaman, if you could talk about for a minute, and
Speaker 1: we're going to get to the to the retrial, of course,
Speaker 1: your exoneration, because you were fully exonerated. That being said,
Speaker 1: can you tell us when you were in prison, was
Speaker 1: there a best moment.
Speaker 2: When I was waiting for the courts to give their
Speaker 2: opinion on if I was gonna get a retrial or not.
Speaker 2: And they initially I came back and I'm on the
Speaker 2: phone at the same time with my appella attorney, Mark Zilversmith,
Speaker 2: and they deny, well they didn't deny. They changed the
Speaker 2: conviction from first degree murder to second degree murder, which
Speaker 2: I would have had from fifty years. It would have
Speaker 2: went down to forty years to life. And I'm like, WHOA, like,
Speaker 2: you know what I mean? And My selling at the
Speaker 2: time was like, that's good. I mean, they're really looking
Speaker 2: at it now. Mind you, I'm in prison for three
Speaker 2: years before I even get this opinion from the appellate courts.
Speaker 2: But I knew that until I get another decision, I
Speaker 2: will be in prison for at least another two to
Speaker 2: three years because that's the time that it typically takes.
Speaker 2: So then my attorney put in a motion to review.
Speaker 2: So with this strategy at the same time, I ended
Speaker 2: up getting two witnesses to sign FI David testifying to
Speaker 2: what happened that day without saying the person who did it,
Speaker 2: and we filed the Habes corpus through the appellate court
Speaker 2: so it could go across judges climbed them table at
Speaker 2: the exact same time as our review was and to
Speaker 2: say that there's two more witnesses saying that he didn't
Speaker 2: do it. So ninety days later we got the opinion
Speaker 2: back that the judges said, you know what, you're right,
Speaker 2: and they granted a new retrial. It was a crying moment,
Speaker 2: you know, I cried like a baby, you know, inside
Speaker 2: that cell.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I don't think anyone who's ever not been through
Speaker 1: that could possibly even imagine such a transformative I mean,
Speaker 1: you get your life back.
Speaker 2: Well, well, the crazy part about it is like in
Speaker 2: that moment, you feel excited, right, but come to find out,
Speaker 2: once you get back to County jail, you just know
Speaker 2: that you don't have the life sentence no more, but
Speaker 2: you still have a whole nother fight and that's potentially
Speaker 2: going to trial. Are them coming to you and offering
Speaker 2: you a deal where you're almost close to want to
Speaker 2: take that deal just so you don't have to go
Speaker 2: to trial and lose again, because at that point, you know,
Speaker 2: you don't I don't believe in the system. You know,
Speaker 2: I just got to convict the fuck prime. I didn't do.
Speaker 2: Like you ask anybody who has a life sentence right now,
Speaker 2: innocent or not innocent, if they had a deal on
Speaker 2: the table right now to take it and they get
Speaker 2: to come home in two years. They're taking it.
Speaker 1: So let's get to the good stuff, because we don't
Speaker 1: have a ton of time left. But I do want to,
Speaker 1: of course, talk about how you manage to finally get
Speaker 1: some measure of justice, and by that I mean, of
Speaker 1: course the retrial and your exoneration.
Speaker 2: When I got back to County, it took me a
Speaker 2: year to go back to trial. I had two extraordinary lawyers,
Speaker 2: Kate Chatfield and Alex Riiseman. The way that we fought
Speaker 2: the case, we asked for the original homicide file and
Speaker 2: the judge granted it to us. What helped us was
Speaker 2: that they were tampering with the evidence. So when we
Speaker 2: slipped at the original homicide file, we seen that the
Speaker 2: detectives was writing in pen pencil in marker. So the
Speaker 2: ballistics of the trajectory of the bullets, it didn't fit
Speaker 2: Lula Lamanga's testimony of the bullets going from the left
Speaker 2: to the right. The trajectory of the bullets went from
Speaker 2: the right to the left, and that made more sense
Speaker 2: if the shooter was coming up from the bottom into
Speaker 2: the top of the hill. So what they did was
Speaker 2: erased because they wrote in pencil. They erased everything that
Speaker 2: the autosy lady has said about the trajectory of the
Speaker 2: bullet wounds, so they knew that that was an issue. Also,
Speaker 2: a gun shoots off the shellcases from the right into
Speaker 2: the rear ninety eight percent of the time, so is
Speaker 2: she saying that this murder happened coming from this way,
Speaker 2: then the shellcases will be in the street and not
Speaker 2: in a straight line in the grass from where the
Speaker 2: shellcases landed. It made more sense that the shooter was
Speaker 2: coming from the bottom into the top, so it did
Speaker 2: not match with what Lulu La Maga had actually said.
