August 5, 2020 • 43 mins
In the summer of 2007, Jamal Trulove was an aspiring rapper from San Francisco’s Sunnydale projects. He had hoped that scoring himself a role on a reality television show would help his music career. Instead, his appearance on television would help police pin a July 27 murder on him. Over 30 witnesses, including Jamal himself, would not snitch, but someone had to go down for it. His most momentous mention on television yet would occur during the 2020 Democratic Primary debate.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
On the night of July two thousand seven, Jamal Truelove
was hanging out in a common area of San Francisco's
Sunnydale Projects with his younger brother, Joshua. Jamal's friend, Sell Kuca,
drove up intoxicated, ripping off the side view mirror from
Joshua's car. Jamal got between Cell and his brother. Then
gunfire in the air would send Cell into an alcohol
(00:23):
fueled rage. In search of a gun himself, Jamal tried
to come Sell again, who pushed him away and punched
another man. Frustrated and fed up, Jamal left the scene,
only to turn in time to witness his friends Cell
being gunned down in the street. Now, since snitching is
a sure fire away to be sent to the same fate,
Jamal kept his mouth shut. Cell's cousin, Priscilla Luallamaga, would
(00:46):
go downtown to identify the shooters she claimed to see
from her second story window, only to pass over Jamal's
mug shot that was in plain sight. Police pressured her
to name Jamal so they could coerce the identity of
the shooter. Either he would name the killer or he'd
go down for the murder himself. Jamal would receive fifty
(01:07):
years to life. The prosecutor's closing argument would point to
Lalamaga's bravery in light of the supposed threat of jamal
true love. This comment, unsupported by evidence and unobjected to
by counsel, would ultimately lead to a new trial in
which Jamal's new lawyers would be able to successfully argue
that ballistic evidence at the autopsy report proved that the
(01:29):
shooter was out of Lollamaga's second story view. Jamal was
finally set free in two thousand and fifteen. This is
Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flom. Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction
(01:55):
with Jason Flam. That's me. I'm your host, and today
I'm very excited because this is a story I've wanted
to tell from quite some time, and that's primarily because
of the person who survived this an incredible ordeal, Jamal Truelove.
He has the best name on top of everything else.
So Jamal, welcome, Hey, thanks for having me. Yeah. Man,
(02:15):
Like I always say, I'm sorry you have to be here,
but I'm really happy that you are here. So Jamal,
this story touches me on a personal level because you
were in the entertainment business before this horrible misidentification and
all the other things that went wrong happened to you.
Can you talk a little bit about that because you
grew up in San Francisco, right, Yes, I grew up
(02:37):
in San Francisco, Sunnydale projects. Always wanted to get into
entertainment within you know, music and acting, and the ball
was starting to bounce your way, so to speak. Right
because at the time of this incident, you had been
recently featured on the reality TV show Popped, the show
called I Love New York Too. Right, you were just
(02:58):
a kid from the Project X with no connections, but
you were making it happen anyway. How did you do that? Well,
initially I was recording music my friend out a studio
which he would let me some time to get into
actually record, And then I had an opportunity to audition
for this character for this show called I Love New
(03:19):
York Too. So I figured if I could get on
the show and put a name to a face, then
I will get the exposure that I need to shine
onto my music and to ultimately get into film. And
sure enough you had now gone and shot this show.
Which did you shoot in l A or yeah, it
was based in l A and so this was like
(03:40):
an exciting time for you. How old were you at
the time, tomorrow, Well, I started recording music when I
was sixteen years old. When I ended up landing on
the show, I was freshly twenty one, so a kid
with big dreams and aspirations and you know, the ability
to really manifest those things. And I think people that
meets you now still see that same spark. It makes
(04:02):
in a certain way, it makes this wrongful conviction more tragic. So, Jamal,
your life took a terrible turn because of events that
occurred around eleven pm on July twenty, two, thousand seven.
And of course you know what I'm referring to, but
it was that night that twenty eight year old Cell Kuca,
(04:23):
was a resident in your housing project, was shot nine times.
How did this happen? How did you find out about it?
And how did you get misidentified as a shooter. We
were all kicking it in the projects in the area
that were typically chill at and the incident had happened
between Sale Kuca and my little brother Joshua. Sale was
(04:46):
intoxicated driving up the street where he came real close
to my brother's car that ripped off his side mirror,
and you know, I've seen it, but I didn't think
too much of it. And then somebody yelled down to
me like there was some type of altercation between him
and my brother. So I come through to diffuse the situation.
(05:07):
I've seen how my brother was contorted his face. Uh, Sales,
one of my good friends. He's got some liquor in them,
so you know, he's ramped up. He's not trying to
take no blame, and they're getting closer to each other
where it's gonna end up, you know, turning into the fight.
So I intervened, you know, I told both of them
and chill relaxed. Sale was hyped up to start being
(05:29):
kind of a crowd people looking on and next to
you know, we're here some gunshots going off kind of
like I guess in the air, and I think, you know,
that field Sale that much more to feel some type
of way, and he started heading down saying that he
was gonna go get a gun. So me, I've remember
(05:51):
some of my other friends used to you know, kind
of contain his anger when he's in this type of state.
