December 19, 2023 • 36 mins
Just a few months after September 11, Imam Jamil’s trial begins in an especially tense courtroom. A prosecutor is accused of misconduct, and Imam Jamil’s lawyers call for a mistrial.
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
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Speaker 2 (00:17):
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Enjoy the episode Campsite Media. At a court hearing less
(00:49):
than a week after September eleventh, the judge overseeing a
Ma'am Jamil Alamine's case gave both sides a chance to
speak at length. Reading the transcript of the hearing, the
lofty lefelanguage that we often hear in court rooms, it
seemed even more elevated that day, like everyone was speaking
for posterity, calling on their deepest beliefs to make sense
of the events. Jack Martin, the lead defense attorney for
(01:14):
a Ma'am Jamil, he stepped up to the podium facing
the judge. He noted for the record that in the
aftermath of nine to eleven, there had been a tacks
on Muslim Americans and that maschids across the country had
been desecrated and defiled. As lawyers, Martin said, we must
be realists. We must recognize that our judicial system is
far from perfect, hardly immune from the temper of the times.
(01:37):
He asked that the trial be postponed. In court, a
Maam Jamil usually wore a white thobe and a coofe,
but at this hearing he chose to wear his jail clothes,
apparently so he wouldn't attract threats and his Muslim garb.
He stepped up to the podium. I stand ready and
(01:57):
seeking resolution of an unjust situation. He said, I am
innocent of all of your charges. A Maam Jamille said
he wanted the trial to move forward despite the Islamophobic
fervor in America, but he would submit to his lawyer's
recommendations that it be postponed. Then he used the moment
to speak his mind. He had been silent from addressing
(02:17):
the public by a gag order, but the judge let
him talk over the prosecutor's objections. His remarks were grandiose
and prophetic at times. He seemed to be talking about
himself like a martyr. I am told that a trial
at this time is not wise. He said that fear
of silenced reason, that the cry for vengeance is too loud,
(02:40):
that the thirst for blood must be quenched, that the
orgy of murder must be played out, that all the
people must be made to eat and drink of it.
If your trying and killing me satisfies your taste for
the Muslim blood and spares the life of Muslim women
and children. Though I do not complain about my situation,
(03:01):
I'm advised that because of patriotism in this country, I
am unable to have a fair trial. Shouldn't it be
the opposite in a land that has said that freedom
is the pinnacle of its moral argument, that life, liberty,
and the pursuit of happiness is its banner of moral authority,
that justice is its master virtue, the scales upon which
is weighed its law and order. Or is that just
(03:23):
a dream speech. At one point, AmAm Jamil apparently turned
away from the judge and faced the prosecutor's table as
if speaking to them. The judge told a manage Meil
to face her. He continued, justice in law marches to
two different drummers. Justice in law are two different in
distinct conversations. I'm reminded that freedom is not free. I'm
(03:48):
reminded of a quote from Huey P. Long, who was
once governor of Louisiana, when he was asked would fascism
come to America, and he replied, yes, fascism will come
to America, but it will be called patriotism. Imagine a
(04:09):
kind of justice built on a divine awareness that knows
people's true intentions and sees the causes and effects of
people's actions across vast histories. AmAm Jamil evoked the justice
like this that day in court, with all of its
religious overtones. He seemed to say, if it is justice
in this grander, all knowing sense, that I be executed
(04:31):
even though I am innocent, I accept my faith. Not
only that, hurry up and get on with it. But
there was also a contradiction. He believed that a court
of law could set him free if only people would
consider the facts as he saw them. From Camside Media,
(04:53):
Tenderfoot TV, and iHeart podcasts, This is Radical, I'm Mostly
Secret Episode four, Look a Man in his Eyes. The
(05:22):
prosecution like a Ma'am Damiel's defense team didn't think a
fair trial would be possible. The judge agreed, and she
postponed the case until January of two thousand and two.
A Mam Jamil's trial was scheduled to begin nearly two
years after the shootout in the West End. When people
(05:46):
are charged with crimes, most eventually plead guilty. I watched
this play out countless times when I was covering the
courts for the New York Times. But in death penalty
cases like a Ma'am jimials, the option of negotiating a
pleading was essentially taken off the table. Even defendants who
knew they fucked up and were inclined to take responsibility,
(06:07):
they could still be sentenced to death, so they would
end up in court defending their lives, working with their
lawyers to pull some kind of story together for the jury.
Who has the winning story? That's not necessarily the same
question as whose story is the most true? I wonder
if seeking the death penalty if it can actually hide
more truth than it reveals. The lead prosecutor for the
(06:32):
Fulton County District Attorney's Office was a man named Robert McBurney.
A man who had devoted his working life to the
criminal court system.
Speaker 3 (06:40):
It's not perfect. Their biases and plenty of examples where
because of someone's race or lack of means or gender
that things went horribly wrong, and we need to stay
focused on those and do what we can to correct them.
But by and large, once you get into court, so
it's not saying on the policing side say, once you
get into court, we've got a system that works pretty well.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
Not long after he finished law school back in the nineties,
McBurnie took a job with the Fulton County DA. A
few years later, he left to join a private law firm,
but he realized it wasn't his thing.
Speaker 3 (07:12):
And I got a call from the lead investigator on
the Olamine case in the District Attorney's office and said, hey,
would you come back if I could get you on
the Olamine case. And I thought that I'd be interesting
the fascinating case, lots of moving parts. Fbis involved this
and that, and so I kicked it around for a
little bit, and I missed being a prosecutor. I like
(07:34):
being a prosecutor, And so I returned to the DA's
office and picked that up.
Speaker 2 (07:42):
AmAm Jamil's case was the biggest of mcburney's relatively young career.
Prosecuting a single case became his full time job. He
could hardly have stepped into a role with higher stakes.
There would be two phases to the trial. In the
first phase, a jury would decide if mam Jamil was
innocent or guilty, and if they convicted him, then in
(08:04):
a second phase, the same jury would choose whether he
should spend the rest of his life in prison or
if the State of Georgia should execute him. A mam
Jamil's lead attorney, Jack Martin, He said that because it
was a death penalty trial, he and the defense team
they had to adjust their strategy.
Speaker 4 (08:21):
Do you have to worry not only about what he
can do to gain a client acquitted, but also what
happens if he gets convicted? How do we make sure
you don't get the death penalty?
Speaker 2 (08:32):
If the defense were to take a big risk, like
putting forward a theory that was too outlandish or a
witness who wasn't totally credible, they might lose the trust
of the jury. And then if a man Jamil got convicted,
the jury might not believe defense lawyers When they argue
that a Mam Jamil should keep his life. Let me
(08:54):
set the scene for you a little. The courtroom was
a modern looking one, tan carpeted floors, brown theater style
seats in the gallery, not the old Hartwood benches, computer
monitors on the tables. A Maam Jamil and his white
thob and coofy sat at a table next to his
legal team. The lawyers wore suits and ties. A man
(09:17):
Jamil's wife Karema and their young son Kyrie. They sat
close to each other behind the defense table. Members of
the Weston Mass Gifts showed up two. The courtroom was full.
You knew court was officially in session each day When
the bailiffs commanded all rise, everyone in the courtroom was
expected to stand up and share respect when the judge entered.
(09:38):
Same thing when the jury walked in. But a Mam
Jamil wouldn't do it.
Speaker 4 (09:43):
He said, this is contrary to my religion. Don't stand
for anybody but Dalla. And the judge was spuried accommodating
about that. She said, that's no big deal, you don't
have to stand.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
The courtroom was tense, even more so than a typical
trial nine eleven wasn't that far off. The gallery was
full of people from a community that was wary of
law enforcement, and the Sheriff's office responsible for security in
the court building. It was the same office that Deputy
Kinchen had worked for and Deputy English was still working for.