Speaker 1: So you were able to undermine the police's theory of
Speaker 1: the crime because the autopsy and ballistics findings pointed to
Speaker 1: the gunman approaching sell Kuka from downhill, which was out
Speaker 1: of Loalamana's view. Now what about the deliberation.
Speaker 2: Every day, within deliberation, you get to choose if you
Speaker 2: want to stay downstairs inside the holding tank, or you
Speaker 2: could stay upstairs until they come back with a verdict.
Speaker 2: I chose to stay downstairs because the deliberation room was
Speaker 2: right next to the holding tank. And I'm in there panicing,
Speaker 2: I'm stressing, I'm pacing, you know, I'm thinking about what
Speaker 2: I'm gonna do if I win. I'm thinking about what
Speaker 2: I'm gonna do if I lose. So five days later,
Speaker 2: they finally end up coming back with a verdict, so
Speaker 2: I come downstairs. I didn't have no opportunity to call
Speaker 2: my family. Uh, they were living in the East Bay.
Speaker 2: So when I come downstairs for the verdict, the only
Speaker 2: people that are sitting on my side is my attorney's
Speaker 2: loved ones, and it's also chasing Boudin, chasing Boudin. I
Speaker 2: don't know who chasea Boudein is at that point, right,
Speaker 2: But on the other side the whole DA's office, So
Speaker 2: Gascon was the DA at that point, right. So there
Speaker 2: are all in there waiting for the verdict, and the
Speaker 2: clerk reads off in the case of Jamal true Love
Speaker 2: on first degree murder, not guilty, and I break out
Speaker 2: in tears. I'm crying. I'm hugging my attorney and I'm
Speaker 2: just crying my eyes out. I can't believe it. I'm
Speaker 2: really breaking down. And then my attorney says, hold on, wait,
Speaker 2: you gotta listen for second degree murder. I said, what
Speaker 2: hold on? Because I thought I won at that point,
Speaker 2: so oh man, it was I felt the sweat just
Speaker 2: coming down my face. And then they said, in the
Speaker 2: case of Jamal true Love on second degree murder, we
Speaker 2: find the defendant not guilty. And I'm literally feeling that
Speaker 2: right now. I'm trying not to get emotional. But when
Speaker 2: I looked over to the jury, that was the first
Speaker 2: time that they could actually show an expression on their faces,
Speaker 2: and you see them over there crying. They're giving me
Speaker 2: prayer hands, they're sitting kisses at me, you know, and
Speaker 2: all of these things, and I'm you know, and I'm
Speaker 2: just crying my eyes out. You know. I look back,
Speaker 2: you see all the district attorneys just leaving, you know, upset,
Speaker 2: and I'm just crying out. I'm just crying my eyes out.
Speaker 2: And even going back up to the sixth for where
Speaker 2: I was being held and telling everybody on the line,
Speaker 2: which everybody knew I was innocent, and I told everybody,
Speaker 2: you know, I got found not guilty. The whole floor,
Speaker 2: the whole jail erupts, even some of the deputies that
Speaker 2: were you know, cool, and even the ones that was
Speaker 2: foul as fun because this hell of file shit was
Speaker 2: trying to you know, clap their hands and stuff like that.