So me trying to prevent anything from escalating. I kind
of followed them, and he was asking somebody, one of
our other friends to give him a gun, and I'm
telling them, no, like, bro, there ain't no reason for
all of that. But he like, you know, ms out
here shooting, and I'm like that ain't got nothing to
(06:13):
do with us on this situation. And so I got
like close up on him. I like held him like,
you know, in a kind of bear hug, and he's
like way bigger than me. I'm probably like a hundred
and fifty pounds soaking wet at that point, and he's
like to twenty two thirty at least, and he's listening,
but you could definitely tell that he's kind of trunk.
(06:34):
And then he kind of bust out of my my
bear hug and angry type of way, and at that
point it felt like, you know, he wasn't trying to
hear me are calm the altercation. So I ended up
leaving across the street, which I had my car inside
the parking lot. I had a female friend inside the car.
(06:54):
I bent down to let her know that we're about
to get up out of here, and by time I
stood up from the side of the car, I've seen
sale skipping around the building right there from off of
the street, and I've seen the perpetrator already holding the
gun and the shooting position. Before I could say stop,
(07:17):
gun shots had already rained off. So I just got
down until all the gun shots was overwood. And typically
in situations like this in the project, regardless if you
did something or if you didn't do it, you just
htel up out of there. So that's what I ended
up doing. So I'm gonna ask you point blank, did
you know at the time who who the actually shooter was. Yes,
(07:40):
I did, And there were a lot of witnesses. Thirty
or more witnesses were there because as you described, it
was a street team, a lot of people hanging out.
Of course, in a seemed like this, a lot of
people are gonna be scared to come forward. Nobody wants
to be labeled to snitch because I know what that
actually means. Something happened to me my family. But one
woman did come forward and she became a key part
(08:03):
of this whole awful scenario, right. And this woman's name
was Priscilla Lulla Maga, and she claimed to have seen
the whole thing from her second story window already at
my spidy sense and start tingling because it's eleven o'clock
at night, it's dark. It sounds like a pretty diocese
scenario to think that she's going to identify somebody. But okay,
(08:25):
so she told police that her distant relative, it was
just the deceased sell Kuca, was chasing another man around
a car who she identified as your brother, Joshua. And
then she further claimed that while chasing Joshua, Kuka bumped
into a knockdown another man who got up, chased him
down the street and sloping downhill and open fire close range.
(08:48):
So this is important. She gets taken the police station
and showing thirty four mug shots that were set up
on a bulletin board, and she recognized many of the
mug shots that spaces from her neighborhood understandably. But then
in the two hours she was in that room with
the bulletin board of mug shots, she didn't recognize your face,
which was immediately above Joshua Bradley's monk shots. So that's
even weirder, right, it was right there in front of
(09:09):
her face, and she still didn't recognize it. Okay, So
two days later the cops come to her workplace and
take us from there. Two days later the police came
to her workplace, but the day before that is really
interesting that they actually came to her house showing her
a mug shot picture which we believe to have been me,
(09:32):
and they denying that it was me. That it runs
side by side to what you know ultimately end up
coming out when it comes down to the lineup and
the mug shots. So they told her that if we
were to bring a photo lineup with the person who
did it inside the line up, would you be able
to identify? So the next day they went to our job.
(09:53):
They brought her a six pack line up with really
me wearing an orange jumpsuit and everybody else and playing clothes.
But she had already identified the other people, you know,
not being the person and people that she already knows.
It's even worse than that, right, because of the fact
that she said that you quote unquote looks like the
(10:15):
guy who could have shot Kuka, right, So that's pretty
damn weak. The six pack lineup and had to standout things.
It had me inside of an orange jumpsuit, and then
it also had the dates that came off of the
system when they brought up the mug shots where mind
date was dated different than the other dates that came
(10:38):
off of the system because they had me down as
the shooter on day one, Why do you think the
detectives had it out for you or they just like, whoever,
we just got to close the case. It doesn't matter.
I wasn't somebody that was out there. I was always
trying to do something positive. I was doing music, you know,
I'll hang around of course, but with my name coming
(10:59):
up on the day that it actually happened, whether they
wanted questions from me or them saying oh it was
the guy that Jamal was with, they was like, okay,
this is how we're gonna get him. We're gonna pressure
said either town on the person who did it, or
we're gonna make sure that he goes down for this.
And then no weapon was recovered, but hl casings were
(11:23):
found downhill from the body, in the trail leading up
to the body, which means that what she said was
false because she said the shooter was chasing Kuka downhill.
So now we know and they should have known that
she didn't know what the funk she was talking about,
so to be honest, right, her representation of what actually happened.
If anything, she could have only seen what was on
(11:45):
the side of that building. She didn't see when the
person was actually shooting. She told police to sell. Kuka
was chasing another man around the car, and then Kuka
bumped into a knockdown another man who got up, chased
him down the street and sloping down on the hill
and open fire close range. It wasn't me who Sale
had knocked down? What was her agenda here? Do you know?