(10:16):
The judge must have sensed this. She ordered that if
law enforcement came to the trial of Spectators, they couldn't
wear their uniforms. But that didn't stop the new Black
Panther Party from showing up one day wearing all black fatigues,
and so when it was time for opening statements, this
was how the courtroom felt when Robert mcfernie and his
team laid out their case.
Speaker 4 (10:37):
For the jury.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
The prosecution argument began with a recitation of some of
what English called out as he lay in the field
next to the mast it please don't shoot me anymore.
Don't shoot me anymore. From there their argument went like this.
Kenchin and English were just doing their job. They went
to the West End with a warrant to arrest them,
(11:00):
Ma'am Jamil, And when Kenchin pulled her car up in
front of Amm Jamil's black Mercedes and the deputies got
out a Mam Jamil fired at the deputies. Here's the prosecutor,
Robert McBurney.
Speaker 3 (11:12):
He produced not a small gun but an assault rifle,
killed one deputy and severely injured another. We know where
Kinchin was. He didn't get very far and English was
able to testify as to where he started and then
he collapsed in the field over by the mass.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
Jit At the hospital, English had idea to Mam Jamil
in a photo lineup and that was still his story.
Then there was the state's physical evidence. Dozens of shell
casings and bullets were recovered from the scene in the
West End, and after AmAm Jamil was arrested in Loudon County, Alabama,
FBI agents found guns in the woods, presumably that AmAm
(11:45):
Jamil had dropped while fleeing federal agents. Ballistics analysts found
that those guns matched bullets that killed Kenchin and wounded English,
and there was more physical evidence from Lowndes County.
Speaker 3 (11:57):
He fled in a Mercedes that was found in Alabama
with bullet holes that were consistent with his gun as
well as the deputy's guns.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
So for McBurnie and his prosecution team, the physical evidence
clearly matched English's testimony.
Speaker 3 (12:12):
Based on the entrance wounds for Kinschin, the entrance wounds
for English, all of the bullet holes in the Mercedes.
It really wasn't all that controversial as to who was
standing where. What was controversial was who was the person
standing next to the Mercedes, And I don't think that
was controversial. That was Alaman.
Speaker 2 (12:33):
It was a strong case, but there were still opportunities
for the defense to create doubt in the minds.
Speaker 5 (12:38):
Of the jury.
Speaker 2 (12:47):
AmAm Dmil's defense team. Their strategy was to point out
all the inconsistencies in the prosecution's case to show their
evidence was flawed. I hardly need to remind you in
this trial episode of the podcast that the prosecution needed
to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that a Maam Jamil
shot Deputy Kenchin and Deputy English, and that a Maam
(13:08):
Jamil's lawyers they didn't need to prove he was innocent.
They just needed to create enough doubt in the minds
of the jury. Really, even one juror to pull off
that argument. It required a good amount of skepticism, especially
of law enforcement. A Maam Jamil's lawyers they were defense attorneys,
so sure they were inclined to be skeptical of official accounts.
(13:32):
But the defense team's investigator, wa Tani tahimba his skepticism.
It was on a whole another level. Whata Tani and
a Maam Jamil are around the same age. Watani spent
time in Los Angeles when he was young.
Speaker 6 (13:51):
I was directly impacted by the Watch rebellion. You know,
the National Guard was like an occupying army for us.
Became very obvious that we were oppressed. Put guns on
ers and tell us to go back in the house
with dusted don curfew. All those kind of things raised
your consciousness. And so I was a young man coming
up into my consciousness. In the nineteen.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
Sixties, Whatatani joined the Black Power movement, and like a
Ma'am Jamil, he was surveilled by the FBI. That didn't
inspire a lot of trust and law enforcement. Watani and
a Maam Jamil knew each other before this case. In
the late eighties, Whatatani moved to Atlanta started working as
a criminal investigator, always on the defense side, the side
(14:31):
against the state. He worked a lot for my dad. Actually,
most if not all, of Watani's clients were black. They
called him unk and he built relationships with them, talked
about novels with them on occasion. It was sort of
a continuation of his work in the movement. Months before
the trial began, whata Tani was doing his thing, interviewing
(14:55):
potential witnesses and gathering new evidence. He knew that testimony
from English would be key to the prosecution's case. Remember
that it was the morning after the shootout, when English
was still in the hospital recovering from surgery, that a
detective from the Atlanta Police Department first interviewed him. Watani
learned that English had received the total of ten milligrams
(15:16):
of morphine and during the prior twenty four hours he
had also lost a lot of blood. An expert said
his mental faculties would have been impaired. But the morning
after surgery, the detective he decided English was ready to
tell him what happened the night before an English id
to man Jamil in the photo lineup. Watani looked for
any outside information that might have influenced English's id between
(15:39):
the night he was shot in the West End and
that morning in the hospital. Almost immediately after the shootout,
Atlanta's local TV stations they were all over the story.
Speaker 6 (15:53):
The English in the hospital watching the news, and so
they are talking about Jamil, and he sees the one news.
So I went to talk to the doctors and people
in the staff there, and they said they confirmed he
was watching into television. And then I came back and
the guy retracted. He says, well, I really can't, can't.
I don't really.
Speaker 2 (16:13):
Remember now the doctor retracted, Yes.
Speaker 6 (16:15):
Doctor retracted it. One of the sheriffs took the stand
to testify. She said that when she acad in it,
she unplugged the television so he would not be able
to see and and misidentify anybody. So, you know, like
what gives her the presence of mind? I said, let
me just unplug this television.
Speaker 2 (16:33):
But Tani didn't tell me the name of the doctor
who attracted his statement. And I'm not sure that I
would have gotten a conclusive answer to this question all
these years later. So it's hard for me to make
much of this one way or the other, except that
with Tani, he really did not trust English's identification of
a man Jamil. At the trial, after both sides gave
(16:59):
their winning arguments, the prosecution called English to the stand
their first witness. He sat to the right of the
judge wearing his tan uniform in a dark brown tie.
The lead prosecutor, Robert McBurney examined his witness. English rehashed
his account of that night he and Kinchin were in
(17:20):
the West End.
Speaker 5 (17:21):
With a warrant.
Speaker 2 (17:22):
They pulled up on a black Mercedes and English asked
the man getting out of the car to show his
right hand. Then the man pulled out a rifle and
started firing. McBurney asked English, what went through your mind
when you saw that assault rifle pointed at you. English
lost his composure, started crying, wiped tears from his eyes
(17:44):
with his thumb in one of his fingers. He took
a deep breath, um that I was about to die
when he started shooting. I thought about my kids, thought
about my wife, and I asked myself as I was running,
what have I done to deserve this? Holding a clipboard,
(18:05):
McBurney moved to stand behind the defense table, not far
from what Tani and behind a Ma'am Jamial who sat
almost perfectly still expressionless. Is this the man who had
the assault rifle that night? McBurney asked, as English looked
at a Mam Jamial. Yes it is, Sir, said English,
(18:27):
did you see anyone else that night with an assault rifle? No, sir,
is this the man who fired the assault rifle at you? Yes,
it is, said English. Jack Martin did the cross examination methodically.