Speaker 2: So it was a good feeling. And I went home
Speaker 2: that day. I was able to surprise my mother and
Speaker 2: you know, my family, which they didn't know if I
Speaker 2: want or not. But I popped up on them and they,
Speaker 2: you know, they see me. They couldn't believe it. It
Speaker 2: was more tears shit, And it was the most exhilarating
Speaker 2: feeling to know that you know I'm free again today.
Speaker 1: You've been out for how long I've been out?
Speaker 2: Five years?
Speaker 1: And I've seen you around and you know, I know
Speaker 1: you're making the most of every minute of it. Do
Speaker 1: you want to tell us a little bit about what
Speaker 1: you're working on now? And then we're going to get
Speaker 1: to the closing of the show.
Speaker 2: I end up suing, you know, the police. They try
Speaker 2: to offer me, you know, some moneys to shut up. Ultimately,
Speaker 2: our health them accountable, and I won my civil case.
Speaker 2: I was awarded ten million dollars that ended up rounding
Speaker 2: out to be thirteen point one million, which obviously I
Speaker 2: didn't get all the money. But from there on, so
Speaker 2: what's ironic is before I won my civil case, three
Speaker 2: days before that, I landed a role in this movie
Speaker 2: called The Last Black Man in San Francisco, which I
Speaker 2: got the opportunity by volunteering at a nonprofit called United Players.
Speaker 2: Rudy Corpez that's my mentor, and you know the mantras
Speaker 2: it takes the Hood to save the Hood. So they
Speaker 2: were coming there to get some kids for the rock
Speaker 2: thoughing scene. Here comes that opportunity. I say, look, I
Speaker 2: know how to act. I'm acting all my life, you know,
Speaker 2: trying to fit in the city where I stand out
Speaker 2: in And I think that was the line that got
Speaker 2: me the opportunity to read Joe Talbot Jimmy Fails called
Speaker 2: me back two times after I got it. Three days later,
Speaker 2: I win my civil case, and from there on I
Speaker 2: took on what I believed my life was meant to be.
Speaker 2: And before all of that, I went to school for
Speaker 2: Psychology Africana Studies at State and after one semester I
Speaker 2: identified that much more of what my life was supposed
Speaker 2: to be. So when you were saying manifestation, you know,
Speaker 2: I run my life on you know, manifesto desto. If
Speaker 2: you could manifest it and you can see the steps
Speaker 2: that you got to take to actually get there, then
Speaker 2: you take what's it, a tangible right in front of you,
Speaker 2: and you make sense of it on how you ultimately
Speaker 2: get to that next platu. I also landed a role
Speaker 2: on this upcoming animation film called p Other Pigeonhawk, which
Speaker 2: has Whooping gowerk Keenan Thompson, Howie Mandell and of course
Speaker 2: myself and the slew of other names. I'm producing this
Speaker 2: film called Black and White. It's about the USC seventy
Speaker 2: two football team and working on other projects. I launched
Speaker 2: my production company with one of my good friends and
Speaker 2: business partners, said Twaley Holder called True Narrative, also launching
Speaker 2: a record label. I have my son and a few
Speaker 2: other artists that's coming up that I plan on putting
Speaker 2: out there with their music. And I do a lot
Speaker 2: of you know activism. I use my platform to speak
Speaker 2: on you know, social issues and to bring the enlightenment
Speaker 2: to my community about you know, what we need to
Speaker 2: be doing with the voting and letting our voices be
Speaker 2: heard behind you know, systemic racism behind all these police
Speaker 2: involved shootings. Know, I campaign for Chase A Boudin Now.
Speaker 2: Before I would have never in my life be a
Speaker 2: campaign for a DA because the DA is looked at
Speaker 2: as basically the police. But once I got the understanding
Speaker 2: that there's gonna be a DA regardless, and don't you
Speaker 2: want it to be the right one. So that's what
Speaker 2: I start pressing on to my people to understand that
Speaker 2: there's gonna be a DA regardless, and we have a
Speaker 2: say so in who the DA actually is, so get
Speaker 2: out and vote. So that's everything in a nutshell.