(12:06):
Her whole thing? And the family which I was deeply
connected to, felt like they weren't scared of me, they
were scared of the person who actually did it, right,
So by way of throwing me in there, they felt
that I was gonna tell on the person who actually
(12:27):
did it. So that's the big boom right there. And
then things take another crazy turn, right because the TV
show airs the show that you were in, which should
have been a cause for celebration. She happens to see
the TV show, right, and then she comes back and says, oh,
now I know it's definitely him. Yeah, So they were
(12:47):
getting her closer and closer to that it was me
one And then on top of her saying that she
talked to her cousin and then on top of the
detectives really trying to get somebody to go to jail
for this. You know, that's what brewed up to what
that ultimately ended up being. But even still that didn't
(13:08):
work well ultimately end up happening was I said. About
fourteen months later, the police had did a traffic stop
with this other woman named Letitia, who had a gun
in her lap, had crack cocaine on her baby in
the back, had her boyfriend who was on parole, and
(13:29):
the passenger seat pulled over. She's going to jail, and
she goes down and they basically say, well, if you
could tell us X, Y, and Z about this case,
everybody basically goes free. She initially tells them that it
was daylight and this altercation happened, and then she says
(13:50):
she looked through the window and looked all the way
down the block and seeing that this happened, and just
threw my name in there. So there was a lot
of things is wrong with that, right as if First,
she says that she's seen it for fifty yards away
on a slant hill in the daylight when it didn't
happen in the daytime. It happened at night. But what
(14:13):
got the arrest warrant was the right up that detectives
had wrote up. They were guiding her the whole way,
making everything like it was a clear record, and then
wrote at the bottom extremely credible. So now when they
take that to the d A, now they feel they
have two witnesses saying the same exact thing. So this
(14:38):
is a crazy timeline too, because the crime we know
happens in two thousand seven, you don't get brought in
and arrested until two thousand and eight, over a year later,
and then the trial doesn't happen until two correct. So
during that time were you in jail, did you bail out?
How did how did that unfold? After you arrested? Well,
(14:58):
after I was arrested, they wanted to question me. Obviously
there's two things you can do. You can give up information,
but never mind that because in that situation, which you're
taught in the streets, is you know it's not to stitch,
not to give up information. Something happened to me my family,
you know, So I balanced that we also knowing that
(15:19):
it's not my duty to put somebody else into jail.
That's for them to actually get it right. And that
was my way of going at it. So it actually
took me about a year and a half to go
to trial. It was hard trying to get the thirty
people that I was out there to actually come in,
you know, not say who did it, you know, but
to say I didn't do it. I wasn't trying to
put nobody in a situation where I was trying to
(15:41):
have somebody else tell on the sail it because I
wasn't gonna do anything like that. Then I have to
go what hide for the rest of my life for
something that's just not my job. That's up to the
system to do so. And nobody would want to be
in that situation. But you were in it, and you're
still just a young guy without you know, reach or citizen,
so you you roll with it and you go to trial. Yeah,
(16:03):
so we thought the case, that's an identity case. You know,
I didn't testify, We didn't call nobody to testify or whatever.
So it took three days and then it took five
days of deliberation. Ultimately they came back with a murder
one conviction. It was it was definitely tough. I stayed
optimistic because I know I didn't do it at the
(16:24):
end of the day. And that's what ultimately, you know,
kept the wills turning in my mind, or how do
I figure this out? And you were convicted, of course,
and you were sentenced to fifty years in prison. So
I want you to understand this. Right before I get
(16:45):
sentence the fifty the life I'm inside of my cell,
I become we're doing a retrial motion right to ask
for a retrial before sentencing. I'm coming back from church.
Com inside. It's a twelve man like tank in this
kid by the name of Oliver barr sin Is comes
up to me. Now I don't know who this kid is.
He comes up too, man. He asked me, like, you
(17:06):
know it's your last name, true Love, And I say yes. Uh.
He said, did you go to jail like in oh seven?
I'm like no, but that's where my case happened. He
said yes. I remember being in a police station at
the time where some like some moree girl and some
detectives came in and she was crying and they were
(17:28):
pointing out a picture saying are you sure it ain't
something something? True Love and I'm like, whoa, you know,
and it blows my mind that it just so happens
that I run into this guy and he had just
been transported from Saying Bruno Jail to San Francisco County
on his way to prison. And he's seen in the
(17:49):
newspaper when he was in Saying Bruno about my case,
and he remembered the last name that was the first spark.
And then when he ended up in a sail with me,
her at the name again, that's where he actually approached
me and told me these things. So I called my
attorney immediately and tell my attorney about him, and my
attorney came up and, you know, talk to him, got
(18:12):
his statement, and come to find out, he was at
the police station at the exact same time that little
Lamana had came into the police station. He was a
sixteen year old kid come to the bench watching all
of this unfold. So what he ended up saying was
big in my case because remind you that that photo,
(18:35):
that photo and the six pack lineup that had the
date that was different from everybody else's which we called
in the question, made that much more sense because they
had me down as the shooter on day one, And
what made more sense from his testimony is why she
never pointed at my picture on the wall, Because on
(18:58):
day one she was saying it wasn't me. Even on
day two she was saying it wasn't me. Now, this
is newly found evidence. There was no way that we
could have knew that this kid was inside the police station.
So there's no way we could have called him. Now,
just in the heap of that time, what was going
(19:18):
on in San Francisco. You got, you know, Kamala Harris,
who's going to try to be Attorney General. You have
another case which got overturned, and then you have a
big drug scandal that's happening in San Francisco also at
the exact same time. So in the retrial motion hearing
(19:38):
when we put him on the stand to testify, Linda Allen,
the city's attorney, attacked Oh that he was a gang
member and he's trying to do this for a favor
for the blacks, like some prison politics type stuff. And
neither one of us have ever been to president and
we just don't know each other at oh. So in
(20:02):
this moment though that this is new discovered evidence, I
feel like I was politicked out because if they were
to grant me a retrial, that would have been to
murder cases with convictions granted retrial before conviction. And plus
the drug scandal that was national attention. So ultimately, even
(20:24):
with Oliver Barson is they still denied my retrial motion.