Martin had English recount his memories of the shootout, but
(18:50):
Martin tried to undermine his credibility. He read back to
English inconsistencies between his testimony and statements he had made
to law enforcement. One of the inconsistencies was that English
said he prided himself on his marksmanship, and he was
sure he shot a man Jamial. But remember when a
(19:11):
man Jamial was arrested in Alabama, he was uninjured. And
then in an interview with a detective, English said this
about his encounter with the shooter. Quote, my mom always
told me, look a man in his eye, Always look
a man in his eyes. I looked him in his eyes.
I remember them, gray eyes. I remember that face, that
(19:33):
cold face. So I couldn't forget that. But a man
Jamil didn't have gray eyes. His eyes were brown. English
stood to reenact the details of his encounter with the shooter.
When Martin asked about the shooter's eye color, English insisted
that Mamjamial was wearing yellow glasses, suggesting that was the
(19:55):
reason he thought of Mam Jamial's eyes were gray. Martin
pointed out that and the statements English gave to detectives
he didn't mention anything about yellow glasses. Martin kept pressing
the point, and the prosecutor mcburniey he objected, claiming Martin
was being argumentative. Eventually, Martin moved on. Wa Tani watched
(20:17):
English's testimony from the defense table.
Speaker 5 (20:20):
Did the English.
Speaker 2 (20:21):
Testimony is that memorable to you at all? Or do
you remember how you were feeling about that?
Speaker 4 (20:28):
Yeah?
Speaker 6 (20:28):
I thought he was lying, but that was my good feeling. Yeah,
I mean he saw him on television and he looked
at this stuff, and they say, I'll never forget those
gray eyes. I believe that's what happened. And they use
the gray eyes to try to emphasize, Oh, yeah.
Speaker 5 (20:43):
It's him, because it's so unique that a black person
would have great because it's unforgettable.
Speaker 6 (20:48):
On the paper.
Speaker 2 (20:48):
But that thing, what you saw ful the paper, what
Tani is talking about. He means the warrant. On the warrant,
a man Jamil's eye color was listed incorrectly, as so
English's whole story about his mama telling him to look
a man in the eyes sounds kind of funny. It
created a suspicion that he might have been trying to
(21:09):
pin the shooting on a man Jamial. After English's testimony
later in the trial, the prosecution called the ballistics analyst
from George's crime lab to the witness stand. McBurney questioned
the analyst he held up the nine milimeters pistol and
the Ruger Many fourteen semi automatic rifle found close to
where a Mam Jamial was captured. The rifle was a
(21:32):
unique and powerful gun. Even though it was semi automatic,
it could still be fired rapidly, and it had a
retractable stock so it could be compact fired from the
hip or extended and fired like a rifle typically is
from the shoulder. The analyst said that a bullet from
the rifle must have hit Kinchin with the caveat that
(21:52):
if there was another ruger Many fourteen at the scene,
she couldn't tell the difference between the two, and the
analyst testified that a bullet from the pistol the same
one Bernie held up in the courtroom, that it hit
Deputy Kenchin.
Speaker 5 (22:04):
Period.
Speaker 2 (22:06):
Here's the defense attorney Jack Martin.
Speaker 4 (22:10):
The gun evidence was very problematic for us. It was
a difficult thing for us to overcome. But you know,
we had some explanations for it, but it was more difficult,
including why would he take it all the way to Alabama.
Speaker 2 (22:24):
Ama Jimil's defense team had argued before the trial that
the ballistics evidence shouldn't be included at all, but the
judge decided to allow it. Now, all they could do
was cross examine the analysts. It got really technical about
gas projection and surface markings, that type of stuff. But
the thing is, there are serious questions about the veracity
(22:46):
of the kinds of ballistics evidence that was presented.
Speaker 4 (22:49):
To say that this gun is the gud who fired
this book is very, very difficult. There were questions about
whether this was a valid conclusion from a scientific point
of view.
Speaker 2 (23:00):
Ballistics just happens to be something I know a little
bit about. When I was an investigative reporter at Pro Publica,
I worked on a team looking into the validity of
the so called forensic sciences. The project eventually ran under
the headline The Real CSI, which was meant to be
a corrective to how CSI and other crime dramas hold
out ballistics analysis and other methods as infallible truth. The
(23:24):
work was inspired by a huge report put out by
the National Academy of Sciences on ballistics analysis. The Academy concluded, quote,
the decision of the tool mark examiner remains a subjective
decision based on unarticulated standards and no statistical foundation. The
report went on to say that it has never been
(23:44):
conclusively proven that a particular gun leaves unique markings on
the bullets at fires. But according to Jack Martin, it
was always going to be tough to convince the jury
that this evidence wasn't reliable. Do you think from your
experiences as a lawyer, do juries tend to believe ballistics evidence?
Speaker 4 (24:03):
Yeah, and they shouldn't.
Speaker 2 (24:06):
This kind of ballistics evidence matching a bullet or a
shell casing to a particular gun. It's still widely admissible
in US courts. But after three weeks of testimony and
cross examinations and objections and squabbling over evidence, there was
almost time to turn the case over to the jury.
(24:38):
In my reporting on this story, I swung back and
forth between thinking maybe a Mama Jemil didn't shoot those
deputies and yes, he definitely did. One bit of information
would lead me one way, and then another would turn
me around in the uncertainty. And when I was thinking
I'd never get to the bottom of what happened, I
(24:59):
figured that maybe the story I was supposed to tell
was more about a Maam Jimil himself. Who was this
man who I encountered as a kid, who people believed
was even capable of shooting two cops. But then I
would get sucked back into an obsessive and maybe even
a foolish desire to figure out what actually happened that night.
(25:20):
We all know that the facts at any trial are
subject to dispute, but it's also the case that so
many facts are never even considered. Prosecutors and defense lawyers
construct narratives out of little slivers of life. As the
trial neared its climax, there were still unanswered questions on
both sides. That's a big part of why I got
(25:40):
sucked into this case. So much had been left off
the table. When I interviewed Watani Tahimba about his work
as an investigator and about a Ma'am Jamil's trial, it
was the first time in my reporting that I felt
close to hearing for myself some straight up truth about
that night, not close enough to actually uncover the information itself.
(26:01):
I just detected that something real was there. It was
a little jolt that said keep on digging. But Tani
and I were talking about how as an investigator he
works closely, almost intimately, with truth that goes unsaid.
Speaker 5 (26:17):
I don't know who I was talking to about this recently,
but it was I think maybe it was my wife actually,
and she was saying, do you think that defendants tell
the truth to their lawyers? And it's the same kind
of thing. Do they tell the truth to their investigators?
Speaker 2 (26:31):
My answer to her was not all the time, Like.
Speaker 6 (26:34):
I don't know in fact, and I don't always ask them,
see I don't. I don't ever ask them did you
do this? I never asked that, you know, say that's
what the police say, that's what the state was saying,
we got some problems here. This is the area that
we definitely got some issues here, you know, so we
do it like that. But I've had can't say give
me a whole story, say what do you think about that?
Speaker 4 (26:52):
Said?
Speaker 2 (26:52):
What do I think about that?
Speaker 4 (26:53):
Said?
Speaker 6 (26:54):
What do you think about that? That kind of intue me,
it's your story. I'm not help you to do this.
You tell me your story. I'll show you where your
stuff is bad. You know, we tighten it up. But yeah,
so yeah, it's interesting in it. It's it's none of
them are there saying? You know?
Speaker 5 (27:11):
It would have been that same kind of scenario with
the Mam Jamil. It wouldn't have been like, did you
do this?
Speaker 6 (27:16):
Well, I mean we have a relationship. I could ask
me to, but I wouldn't do that.