Speaker 1: That's a pretty damn good nutshell. And you know, I
Speaker 1: got to say I was a big supporter of Chase
Speaker 1: A Boudin's campaign as well, and I'm super proud of
Speaker 1: everything he's been doing. You know, the truth is, we
Speaker 1: need to clone that guy and put the clones of
Speaker 1: him in DA offices all over the country. And while
Speaker 1: we're on the subject of dismantling systemic racism and all
Speaker 1: the other things that we've managed to talk about in
Speaker 1: this brief time we've had together, we can't leave out
Speaker 1: the young man who testified for you about what he's
Speaker 1: on the police station, right, And that was the guy
Speaker 1: who talked about the police coercing lou A Lamaga. His name,
Speaker 1: of course, was Oliver bar Senda's and he was actually
Speaker 1: shot in the back by the police, right.
Speaker 2: Oliver bar Sendas. The story is really that much like
Speaker 2: we will have to have two hours because the police
Speaker 2: shot him after he testified against me the first time,
Speaker 2: San Francisco Police Department. Right when he went to prison,
Speaker 2: came home within sixty days, they shot him in the
Speaker 2: back while he was running. He had a gun on him. Right,
Speaker 2: he goes to jail, he does three years, come home
Speaker 2: around the same time I come home and then he
Speaker 2: stays home three years, get off probation, we go to trial.
Speaker 2: We actually use him to testify in my civil case.
Speaker 2: He testifies in my civil case, and within two months
Speaker 2: again SFPD again shoots him in the back while he's
Speaker 2: running and tries to literally kill him, which he doesn't die.
Speaker 2: They had it on camera, and he actually just two
Speaker 2: weeks ago settled for less than five hundred thousand dollars
Speaker 2: in a civil suit. And the media has not connected
Speaker 2: these at all both cases. But would I know what
Speaker 2: they ended up doing, because we know this shit is crooked.
Speaker 2: They gave a belief like a doe feed or somebody
Speaker 2: it's called a chipped gun, so a drop gun to
Speaker 2: make sure that this gun gets in this person's hands,
Speaker 2: so they could go ahead and trail them ultimately to
Speaker 2: go to take them down. And when they going to
Speaker 2: take them down, there's only two things they can do.
Speaker 2: So if they run and they got the gun on them,
Speaker 2: then all they gotta do is kill them. And then
Speaker 2: they're gonna say, oh, well he had a gun on them.
Speaker 2: I seen a gun and blase the thing with Oliver.
Speaker 2: He didn't die both times.
Speaker 1: Okay, wait, wait what a chipped gun, like with GPS
Speaker 1: or something.
Speaker 2: Yes, e'sactly what they do, right. So you know how
Speaker 2: when they do like set up cars, they'll put a
Speaker 2: car right there with the keys in and stuff like that,
Speaker 2: kind of like lure you, but they already got it
Speaker 2: all set up. Same thing with a gun, and they
Speaker 2: was doing this in the nineties, right, That's how I
Speaker 2: know about it. It's called a drop gun. So they'll
Speaker 2: chip the gun, right, and they'll get this dau fiend
Speaker 2: or something like that that'll go up to a specific
Speaker 2: person or if not a specific person, a crowd and
Speaker 2: be like, we're gonna give you this. Go sell this
Speaker 2: gun for one hundred dollars. If you go to any
Speaker 2: projects and any hood with a dauphend with a gun
Speaker 2: saying that he's selling it for one hundred dollars, somebody's
Speaker 2: gonna buy it. And Oliver case that's what I believe
Speaker 2: they did, because the same scenario happened twice. In the
Speaker 2: second time, it just so happened that they have footage
Speaker 2: On the day the Warriors won the championship. They first championship,
Speaker 2: they pull out on a group of five Latinos with
Speaker 2: one can of beer talking about, oh, what are you
Speaker 2: guys doing here? And they're like, where is this one?