That's when I got sentenced to fifty the life in prison. Yeah,
I mean it's important to look at the role that
politics played at this because there was a lot going
on and and now things are really looking a lot
better in San Francisco with the new da chas of Boudin,
(20:47):
who is doing incredible, incredible things. Probably the most impactful
six months of any new prosecutor in the history of
this country, I would say, in terms of what he's
been able to accomplish. But that's a separate issue. Ms.
Harris at the time does not come out. I mean,
we can't sugarcoat it. I mean, she was one of
the villains in this story and your story, and in
too many other stories that took place around this time. Yeah.
(21:11):
The thing about Kamala Harris as a senator, she talks
a lot of things that employs towards the African American community,
and you know, it is good like if I didn't
go through the experience that I went through, then I
would probably be on the side of what Kamala Harris
actually talks about. And that's if you know, I didn't
find out about me. But when we talk about being
(21:32):
a progressive prosecutor, I think of chase A Boudin Kamala
Harris at the time she had opportunity to alleviate this
case and dive into it, especially a murder charge. Any
head d A is overlooking any murder charge that's happened
inside of their city. But also just knowing politics at
(21:53):
that time. I know four people who went to jail
innocently from murders in every single asked, one of them
got convicted. They call it a street sweep. Once elections
come up, they come through and they sweep any case
that they had. They say, arrest them, arrest them, arrest them.
They look. I went to jail right before elections and
(22:14):
one of the detectives my dad had ran into before
I went to trial, Kevin Noble, had told my dad.
My dad was like, Yo, why are you got my son?
And he said, oh, you know how it is. And
during election time, you know d a's they just come
and sweep you know, everybody up, any case that they
got and see if they could pressure people into taking deals.
(22:35):
Because they offered me a deal, you know, before I
went to try my first time, I was like, you know,
you complete out and take voluntary man, So I didn't
take thirteen years under her watch. So my feeling up
Kamala Harris been in that position, being African American coming
from the Bay Area and being hard on crime the
way that she was, and how many people that was
(22:55):
going to jail for marijuana charges at one of the
highest rates in the country, you know, played a big
part of mass incarceration and also to gentrification in San Francisco.
So I cannot unfeel that r c that are when
I'm getting sentenced, you know, are my conviction. She's in
there and smiling and you know, proud of what this is,
(23:17):
what this conviction is, and what it means to her career.
And then right after I lose my case, she wins
you know, Attorney General. So that all tells a story,
you know, just within itself. Yeah, And what a sick
thing to say to your father. I mean it's I mean,
that's as cold as it gets, Like it's your father,
for fox sakes, So Kevin Noble. Before I went to
(23:39):
trial and this was not turned over to us, Kevin
Noble actually came in with a confidential formant saying that
somebody else did it. So he was out there investigating
and he found somebody saying that this person did it,
and they took it and they tucked it under the rug.
You know, they felt like they had their god that
(23:59):
they was actually sold on on doing it. Joan, if
you could talk about for a minute, and we're gonna
get to the to the retrial, of course your ex
generation because you were fully exonerated. That being said, can
you tell us when you were in prison, was there
a best moment when I was waiting for the courts
to give their opinion on if I was gonna get
(24:21):
a retrial or not. And they initially I came back
and I'm on the phone at the same time with
my appellate attorney, Mark Zilbersmith, and they did not well,
they didn't deny. They changed the conviction from first degree
murder to second degree murder, which I would have had
from fifty years. I would have went down the forty
(24:42):
years to life. And I'm like, WHOA, Like, you know
what I mean, And my sailly at the time was
like that's good. I mean, they're really looking at it now.
Mind you, I'm in prison for three years before I
even get this opinion from the appellate courts. But I
knew that until I get another descension, as you, I
will be in prison for at least another two to
(25:02):
three years because that's the time that it typically takes.
So then my attorney put in a motion to review.
So with this strategy at the same time, I ended
up getting two witnesses to sign FFI David's testifying to
what happened that day without saying the person who did it,
(25:23):
and we filed the Haby's corpus through the Pellet court
so it could go across Judge climb them table at
the exact same time as our review was and to
say that there's two more witnesses saying that he didn't
do it. So ninety days later we got the opinion
(25:43):
back that the judges said, you know what, you're right,
and they granted a new retrial. It was a crying moment,
you know, I cried like a baby, you know inside
that self. Yeah, and I don't think anyone who's ever
not been through that could possibly even imagine such a
transformative I mean, you get your life back. Well. The well,
(26:04):
the crazy part about it is like in that moment,
you feel excited, right, but come to find out once
you get back to County Jim, you just know that
you don't have the life sentence no more, but you
still have a whole another fight, and that's a potentially
going to trial or them coming to you and offering
you a deal where you're almost close to want to
(26:25):
take that deal just so you don't have to go
to trial and lose again, because at that point, you
know you don't I don't believe in the system. You know,
I just got convictive problem. I didn't do like you
ask anybody who has a life sentence right now innocent?
Are not innocent? If they had a deal on the
(26:46):
table right now to take it and they get to
come home in two years, they're taking it. So let's
get to the good stuff, because we don't have a
ton of time left. But I do want to, of course,
talk about how you manage to finally get some measure
of justice, and by that I mean, of course the
retrial and your egeneration. When I got back to county,
(27:09):
it took me a year to go back to trial.
I had two extraordinary lawyers, Kate chat Field and Alex Richman.
The way that we fought the case, we asked for
the original homicide file and the judge granted it to us.