Speaker 2 (27:21):
Ma'am Jamil had pleaded not guilty. He said he was innocent,
but he didn't have an alibi. So if he didn't
shoot the deputies, then who did? It would have had
to be someone else, someone who with Tani would have
wanted to talk to as an investigator. Would you have
been previous conversations with the Mam Jamil the client himself,
(27:46):
to kind of give you guidance about where you should
go or not.
Speaker 6 (27:50):
Go as an investigator? You know, yeah, we have privileged
conversations with our client as well as with the other attorneys.
Speaker 2 (27:56):
And did he point you in one way or the other.
Speaker 6 (27:59):
We have privileged conversations.
Speaker 3 (28:00):
I can't say.
Speaker 2 (28:02):
Right that right there, that's it there's something there. Who
knows Maybe wa Tani doesn't even know what it is.
There's some truth there, even if it's unset. The prosecution
(28:23):
left some big questions out there too. Robert McBurnie and
his team, they decided not to explain why they thought
a man Jimial shot the deputies. They had no obligation
to describe a motive.
Speaker 3 (28:35):
Certainly, it was a topic of interest amongst those of
us on the prosecution team of why someone who at
that point in his life had become a community icon
and was revered or feared pick your term in the
West End, why not simply go with these deputies to
deal with a stolen car allegation and be done with it.
Speaker 2 (28:59):
Mcburnie's theory was that a Mam Jamil had something in
the trunk of the Mercedes guns, maybe that he didn't
want English and kinsin to find when they pulled up
on him.
Speaker 3 (29:08):
That's as good as it got. It was senseless regardless.
It really doesn't matter what was in the trunk to
shoot to kill two deputies who are simply doing their job.
And there was nothing in this case about you know,
these deputies were approaching him aggressively or he was defending
himself that that was never the defense, because of course
he didn't do it was the defense.
Speaker 2 (29:33):
But those are all things that did not come up
at the trial. As the time approached for closing arguments
and the defense was finishing with their witnesses, a man
Jamil and his lawyers had to decide if he should testify.
Based on the Constitution the Fifth Amendment, it was his
right to refuse to take the stand, and if he
decided not to McBurney in the prosecution, they weren't allowed
(29:57):
to bring it up. Jack Martin worried that if a
Mam Jamial testified, the armed robbery conviction he caught in
New York in the seventies would come up and the
jury would hold it against him. So in the end,
a Mam Jamil didn't take the stand. McBurney gave his
closing argument. First, he ran through the case the prosecution
(30:18):
had laid out during testimony, and then McBurney said to
the jury, I want to leave you with a few
questions you should have for the defendant. He was using
a PowerPoint presentation and he put up a slide.
Speaker 3 (30:31):
The label of the slide was questions for the Defendant
and It was basically, how can you explain all these things?
And then it rattled off some questions, how do you
explain the shellcasing on the Mercedes? How do you explain
the bullet taken out a Deputy Kinchin that matches this gun.
It basically thinks that you cannot explain.
Speaker 4 (30:51):
I was amazed and it just troubled me, and it
sort of the thought crossed my mind, said they must
be fairly desperate to be making that type of argument.
Speaker 2 (31:03):
Jack Martin objected. He asked for a mistrial because of
Mamjamial's Fifth Amendment rights were violated. The judge said no,
and McBurney changed the title of that slide. Then the
judge explained to the jury that a Mam Jamial had
no obligation to testify, that the jury shouldn't draw any
conclusion from a man Jamial's choice not to take the stand.
(31:25):
McBurney finished the first part of his argument, and then
it was the defense's turn. They said that English's idea
of a Mammed Meal didn't hold up, that a Mam
Jamil didn't have gray eyes and he wasn't shot like
English said he was. And the defense pointed out the
link between the bullets, the guns, and a man demial.
It wasn't as convincing as it might seem. Then McBurney
(31:47):
had a chance to deliver a final closing speech. He
rebutted the defense arguments point by point, and he approached
the climax of his argument. You watched what happened in
this courtroom. Who wouldn't stand up for you? Don't stand
for him. The defendant is guilty of the murder of
Deputy Ricky Kinchin. McBurney said, he's guilty of each and
(32:10):
every count in the indictment, and you need to hold
him accountable. Don't stand for him. Remember that a Ma'am Jamil,
unlike many others in the courtroom, hadn't risen. When the
judge and jury entered for religious reasons, Martin objected to
mcburney's language and again asked for a mistrial. The judge
(32:32):
denied the request, but she did tell the jury that
a Maam Jamial's beliefs shouldn't be held against him. The
jury was sent away to deliberate. These days, McBurney is
one of the most well known judges in Georgia. He
oversaw a special grand jury's investigation and to alleged election
interference by former President Donald Trump. I asked McBurnie whether
(32:56):
he went too far in his closing argument. A district
court judge went as far as saying that it was
a I think serious and repeated constitutional violation the argument
that you made. And I don't think that you've had
the opportunity to kind of state publicly what you were
thinking and your thoughts about how it went down, But
we would love to hear that.
Speaker 3 (33:16):
Sure, So my friends like to bring this one up
all the time. I made a mistake. It was an honest,
good faith mistake, and I own it, and I have
been owning it for many years now. But it was
a mistake as opposed to an attempt to get the
jury to think about Wait a minute, Alameine didn't testify.
They knew that that would have been the most fascinating
(33:38):
part of the trial is to have this very charismatic, silent,
brooding person testify, and he didn't. But I didn't talk
about that in my closing I shouldn't have talked about it.
And that was a very long answer, but it's just
to emphasize how I think in the grand scheme of things,
minor my mistake was.
Speaker 2 (33:58):
The defense team and the district court judge. I mentioned
they didn't consider the mistake to be so minor. I
also asked mc bernie about his reference to a man
Jamil not standing during the trial. That wasn't a mistake,
he said, not at all.
Speaker 3 (34:13):
I don't owe him respect. I treated him as I
ought to, and he got a phenomenal defense team, great judge,
and a very very fair trial. The fact that I
didn't hold his hand and tell him I thought he
was a swell guy. I don't lose sleep over that one.
Speaker 2 (34:32):
After less than a day of deliberation, the jury found
a man Jamil guilty on all accounts. But the trial,
it wasn't over yet. A man Jamil and his defense team,
they still had to fight to keep him alive.
Speaker 7 (34:46):
And now you have to come in front of that
same jury and say, Okay, let's assume you got it right.
Let's assume you made the correct decision. I have a
second argument for you. He should live.
Speaker 2 (35:01):
That on the next episode of Radical. Radical is a
(35:28):
production of Camside Media, Tenderfoot TV, and iHeart Podcasts. Radical
was reported and written by Johnnykauffman and me Mosey's Secret
Johnnykaufman is our senior producer. Sheba Joseph is our associate producer.
Editing by Eric Benson, Johnny Kaufman, Emily Martinez and Matt Cher.
Fact checking by Sophie Hurwitz, Kayln Lynch and Layla Dos.
(35:52):
Original music by Kyle Murdoch and by Ray Murray of
Organized Noise. Sound design and mixing by Kevin Seaman. Recording
by Ewan led trom Ewen and Sheba Joseph. Campside Media's
operations team is Doug Slaywan, Ashley Warren, Elijah Papes, Destiny Dingle,
and Sabina Mera. The executive producers at Campside Media are
(36:14):
Josh Dean Vanessa, Gregoriatis, Adam Hoff, and Matt Cher. For
Tenderfoot TV, executive producers are Donald Albright and Paine Lindsay.
The executive producers at iHeart Podcasts are Matt Frederick and
Alex Williams, with additional support from Trevor Young,
The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are solely
those of the podcast author or individuals participating in the podcast,
and do not represent those of iHeartRadio or their employees.