Speaker 2: We're just chilling. It's like, oh, well, you got an
Speaker 2: open can of beer. It's like, now, at that moment,
Speaker 2: you see Oliver kind of like testing a little bit,
Speaker 2: and then next you know, he takes off running. As
Speaker 2: soon as he takes off running, the officer already pulled
Speaker 2: out his gun and start running with the gun. Before
Speaker 2: the officer could see even if he had a gun
Speaker 2: on him or not, the officer already starts shooting blah
Speaker 2: blah blah blah, drops him with three of them, and
Speaker 2: then shoot an extra three of them while he on
Speaker 2: the floor, saying get down, get down, and he still lives.
Speaker 2: This is the thing, though, right that same officer killed
Speaker 2: a fourteen year old boy in South San Francisco just
Speaker 2: three years prior.
Speaker 1: Wow, you're right, and we wouldn't need at least a
Speaker 1: few more hours. And I'm not even sure there'd be
Speaker 1: enough to cover all of this stuff that's coming out now.
Speaker 1: But you know, at this point, let's go to our
Speaker 1: closing argument. This is the part of the show where
Speaker 1: everyone I think that's a part of the show everybody
Speaker 1: looks forward to I know I do. We call it
Speaker 1: closing arguments. This is where I get to, first of all,
Speaker 1: thank you for being here, sharing your incredible story and
Speaker 1: doing it so beautifully. And then I get to turn
Speaker 1: my microphone off and just kick back in my chair,
Speaker 1: leave my headphones on, and listen to you for any
Speaker 1: closing thoughts that you have about anything you want to
Speaker 1: talk about.
Speaker 2: My philosophy that I've got out of all of this
Speaker 2: that I've been through is that I don't stand for
Speaker 2: nothing because I find understanding in everything. And what that
Speaker 2: is is just find a mediation. You can have an opinion,
Speaker 2: you can have an opinion on how you look at things,
Speaker 2: but also knowing that there's somebody else's opinion and you
Speaker 2: have to look at it from their lenses and identify
Speaker 2: why they're looking at it like that causing mediation. Mediation
Speaker 2: is peaceful. So if people could always look at what
Speaker 2: they're going through or their ideology of how they see
Speaker 2: things and compare it to somebody else's and find understanding
Speaker 2: in that. But then if it's a negative or a positive,
Speaker 2: then you'll be able to come to a common ground
Speaker 2: to understand why you're going through what you're going through.
Speaker 2: And why the opposite person looks at something the way
Speaker 2: that they look at it, and that leads me to
Speaker 2: knowing that there will not be a positive for you
Speaker 2: or in this life without a negative. You have to
Speaker 2: accept every negative. Then you'll understand that me being in
Speaker 2: this positive situation right now, there's no way I get
Speaker 2: here or can predict that I get anywhere else in
Speaker 2: life without going through the most horrific thing that somebody
Speaker 2: could actually go through, and that's being put in jail
Speaker 2: and given a death sentence that you have to live
Speaker 2: the rest of your life until you actually die on
Speaker 2: And that leads me to the end, and that's knowing
Speaker 2: your past could better predict your future than plan for
Speaker 2: If you know the decisions that you made that led
Speaker 2: to a positive and the ones that led to a negative,
Speaker 2: then you will better identify where your future is actually
Speaker 2: going towards knowing that we all have to plan for sure,
Speaker 2: but not putting a plan so far ahead are so
Speaker 2: heavy onto your shoulders, so when you fail, you don't
Speaker 2: find understanding of why you fail, But then you'll understand
Speaker 2: it that much more by knowing why you failed before.
Speaker 1: Don't forget to give us a fantastic review. Wherever you
Speaker 1: get your podcasts.
Speaker 2: It really helps.
Speaker 1: And I'm a proud donor to the Nnocence Project and
Speaker 1: I really hope you'll join me in supporting this very
Speaker 1: important cause and helping to prevent future wrongful convictions. Go
Speaker 1: to Innocence Project dot orgorg to learn how to donate
Speaker 1: and get involved. I'd like to thank our production team,
Speaker 1: Connor and Kevin Wartis. The music in the show is
Speaker 1: by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure
Speaker 1: to follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction and on
Speaker 1: Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast. Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flamm
Speaker 1: is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts and association
Speaker 1: with Signal Company Number one