What helped us was that they were tampering with the evidence.
So when we slipped at the original homicide file, we
(27:32):
seen that the detectives was writing in pen pencil in marker,
so the ballistics of the trajectory of the bullets, it
didn't fit Lula La Manga's testimony of the bullets going
from the left to the right. The trajectory of the
bullets went from the right to the left, and that
(27:54):
made more sense if the shooter was coming up from
the bottom into the top of the hill. So what
they did was erased because they wrote in pencil. They
erased everything that the autopsy lady has said about the
trajectory of the bullet wounds, so they knew that that
was an issue. Also, a gun shoots off the shawcases
(28:19):
from the right, it'so in the rear percent of the time.
So if she saying that this murder happened coming from
this way, then the showcases will be in the street
and not in a straight line in the grass from
where the showcases landed, And it made more sense that
(28:39):
the shooter was coming from the bottom into the top.
So it did not match well what Lulu la Manga
had actually said. So you were able to undermine the
police's theory of the crime because the autopsy and ballistics
findings pointed to the gunman approaching Cell Kuka from downhill,
which was out of Lualamana's view. Now, what about the deliberation.
(29:02):
Every day, within deliberation, you get to choose if you
you want to stay downstairs inside the holding take, or
you can stay upstairs until they come back with a verdict.
I chose to stay downstairs because the deliberation rum was
right next to the holding take and I'm I'm in
there panic and I'm stressing, I'm pacing, you know, I'm
(29:22):
thinking about what I'm gonna do if I win. I'm
thinking about what I'm gonna do if I lose. So
five days later, they finally end up coming back what
with a verdict? So I come downstairs. I didn't have
no opportunity to call my family. Uh. They were living
in the East Bay. Uh. So when I come downstairs
for the verdict, the only people that are sitting on
(29:43):
my side is my attorney's loved ones. And it's also
Chase A Boudin. Chase A Boudin. I don't know who
Chase Budin is at that point, right, But on the
other side the whole d a's office, So Gascon was
the d A at that point, right. So they're all
in there waiting for the verdict, and the clerk reads
off in the case of Jamal true Love on first
(30:05):
degree murder, not guilty, and I break out in tears
of crying. I hugging my attorney and I'm just crying
my eyes out. I can't believe I'm really breaking down.
And then my attorney says, hold on, wait, you gotta
listen for second degree murder. I said what, I don't know,
because I thought I wanted at that point, so oh man,
(30:26):
it was I felt the sweat just coming down my face.
And then they said, in the case of Jamal true
Love on second degree murder, we find the defendant not guilty,
and and I'm I'm literally feeling that right now. I'm
trying not to get emotional, but when I looked over
to the jury, that was the first time that they
(30:47):
could actually show an expression on their faces. And you
see them over there crying. They're giving me prayer heads,
they're sending the kisses at me, you know, and all
of these things, and I'm, you know, and I'm just
crying my eyes out. You know. I looked back. You
see all the district attorneys just leaving, you know, upset,
and I'm just crying out. I'm just crying my eyes out.
(31:09):
And even going back up to the sixth for where
I was being held and telling everybody on the line,
which everybody knew I was innocent, and I told her everybody,
you know, I got found not guilty. The whole floor
of the whole jail erupts, even some of the deputies
that were you know, cool, and even the ones that
(31:29):
was foul as funk because this hell of foul ship
was trying to you know, clap their hands and stuff
like that. So it was a good feeling. And I
went home that day. I was able to surprise my
mother and you know, my family, which they didn't know
if I want or not, but I popped up on
them and they you know, they see me. They couldn't
believe it. It was more tears ship and it was
the most accilating feeling to know that, you know, I'm
(31:53):
free again today. Um, you've been out for how long?
I've been out? Five years? And I've seen you around
and you know, I know you're making the most of
every minute of it. Um, do you want to tell
(32:15):
us a little bit about what you're working on now?
And then we're gonna get to the closing of the show.
I ended up suing, you know, the police. They try
to offer me, you know, some money to shut up. Ultimately,
I held them accountable and I won my civil case.
I was awarded two million dollars that ended up rounding
out to be thirteen point one million, which obviously stut
to get all the money. But from there on whatether
(32:37):
So what's ironic is before I won my civil case,
three days before that, I landed a role in this
movie called The Last Black Man in San Francisco, which
I got the opportunity by volunteering at a nonprofit called
United Players. Rudy Corpetz that's my mentor, and you know
(33:00):
the mantras, it takes the hood to save the Hood.
So they were coming there to get some kids for
the rock throwing scene. Here comes that opportunity. I say, look,
I know how to act. I'm acting all my life,
you know, trying to fit in the city where I
stand out in And I think that was the line
that got me the opportunity to read. Joe Talbot Jimmy
Fails called me back two times after I got it.
(33:22):
Three days later, I went my civil case and from
there on I took on what I believe my life
was meant to be. And before all of that, I
went to school for Psychology Africana Studies at State and
after one semester identified that much more of what my
life was supposed to be. So when you were saying manifestation,
(33:44):
you know, I run my life on you know, manifesto desto.
If you can manifest it and you can see the
steps that you gotta take to actually get there, then
you take what's it a tangible right in front of you,
and you make sense of it on how you ultimately
get to that next plat for him. I also landed
the role on this upcoming animation film called Pierre the Pigeonhawk,
(34:06):
which has whoop and go Word, Keenan Thompson, how He Mandel,
and of course myself and a slew of other names.