This podcast also contains subject matter which may not be
suitable for everyone listening to.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Discretion is advised. Radical is released every Tuesday and brought
to you absolutely free, but if you want to add
free listening and early access to next week's episode, subscribe
to tenderfoot Plus. For more information, check out tenderfootplus dot com.
Enjoy the episode Campsite Media. At a court hearing less
(00:49):
than a week after September eleventh, the judge overseeing a
Ma'am Jamil Alamine's case gave both sides a chance to
speak at length. Reading the transcript of the hearing, the
lofty lefelanguage that we often hear in court rooms, it
seemed even more elevated that day, like everyone was speaking
for posterity, calling on their deepest beliefs to make sense
of the events. Jack Martin, the lead defense attorney for
(01:14):
a Ma'am Jamil, he stepped up to the podium facing
the judge. He noted for the record that in the
aftermath of nine to eleven, there had been a tacks
on Muslim Americans and that maschids across the country had
been desecrated and defiled. As lawyers, Martin said, we must
be realists. We must recognize that our judicial system is
far from perfect, hardly immune from the temper of the times.
(01:37):
He asked that the trial be postponed. In court, a
Maam Jamil usually wore a white thobe and a coofe,
but at this hearing he chose to wear his jail clothes,
apparently so he wouldn't attract threats and his Muslim garb.
He stepped up to the podium. I stand ready and
(01:57):
seeking resolution of an unjust situation. He said, I am
innocent of all of your charges. A Maam Jamille said
he wanted the trial to move forward despite the Islamophobic
fervor in America, but he would submit to his lawyer's
recommendations that it be postponed. Then he used the moment
to speak his mind. He had been silent from addressing
(02:17):
the public by a gag order, but the judge let
him talk over the prosecutor's objections. His remarks were grandiose
and prophetic at times. He seemed to be talking about
himself like a martyr. I am told that a trial
at this time is not wise. He said that fear
of silenced reason, that the cry for vengeance is too loud,
(02:40):
that the thirst for blood must be quenched, that the
orgy of murder must be played out, that all the
people must be made to eat and drink of it.
If your trying and killing me satisfies your taste for
the Muslim blood and spares the life of Muslim women
and children. Though I do not complain about my situation,
(03:01):
I'm advised that because of patriotism in this country, I
am unable to have a fair trial. Shouldn't it be
the opposite in a land that has said that freedom
is the pinnacle of its moral argument, that life, liberty,
and the pursuit of happiness is its banner of moral authority,
that justice is its master virtue, the scales upon which
is weighed its law and order. Or is that just
(03:23):
a dream speech. At one point, AmAm Jamil apparently turned
away from the judge and faced the prosecutor's table as
if speaking to them. The judge told a manage Meil
to face her. He continued, justice in law marches to
two different drummers. Justice in law are two different in
distinct conversations. I'm reminded that freedom is not free. I'm
(03:48):
reminded of a quote from Huey P. Long, who was
once governor of Louisiana, when he was asked would fascism
come to America, and he replied, yes, fascism will come
to America, but it will be called patriotism. Imagine a
(04:09):
kind of justice built on a divine awareness that knows
people's true intentions and sees the causes and effects of
people's actions across vast histories. AmAm Jamil evoked the justice
like this that day in court, with all of its
religious overtones. He seemed to say, if it is justice
in this grander, all knowing sense, that I be executed
(04:31):
even though I am innocent, I accept my faith. Not
only that, hurry up and get on with it. But
there was also a contradiction. He believed that a court
of law could set him free if only people would
consider the facts as he saw them. From Camside Media,
(04:53):
Tenderfoot TV, and iHeart podcasts, This is Radical, I'm Mostly
Secret Episode four, Look a Man in his Eyes. The
(05:22):
prosecution like a Ma'am Damiel's defense team didn't think a
fair trial would be possible. The judge agreed, and she
postponed the case until January of two thousand and two.
A Mam Jamil's trial was scheduled to begin nearly two
years after the shootout in the West End. When people
(05:46):
are charged with crimes, most eventually plead guilty. I watched
this play out countless times when I was covering the
courts for the New York Times. But in death penalty
cases like a Ma'am jimials, the option of negotiating a
pleading was essentially taken off the table. Even defendants who
knew they fucked up and were inclined to take responsibility,
(06:07):
they could still be sentenced to death, so they would
end up in court defending their lives, working with their
lawyers to pull some kind of story together for the jury.
Who has the winning story? That's not necessarily the same
question as whose story is the most true? I wonder
if seeking the death penalty if it can actually hide
more truth than it reveals. The lead prosecutor for the
(06:32):
Fulton County District Attorney's Office was a man named Robert McBurney.
A man who had devoted his working life to the
criminal court system.
Speaker 3 (06:40):
It's not perfect. Their biases and plenty of examples where
because of someone's race or lack of means or gender
that things went horribly wrong, and we need to stay
focused on those and do what we can to correct them.
But by and large, once you get into court, so
it's not saying on the policing side say, once you
get into court, we've got a system that works pretty well.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
Not long after he finished law school back in the nineties,
McBurnie took a job with the Fulton County DA. A
few years later, he left to join a private law firm,
but he realized it wasn't his thing.
Speaker 3 (07:12):
And I got a call from the lead investigator on
the Olamine case in the District Attorney's office and said, hey,
would you come back if I could get you on
the Olamine case. And I thought that I'd be interesting
the fascinating case, lots of moving parts. Fbis involved this
and that, and so I kicked it around for a
little bit, and I missed being a prosecutor. I like
(07:34):
being a prosecutor, And so I returned to the DA's
office and picked that up.
Speaker 2 (07:42):
AmAm Jamil's case was the biggest of mcburney's relatively young career.
Prosecuting a single case became his full time job. He
could hardly have stepped into a role with higher stakes.
There would be two phases to the trial. In the
first phase, a jury would decide if mam Jamil was
innocent or guilty, and if they convicted him, then in
(08:04):
a second phase, the same jury would choose whether he
should spend the rest of his life in prison or
if the State of Georgia should execute him. A mam
Jamil's lead attorney, Jack Martin, He said that because it
was a death penalty trial, he and the defense team
they had to adjust their strategy.
Speaker 4 (08:21):
Do you have to worry not only about what he
can do to gain a client acquitted, but also what
happens if he gets convicted? How do we make sure
you don't get the death penalty?
Speaker 2 (08:32):
If the defense were to take a big risk, like
putting forward a theory that was too outlandish or a
witness who wasn't totally credible, they might lose the trust
of the jury. And then if a man Jamil got convicted,
the jury might not believe defense lawyers When they argue
that a Mam Jamil should keep his life. Let me
(08:54):
set the scene for you a little. The courtroom was
a modern looking one, tan carpeted floors, brown theater style
seats in the gallery, not the old Hartwood benches, computer
monitors on the tables. A Maam Jamil and his white
thob and coofy sat at a table next to his
legal team. The lawyers wore suits and ties. A man
(09:17):
Jamil's wife Karema and their young son Kyrie. They sat
close to each other behind the defense table. Members of
the Weston Mass Gifts showed up two. The courtroom was full.
You knew court was officially in session each day When
the bailiffs commanded all rise, everyone in the courtroom was
expected to stand up and share respect when the judge entered.
(09:38):
Same thing when the jury walked in. But a Mam
Jamil wouldn't do it.