I'm producing this film called Black and White, it's about
the USC seventy two football team, and working on other projects.
I launched my production company with one of my good
(34:26):
friends and business partners, said Twili Holger called True Narrative.
Also launching a record label at my son and a
few other artists that's coming up that I plan on
putting out there with their music. And I do a
lot of you know, activism. I used my platform to
to speak on you know, social issues and to bring
(34:47):
the enlightenment to my community about you know, what we
need to be doing with the voting and letting our
voices be heard behind you know, specific racism behind all
these police involved shootings. Know, I can't paign for Chase
A Bouded now. Before I would have never in my
life be a campaigning for a d A because the
DA has looked at as basically the police. But once
(35:10):
I got the understanding that there's gonna be a d
A regardless, and don't you want it to be the
right one. So that's what I start pressing onto my
people to understand that there's gonna be a d A regardless,
and we have to say so and who the d
A actually is, So get out and vote. So that's
everything in a nutshell. That's a pretty damn good nutshell.
(35:31):
And you know, I gotta say I was a big
supporter of Chase A. Boudin's campaign as well, and I'm
super proud of everything he's been doing. You know, the
truth is, we need to clone that guy and put
the clones of him in d A offices all over
the country. And while we're on the subject of dismantling
systemic racism and all the other things that we've managed
(35:52):
to talk about in this brief time we've had together,
we can't leave out the young man who testified for
you about what he's in the police station, right, And
that was the guy who talked about the police coercing
Lou Alamaga. His name, of course, was Oliver bar Senez
and he was actually shot in the back by the police, right,
(36:13):
Oliver Barsene is the story is really that much like
we we will have to have two hours because the
police shot him after he testified against me the first time,
San Francisco Police Department, right when he went to prison,
came home within sixty days. They shot him in the
back while he was running. He had a gun on him.
Right he goes to jail, he does three years, come
(36:35):
home around the same time I come home. And then
he stays home three years, get all probation, We go
to trial. We actually use him to testify in my
civil case. He testifies in my civil case, and within
two months again SFPD again shoots him in the back
while he's running. It tries to literally kill him, which
(36:59):
he doesn't die. They had it on camera, and he
actually just two weeks ago settled for less than five
hundred thousand dollars in a civil suit. And the media
has not connected these at all, both cases. But what
I when I know what they ended up doing. Because
(37:20):
we know this ship is crooked, they gave a belief
like a dolphine or somebody. It's called a chipped gun,
so a drop a drop gun to make sure that
this guns gets in this person's hands so they could
go ahead and trail them ultimately to go to take
them down. And when they're going to take them down,
there's only two things they could do. So if they
(37:41):
run and they got the gun on them. Then all
they gotta do is kill them, and then they're gonna say, oh,
well he had a gun on him. I seen the
gun and bla blas the thing with Oliver, he didn't
die both times. Okay, wait, wait what a chipped gun
like with GPS or something. Yes, exactly what they do, right.
So you know how when they do like set up cars,
(38:01):
they'll put a car right there with the keys in
and stuff like that, kind of like lure you. But
they already got it all set up. Same thing with
a gun, and they was doing this in the nineties, right,
That's how I know about. It's called a drop gun.
So they'll chip the gun, right, and they'll get this
dolfine or something like that that I'll go up to
a specific person or if not a person, a crowd
(38:22):
and be like, we're gonna give you this. Go sell
this gun for a hundred dollars. If you go to
any projects in any hood with a dolfine with a
gun saying that he's selling it for a hundred dollars,
somebody's gonna buy it. And Oliver case, that's what I
believe they did because the same scenario happened twice in
the second time. It just so happened that they have
(38:42):
footage on the day the Warriors won the championship. They
first championship, they pull out on a group of five
Latinos with one can of beer talking about, oh, what
do you guys doing here? And they're like, Warriors, just
one We're just chilling. It's like, oh, well, you gotta
open canna beer. And as like now, at that moment,
you see Oliver kind of like testy a little bit,
(39:03):
and then actually no, he takes off running. As soon
as he takes off running, the officer already pulled out
his gun and start running with the gun. Before the
officer could see even if he had a gun on
him or not, the officer already starts shooting blah blah
blah blah, drops him with three of them, and then
shoot an extra three of them while he on the floor,
(39:23):
saying get down, get down, and he still lives. This
is the thing, though, right that same officer killed the
fourteen year old boy in South San Francisco just three
years prior. Wow, you're right, and we would need at
least a few more hours and I'm leaving sure that'd
(39:45):
be enough to cover all of this stuff that's coming
out now. But you know, at this point, let's go
to our closing argument. This is the part of the
show where uh, everyone think. I think that's a part
of the show everybody looks forward to. Um, I know,
I do. We call it closing arguments. This is where
I get to, first of all, thank you for for
(40:07):
being here sharing your incredible story, um and uh and
doing it so beautifully, and and then I get to
turn my microphone off and just kick back in my chair,
leave my headphones on and listen to you for any
closing thoughts that you have about anything you want to
talk about. My philosophy that I've got out of all
(40:27):
of this that I that I've been through is that
I don't stand for nothing because I find understanding and
everything and what that is it just find a mediation.
You can have an opinion, You can have an opinion
on how you look at things, but also knowing that
there's somebody else's opinion and you have to look at
(40:48):
it from their lenses and identify why they're looking at
it like that causing mediation. Mediation is peaceful. So if
people can always look at what they're going through or
their ideology of how they see things and compare it
to somebody else's and find understanding in that within if
it's a negative or a positive, then you'll be able
(41:11):
to come to a common ground to understand why you're
going through what you're going through and why the opposite
person looks at something the way that they look at it.