Speaker 4 (09:43):
He said, this is contrary to my religion. Don't stand
for anybody but Dalla. And the judge was spuried accommodating
about that. She said, that's no big deal, you don't
have to stand.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
The courtroom was tense, even more so than a typical
trial nine eleven wasn't that far off. The gallery was
full of people from a community that was wary of
law enforcement, and the Sheriff's office responsible for security in
the court building. It was the same office that Deputy
Kinchen had worked for and Deputy English was still working for.
(10:16):
The judge must have sensed this. She ordered that if
law enforcement came to the trial of Spectators, they couldn't
wear their uniforms. But that didn't stop the new Black
Panther Party from showing up one day wearing all black fatigues,
and so when it was time for opening statements, this
was how the courtroom felt when Robert mcfernie and his
team laid out their case.
Speaker 4 (10:37):
For the jury.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
The prosecution argument began with a recitation of some of
what English called out as he lay in the field
next to the mast it please don't shoot me anymore.
Don't shoot me anymore. From there their argument went like this.
Kenchin and English were just doing their job. They went
to the West End with a warrant to arrest them,
(11:00):
Ma'am Jamil, And when Kenchin pulled her car up in
front of Amm Jamil's black Mercedes and the deputies got
out a Mam Jamil fired at the deputies. Here's the prosecutor,
Robert McBurney.
Speaker 3 (11:12):
He produced not a small gun but an assault rifle,
killed one deputy and severely injured another. We know where
Kinchin was. He didn't get very far and English was
able to testify as to where he started and then
he collapsed in the field over by the mass.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
Jit At the hospital, English had idea to Mam Jamil
in a photo lineup and that was still his story.
Then there was the state's physical evidence. Dozens of shell
casings and bullets were recovered from the scene in the
West End, and after AmAm Jamil was arrested in Loudon County, Alabama,
FBI agents found guns in the woods, presumably that AmAm
(11:45):
Jamil had dropped while fleeing federal agents. Ballistics analysts found
that those guns matched bullets that killed Kenchin and wounded English,
and there was more physical evidence from Lowndes County.
Speaker 3 (11:57):
He fled in a Mercedes that was found in Alabama
with bullet holes that were consistent with his gun as
well as the deputy's guns.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
So for McBurnie and his prosecution team, the physical evidence
clearly matched English's testimony.
Speaker 3 (12:12):
Based on the entrance wounds for Kinschin, the entrance wounds
for English, all of the bullet holes in the Mercedes.
It really wasn't all that controversial as to who was
standing where. What was controversial was who was the person
standing next to the Mercedes, And I don't think that
was controversial. That was Alaman.
Speaker 2 (12:33):
It was a strong case, but there were still opportunities
for the defense to create doubt in the minds.
Speaker 5 (12:38):
Of the jury.
Speaker 2 (12:47):
AmAm Dmil's defense team. Their strategy was to point out
all the inconsistencies in the prosecution's case to show their
evidence was flawed. I hardly need to remind you in
this trial episode of the podcast that the prosecution needed
to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that a Maam Jamil
shot Deputy Kenchin and Deputy English, and that a Maam
(13:08):
Jamil's lawyers they didn't need to prove he was innocent.
They just needed to create enough doubt in the minds
of the jury. Really, even one juror to pull off
that argument. It required a good amount of skepticism, especially
of law enforcement. A Maam Jamil's lawyers they were defense attorneys,
so sure they were inclined to be skeptical of official accounts.
(13:32):
But the defense team's investigator, wa Tani tahimba his skepticism.
It was on a whole another level. Whata Tani and
a Maam Jamil are around the same age. Watani spent
time in Los Angeles when he was young.
Speaker 6 (13:51):
I was directly impacted by the Watch rebellion. You know,
the National Guard was like an occupying army for us.
Became very obvious that we were oppressed. Put guns on
ers and tell us to go back in the house
with dusted don curfew. All those kind of things raised
your consciousness. And so I was a young man coming
up into my consciousness. In the nineteen.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
Sixties, Whatatani joined the Black Power movement, and like a
Ma'am Jamil, he was surveilled by the FBI. That didn't
inspire a lot of trust and law enforcement. Watani and
a Maam Jamil knew each other before this case. In
the late eighties, Whatatani moved to Atlanta started working as
a criminal investigator, always on the defense side, the side
(14:31):
against the state. He worked a lot for my dad. Actually,
most if not all, of Watani's clients were black. They
called him unk and he built relationships with them, talked
about novels with them on occasion. It was sort of
a continuation of his work in the movement. Months before
the trial began, whata Tani was doing his thing, interviewing
(14:55):
potential witnesses and gathering new evidence. He knew that testimony
from English would be key to the prosecution's case. Remember
that it was the morning after the shootout, when English
was still in the hospital recovering from surgery, that a
detective from the Atlanta Police Department first interviewed him. Watani
learned that English had received the total of ten milligrams
(15:16):
of morphine and during the prior twenty four hours he
had also lost a lot of blood. An expert said
his mental faculties would have been impaired. But the morning
after surgery, the detective he decided English was ready to
tell him what happened the night before an English id
to man Jamil in the photo lineup. Watani looked for
any outside information that might have influenced English's id between
(15:39):
the night he was shot in the West End and
that morning in the hospital. Almost immediately after the shootout,
Atlanta's local TV stations they were all over the story.
Speaker 6 (15:53):
The English in the hospital watching the news, and so
they are talking about Jamil, and he sees the one news.
So I went to talk to the doctors and people
in the staff there, and they said they confirmed he
was watching into television. And then I came back and
the guy retracted. He says, well, I really can't, can't.
I don't really.
Speaker 2 (16:13):
Remember now the doctor retracted, Yes.
Speaker 6 (16:15):
Doctor retracted it. One of the sheriffs took the stand
to testify. She said that when she acad in it,
she unplugged the television so he would not be able
to see and and misidentify anybody. So, you know, like
what gives her the presence of mind? I said, let
me just unplug this television.
Speaker 2 (16:33):
But Tani didn't tell me the name of the doctor
who attracted his statement. And I'm not sure that I
would have gotten a conclusive answer to this question all
these years later. So it's hard for me to make
much of this one way or the other, except that
with Tani, he really did not trust English's identification of
a man Jamil. At the trial, after both sides gave
(16:59):
their winning arguments, the prosecution called English to the stand
their first witness. He sat to the right of the
judge wearing his tan uniform in a dark brown tie.
The lead prosecutor, Robert McBurney examined his witness. English rehashed
his account of that night he and Kinchin were in
(17:20):
the West End.
Speaker 5 (17:21):
With a warrant.
Speaker 2 (17:22):
They pulled up on a black Mercedes and English asked
the man getting out of the car to show his
right hand. Then the man pulled out a rifle and
started firing. McBurney asked English, what went through your mind
when you saw that assault rifle pointed at you. English
lost his composure, started crying, wiped tears from his eyes
(17:44):
with his thumb in one of his fingers. He took
a deep breath, um that I was about to die
when he started shooting. I thought about my kids, thought
about my wife, and I asked myself as I was running,
what have I done to deserve this? Holding a clipboard,
(18:05):
McBurney moved to stand behind the defense table, not far
from what Tani and behind a Ma'am Jamial who sat
almost perfectly still expressionless. Is this the man who had
the assault rifle that night? McBurney asked, as English looked
at a Mam Jamial. Yes it is, Sir, said English,
(18:27):
did you see anyone else that night with an assault rifle? No, sir,
is this the man who fired the assault rifle at you? Yes,
it is, said English. Jack Martin did the cross examination methodically.