And that leads me to knowing that there will not
be a positive for you are in this life without
a negative. You have to accept every negative. Then you'll
(41:33):
understand that me being in this positive situation right now,
there's no way I get here. I could predict that
I get anywhere else in life without going through the
most horrific thing that somebody can actually go through, and
that's being put in jail and given a death sentence
that you have to live the rest of your life
until you actually die on. And that leads me to
(41:55):
the end, and that's knowing your past could better predict
your future than plan it for If you know the
decisions that you've made that led to a positive and
the ones that led to a negative, then you will
better identify where your future is actually going towards. Knowing
that we all have to plan for sure, but not
(42:18):
putting a plan so far ahead are so heavy onto
your shoulders, so when you fail, you don't find understanding
of why you fail, but then you'll understand it that
much more by knowing why you failed before. Don't forget
(42:39):
to give us a fantastic review wherever you get your podcasts,
it really helps. And I'm a proud donor to the
Innocence Project and I really hope you'll join me in
supporting this very important cause and helping to prevent future
wrong for convictions. Go to Innocence Project dot org to
learn how to donate and get involved. I'd like to
thank our production team, Connor Hall and Kevin Wardis. The
(43:01):
music on the show is by three time OSCAR nominated
composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us on Instagram
at Bronful Conviction and on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast.
Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flam is a production of Lava
for Good Podcasts and association with Signal Company Number one
On the night of July two thousand seven, Jamal Truelove
was hanging out in a common area of San Francisco's
Sunnydale Projects with his younger brother, Joshua. Jamal's friend, Sell Kuca,
drove up intoxicated, ripping off the side view mirror from
Joshua's car. Jamal got between Cell and his brother. Then
gunfire in the air would send Cell into an alcohol
(00:23):
fueled rage. In search of a gun himself, Jamal tried
to come Sell again, who pushed him away and punched
another man. Frustrated and fed up, Jamal left the scene,
only to turn in time to witness his friends Cell
being gunned down in the street. Now, since snitching is
a sure fire away to be sent to the same fate,
Jamal kept his mouth shut. Cell's cousin, Priscilla Luallamaga, would
(00:46):
go downtown to identify the shooters she claimed to see
from her second story window, only to pass over Jamal's
mug shot that was in plain sight. Police pressured her
to name Jamal so they could coerce the identity of
the shooter. Either he would name the killer or he'd
go down for the murder himself. Jamal would receive fifty
(01:07):
years to life. The prosecutor's closing argument would point to
Lalamaga's bravery in light of the supposed threat of jamal
true love. This comment, unsupported by evidence and unobjected to
by counsel, would ultimately lead to a new trial in
which Jamal's new lawyers would be able to successfully argue
that ballistic evidence at the autopsy report proved that the
(01:29):
shooter was out of Lollamaga's second story view. Jamal was
finally set free in two thousand and fifteen. This is
Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flom. Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction
(01:55):
with Jason Flam. That's me. I'm your host, and today
I'm very excited because this is a story I've wanted
to tell from quite some time, and that's primarily because
of the person who survived this an incredible ordeal, Jamal Truelove.
He has the best name on top of everything else.
So Jamal, welcome, Hey, thanks for having me. Yeah. Man,
(02:15):
Like I always say, I'm sorry you have to be here,
but I'm really happy that you are here. So Jamal,
this story touches me on a personal level because you
were in the entertainment business before this horrible misidentification and
all the other things that went wrong happened to you.
Can you talk a little bit about that because you
grew up in San Francisco, right, Yes, I grew up
(02:37):
in San Francisco, Sunnydale projects. Always wanted to get into
entertainment within you know, music and acting, and the ball
was starting to bounce your way, so to speak. Right
because at the time of this incident, you had been
recently featured on the reality TV show Popped, the show
called I Love New York Too. Right, you were just
(02:58):
a kid from the Project X with no connections, but
you were making it happen anyway. How did you do that? Well,
initially I was recording music my friend out a studio
which he would let me some time to get into
actually record, And then I had an opportunity to audition
for this character for this show called I Love New
(03:19):
York Too. So I figured if I could get on
the show and put a name to a face, then
I will get the exposure that I need to shine
onto my music and to ultimately get into film. And
sure enough you had now gone and shot this show.
Which did you shoot in l A or yeah, it
was based in l A and so this was like
(03:40):
an exciting time for you. How old were you at
the time, tomorrow, Well, I started recording music when I
was sixteen years old. When I ended up landing on
the show, I was freshly twenty one, so a kid
with big dreams and aspirations and you know, the ability
to really manifest those things. And I think people that
meets you now still see that same spark. It makes
(04:02):
in a certain way, it makes this wrongful conviction more tragic. So, Jamal,
your life took a terrible turn because of events that
occurred around eleven pm on July twenty, two, thousand seven.
And of course you know what I'm referring to, but
it was that night that twenty eight year old Cell Kuca,
(04:23):
was a resident in your housing project, was shot nine times.
How did this happen? How did you find out about it?
And how did you get misidentified as a shooter. We
were all kicking it in the projects in the area
that were typically chill at and the incident had happened
between Sale Kuca and my little brother Joshua. Sale was
(04:46):
intoxicated driving up the street where he came real close
to my brother's car that ripped off his side mirror,
and you know, I've seen it, but I didn't think
too much of it. And then somebody yelled down to
me like there was some type of altercation between him
and my brother. So I come through to diffuse the situation.