Martin had English recount his memories of the shootout, but
(18:50):
Martin tried to undermine his credibility. He read back to
English inconsistencies between his testimony and statements he had made
to law enforcement. One of the inconsistencies was that English
said he prided himself on his marksmanship, and he was
sure he shot a man Jamial. But remember when a
(19:11):
man Jamial was arrested in Alabama, he was uninjured. And
then in an interview with a detective, English said this
about his encounter with the shooter. Quote, my mom always
told me, look a man in his eye, Always look
a man in his eyes. I looked him in his eyes.
I remember them, gray eyes. I remember that face, that
(19:33):
cold face. So I couldn't forget that. But a man
Jamil didn't have gray eyes. His eyes were brown. English
stood to reenact the details of his encounter with the shooter.
When Martin asked about the shooter's eye color, English insisted
that Mamjamial was wearing yellow glasses, suggesting that was the
(19:55):
reason he thought of Mam Jamial's eyes were gray. Martin
pointed out that and the statements English gave to detectives
he didn't mention anything about yellow glasses. Martin kept pressing
the point, and the prosecutor mcburniey he objected, claiming Martin
was being argumentative. Eventually, Martin moved on. Wa Tani watched
(20:17):
English's testimony from the defense table.
Speaker 5 (20:20):
Did the English.
Speaker 2 (20:21):
Testimony is that memorable to you at all? Or do
you remember how you were feeling about that?
Speaker 4 (20:28):
Yeah?
Speaker 6 (20:28):
I thought he was lying, but that was my good feeling. Yeah,
I mean he saw him on television and he looked
at this stuff, and they say, I'll never forget those
gray eyes. I believe that's what happened. And they use
the gray eyes to try to emphasize, Oh, yeah.
Speaker 5 (20:43):
It's him, because it's so unique that a black person
would have great because it's unforgettable.
Speaker 6 (20:48):
On the paper.
Speaker 2 (20:48):
But that thing, what you saw ful the paper, what
Tani is talking about. He means the warrant. On the warrant,
a man Jamil's eye color was listed incorrectly, as so
English's whole story about his mama telling him to look
a man in the eyes sounds kind of funny. It
created a suspicion that he might have been trying to
(21:09):
pin the shooting on a man Jamial. After English's testimony
later in the trial, the prosecution called the ballistics analyst
from George's crime lab to the witness stand. McBurney questioned
the analyst he held up the nine milimeters pistol and
the Ruger Many fourteen semi automatic rifle found close to
where a Mam Jamial was captured. The rifle was a
(21:32):
unique and powerful gun. Even though it was semi automatic,
it could still be fired rapidly, and it had a
retractable stock so it could be compact fired from the
hip or extended and fired like a rifle typically is
from the shoulder. The analyst said that a bullet from
the rifle must have hit Kinchin with the caveat that
(21:52):
if there was another ruger Many fourteen at the scene,
she couldn't tell the difference between the two, and the
analyst testified that a bullet from the pistol the same
one Bernie held up in the courtroom, that it hit
Deputy Kenchin.
Speaker 5 (22:04):
Period.
Speaker 2 (22:06):
Here's the defense attorney Jack Martin.
Speaker 4 (22:10):
The gun evidence was very problematic for us. It was
a difficult thing for us to overcome. But you know,
we had some explanations for it, but it was more difficult,
including why would he take it all the way to Alabama.
Speaker 2 (22:24):
Ama Jimil's defense team had argued before the trial that
the ballistics evidence shouldn't be included at all, but the
judge decided to allow it. Now, all they could do
was cross examine the analysts. It got really technical about
gas projection and surface markings, that type of stuff. But
the thing is, there are serious questions about the veracity
(22:46):
of the kinds of ballistics evidence that was presented.
Speaker 4 (22:49):
To say that this gun is the gud who fired
this book is very, very difficult. There were questions about
whether this was a valid conclusion from a scientific point
of view.
Speaker 2 (23:00):
Ballistics just happens to be something I know a little
bit about. When I was an investigative reporter at Pro Publica,
I worked on a team looking into the validity of
the so called forensic sciences. The project eventually ran under
the headline The Real CSI, which was meant to be
a corrective to how CSI and other crime dramas hold
out ballistics analysis and other methods as infallible truth. The
(23:24):
work was inspired by a huge report put out by
the National Academy of Sciences on ballistics analysis. The Academy concluded, quote,
the decision of the tool mark examiner remains a subjective
decision based on unarticulated standards and no statistical foundation. The
report went on to say that it has never been
(23:44):
conclusively proven that a particular gun leaves unique markings on
the bullets at fires. But according to Jack Martin, it
was always going to be tough to convince the jury
that this evidence wasn't reliable. Do you think from your
experiences as a lawyer, do juries tend to believe ballistics evidence?
Speaker 4 (24:03):
Yeah, and they shouldn't.
Speaker 2 (24:06):
This kind of ballistics evidence matching a bullet or a
shell casing to a particular gun. It's still widely admissible
in US courts. But after three weeks of testimony and
cross examinations and objections and squabbling over evidence, there was
almost time to turn the case over to the jury.
(24:38):
In my reporting on this story, I swung back and
forth between thinking maybe a Mama Jemil didn't shoot those
deputies and yes, he definitely did. One bit of information
would lead me one way, and then another would turn
me around in the uncertainty. And when I was thinking
I'd never get to the bottom of what happened, I
(24:59):
figured that maybe the story I was supposed to tell
was more about a Maam Jimil himself. Who was this
man who I encountered as a kid, who people believed
was even capable of shooting two cops. But then I
would get sucked back into an obsessive and maybe even
a foolish desire to figure out what actually happened that night.
(25:20):
We all know that the facts at any trial are
subject to dispute, but it's also the case that so
many facts are never even considered. Prosecutors and defense lawyers
construct narratives out of little slivers of life. As the
trial neared its climax, there were still unanswered questions on
both sides. That's a big part of why I got
(25:40):
sucked into this case. So much had been left off
the table. When I interviewed Watani Tahimba about his work
as an investigator and about a Ma'am Jamil's trial, it
was the first time in my reporting that I felt
close to hearing for myself some straight up truth about
that night, not close enough to actually uncover the information itself.
(26:01):
I just detected that something real was there. It was
a little jolt that said keep on digging. But Tani
and I were talking about how as an investigator he
works closely, almost intimately, with truth that goes unsaid.
Speaker 5 (26:17):
I don't know who I was talking to about this recently,
but it was I think maybe it was my wife actually,
and she was saying, do you think that defendants tell
the truth to their lawyers? And it's the same kind
of thing. Do they tell the truth to their investigators?
Speaker 2 (26:31):
My answer to her was not all the time, Like.
Speaker 6 (26:34):
I don't know in fact, and I don't always ask them,
see I don't. I don't ever ask them did you
do this? I never asked that, you know, say that's
what the police say, that's what the state was saying,
we got some problems here. This is the area that
we definitely got some issues here, you know, so we
do it like that. But I've had can't say give
me a whole story, say what do you think about that?
Speaker 4 (26:52):
Said?
Speaker 2 (26:52):
What do I think about that?
Speaker 4 (26:53):
Said?
Speaker 6 (26:54):
What do you think about that? That kind of intue me,
it's your story. I'm not help you to do this.
You tell me your story. I'll show you where your
stuff is bad. You know, we tighten it up. But yeah,
so yeah, it's interesting in it. It's it's none of
them are there saying? You know?
Speaker 5 (27:11):
It would have been that same kind of scenario with
the Mam Jamil. It wouldn't have been like, did you
do this?
Speaker 6 (27:16):
Well, I mean we have a relationship. I could ask
me to, but I wouldn't do that.
Speaker 2 (27:21):
Ma'am Jamil had pleaded not guilty. He said he was innocent,
but he didn't have an alibi. So if he didn't
shoot the deputies, then who did? It would have had
to be someone else, someone who with Tani would have
wanted to talk to as an investigator. Would you have
been previous conversations with the Mam Jamil the client himself,
(27:46):
to kind of give you guidance about where you should
go or not.
Speaker 6 (27:50):
Go as an investigator? You know, yeah, we have privileged
conversations with our client as well as with the other attorneys.
Speaker 2 (27:56):
And did he point you in one way or the other.
Speaker 6 (27:59):
We have privileged conversations.
Speaker 3 (28:00):
I can't say.
Speaker 2 (28:02):
Right that right there, that's it there's something there. Who
knows Maybe wa Tani doesn't even know what it is.
There's some truth there, even if it's unset. The prosecution
(28:23):
left some big questions out there too. Robert McBurnie and
his team, they decided not to explain why they thought
a man Jimial shot the deputies. They had no obligation
to describe a motive.
Speaker 3 (28:35):
Certainly, it was a topic of interest amongst those of
us on the prosecution team of why someone who at
that point in his life had become a community icon
and was revered or feared pick your term in the
West End, why not simply go with these deputies to
deal with a stolen car allegation and be done with it.
Speaker 2 (28:59):
Mcburnie's theory was that a Mam Jamil had something in
the trunk of the Mercedes guns, maybe that he didn't
want English and kinsin to find when they pulled up
on him.
Speaker 3 (29:08):
That's as good as it got. It was senseless regardless.
It really doesn't matter what was in the trunk to
shoot to kill two deputies who are simply doing their job.
And there was nothing in this case about you know,
these deputies were approaching him aggressively or he was defending
himself that that was never the defense, because of course
he didn't do it was the defense.
Speaker 2 (29:33):
But those are all things that did not come up
at the trial. As the time approached for closing arguments
and the defense was finishing with their witnesses, a man
Jamil and his lawyers had to decide if he should testify.
Based on the Constitution the Fifth Amendment, it was his
right to refuse to take the stand, and if he
decided not to McBurney in the prosecution, they weren't allowed
(29:57):
to bring it up. Jack Martin worried that if a
Mam Jamial testified, the armed robbery conviction he caught in
New York in the seventies would come up and the
jury would hold it against him. So in the end,
a Mam Jamil didn't take the stand. McBurney gave his
closing argument. First, he ran through the case the prosecution
(30:18):
had laid out during testimony, and then McBurney said to
the jury, I want to leave you with a few
questions you should have for the defendant. He was using
a PowerPoint presentation and he put up a slide.
Speaker 3 (30:31):
The label of the slide was questions for the Defendant
and It was basically, how can you explain all these things?
And then it rattled off some questions, how do you
explain the shellcasing on the Mercedes? How do you explain
the bullet taken out a Deputy Kinchin that matches this gun.
It basically thinks that you cannot explain.
Speaker 4 (30:51):
I was amazed and it just troubled me, and it
sort of the thought crossed my mind, said they must
be fairly desperate to be making that type of argument.
Speaker 2 (31:03):
Jack Martin objected. He asked for a mistrial because of
Mamjamial's Fifth Amendment rights were violated. The judge said no,
and McBurney changed the title of that slide. Then the
judge explained to the jury that a Mam Jamial had
no obligation to testify, that the jury shouldn't draw any
conclusion from a man Jamial's choice not to take the stand.
(31:25):
McBurney finished the first part of his argument, and then
it was the defense's turn. They said that English's idea
of a Mammed Meal didn't hold up, that a Mam
Jamil didn't have gray eyes and he wasn't shot like
English said he was. And the defense pointed out the
link between the bullets, the guns, and a man demial.
It wasn't as convincing as it might seem. Then McBurney
(31:47):
had a chance to deliver a final closing speech. He
rebutted the defense arguments point by point, and he approached
the climax of his argument. You watched what happened in
this courtroom. Who wouldn't stand up for you? Don't stand
for him. The defendant is guilty of the murder of
Deputy Ricky Kinchin. McBurney said, he's guilty of each and
(32:10):
every count in the indictment, and you need to hold
him accountable. Don't stand for him. Remember that a Ma'am Jamil,
unlike many others in the courtroom, hadn't risen. When the
judge and jury entered for religious reasons, Martin objected to
mcburney's language and again asked for a mistrial. The judge
(32:32):
denied the request, but she did tell the jury that
a Maam Jamial's beliefs shouldn't be held against him. The
jury was sent away to deliberate. These days, McBurney is
one of the most well known judges in Georgia. He
oversaw a special grand jury's investigation and to alleged election
interference by former President Donald Trump. I asked McBurnie whether
(32:56):
he went too far in his closing argument. A district
court judge went as far as saying that it was
a I think serious and repeated constitutional violation the argument
that you made. And I don't think that you've had
the opportunity to kind of state publicly what you were
thinking and your thoughts about how it went down, But
we would love to hear that.
Speaker 3 (33:16):
Sure, So my friends like to bring this one up
all the time. I made a mistake. It was an honest,
good faith mistake, and I own it, and I have
been owning it for many years now. But it was
a mistake as opposed to an attempt to get the
jury to think about Wait a minute, Alameine didn't testify.
They knew that that would have been the most fascinating
(33:38):
part of the trial is to have this very charismatic, silent,
brooding person testify, and he didn't. But I didn't talk
about that in my closing I shouldn't have talked about it.
And that was a very long answer, but it's just
to emphasize how I think in the grand scheme of things,
minor my mistake was.
Speaker 2 (33:58):
The defense team and the district court judge. I mentioned
they didn't consider the mistake to be so minor. I
also asked mc bernie about his reference to a man
Jamil not standing during the trial. That wasn't a mistake,
he said, not at all.
Speaker 3 (34:13):
I don't owe him respect. I treated him as I
ought to, and he got a phenomenal defense team, great judge,
and a very very fair trial. The fact that I
didn't hold his hand and tell him I thought he
was a swell guy. I don't lose sleep over that one.
Speaker 2 (34:32):
After less than a day of deliberation, the jury found
a man Jamil guilty on all accounts. But the trial,
it wasn't over yet. A man Jamil and his defense team,
they still had to fight to keep him alive.
Speaker 7 (34:46):
And now you have to come in front of that
same jury and say, Okay, let's assume you got it right.
Let's assume you made the correct decision. I have a
second argument for you. He should live.
Speaker 2 (35:01):
That on the next episode of Radical. Radical is a
(35:28):
production of Camside Media, Tenderfoot TV, and iHeart Podcasts. Radical
was reported and written by Johnnykauffman and me Mosey's Secret
Johnnykaufman is our senior producer. Sheba Joseph is our associate producer.
Editing by Eric Benson, Johnny Kaufman, Emily Martinez and Matt Cher.
Fact checking by Sophie Hurwitz, Kayln Lynch and Layla Dos.
(35:52):
Original music by Kyle Murdoch and by Ray Murray of
Organized Noise. Sound design and mixing by Kevin Seaman. Recording
by Ewan led trom Ewen and Sheba Joseph. Campside Media's
operations team is Doug Slaywan, Ashley Warren, Elijah Papes, Destiny Dingle,
and Sabina Mera. The executive producers at Campside Media are
(36:14):
Josh Dean Vanessa, Gregoriatis, Adam Hoff, and Matt Cher. For
Tenderfoot TV, executive producers are Donald Albright and Paine Lindsay.
The executive producers at iHeart Podcasts are Matt Frederick and
Alex Williams, with additional support from Trevor Young,
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