(05:07):
I've seen how my brother was contorted his face. Uh, Sales,
one of my good friends. He's got some liquor in them,
so you know, he's ramped up. He's not trying to
take no blame, and they're getting closer to each other
where it's gonna end up, you know, turning into the fight.
So I intervened, you know, I told both of them
and chill relaxed. Sale was hyped up to start being
(05:29):
kind of a crowd people looking on and next to
you know, we're here some gunshots going off kind of
like I guess in the air, and I think, you know,
that field Sale that much more to feel some type
of way, and he started heading down saying that he
was gonna go get a gun. So me, I've remember
(05:51):
some of my other friends used to you know, kind
of contain his anger when he's in this type of state.
So me trying to prevent anything from escalating. I kind
of followed them, and he was asking somebody, one of
our other friends to give him a gun, and I'm
telling them, no, like, bro, there ain't no reason for
all of that. But he like, you know, ms out
here shooting, and I'm like that ain't got nothing to
(06:13):
do with us on this situation. And so I got
like close up on him. I like held him like,
you know, in a kind of bear hug, and he's
like way bigger than me. I'm probably like a hundred
and fifty pounds soaking wet at that point, and he's
like to twenty two thirty at least, and he's listening,
but you could definitely tell that he's kind of trunk.
(06:34):
And then he kind of bust out of my my
bear hug and angry type of way, and at that
point it felt like, you know, he wasn't trying to
hear me are calm the altercation. So I ended up
leaving across the street, which I had my car inside
the parking lot. I had a female friend inside the car.
(06:54):
I bent down to let her know that we're about
to get up out of here, and by time I
stood up from the side of the car, I've seen
sale skipping around the building right there from off of
the street, and I've seen the perpetrator already holding the
gun and the shooting position. Before I could say stop,
(07:17):
gun shots had already rained off. So I just got
down until all the gun shots was overwood. And typically
in situations like this in the project, regardless if you
did something or if you didn't do it, you just
htel up out of there. So that's what I ended
up doing. So I'm gonna ask you point blank, did
you know at the time who who the actually shooter was. Yes,
(07:40):
I did, And there were a lot of witnesses. Thirty
or more witnesses were there because as you described, it
was a street team, a lot of people hanging out.
Of course, in a seemed like this, a lot of
people are gonna be scared to come forward. Nobody wants
to be labeled to snitch because I know what that
actually means. Something happened to me my family. But one
woman did come forward and she became a key part
(08:03):
of this whole awful scenario, right. And this woman's name
was Priscilla Lulla Maga, and she claimed to have seen
the whole thing from her second story window already at
my spidy sense and start tingling because it's eleven o'clock
at night, it's dark. It sounds like a pretty diocese
scenario to think that she's going to identify somebody. But okay,
(08:25):
so she told police that her distant relative, it was
just the deceased sell Kuca, was chasing another man around
a car who she identified as your brother, Joshua. And
then she further claimed that while chasing Joshua, Kuka bumped
into a knockdown another man who got up, chased him
down the street and sloping downhill and open fire close range.
(08:48):
So this is important. She gets taken the police station
and showing thirty four mug shots that were set up
on a bulletin board, and she recognized many of the
mug shots that spaces from her neighborhood understandably. But then
in the two hours she was in that room with
the bulletin board of mug shots, she didn't recognize your face,
which was immediately above Joshua Bradley's monk shots. So that's
even weirder, right, it was right there in front of
(09:09):
her face, and she still didn't recognize it. Okay, So
two days later the cops come to her workplace and
take us from there. Two days later the police came
to her workplace, but the day before that is really
interesting that they actually came to her house showing her
a mug shot picture which we believe to have been me,
(09:32):
and they denying that it was me. That it runs
side by side to what you know ultimately end up
coming out when it comes down to the lineup and
the mug shots. So they told her that if we
were to bring a photo lineup with the person who
did it inside the line up, would you be able
to identify? So the next day they went to our job.
(09:53):
They brought her a six pack line up with really
me wearing an orange jumpsuit and everybody else and playing clothes.
But she had already identified the other people, you know,
not being the person and people that she already knows.
It's even worse than that, right, because of the fact
that she said that you quote unquote looks like the
(10:15):
guy who could have shot Kuka, right, So that's pretty
damn weak. The six pack lineup and had to standout things.
It had me inside of an orange jumpsuit, and then
it also had the dates that came off of the
system when they brought up the mug shots where mind
date was dated different than the other dates that came
(10:38):
off of the system because they had me down as
the shooter on day one, Why do you think the
detectives had it out for you or they just like, whoever,
we just got to close the case. It doesn't matter.
I wasn't somebody that was out there. I was always
trying to do something positive. I was doing music, you know,
I'll hang around of course, but with my name coming
(10:59):
up on the day that it actually happened, whether they
wanted questions from me or them saying oh it was
the guy that Jamal was with, they was like, okay,
this is how we're gonna get him. We're gonna pressure
said either town on the person who did it, or
we're gonna make sure that he goes down for this.
And then no weapon was recovered, but hl casings were
(11:23):
found downhill from the body, in the trail leading up
to the body, which means that what she said was
false because she said the shooter was chasing Kuka downhill.
So now we know and they should have known that
she didn't know what the funk she was talking about,
so to be honest, right, her representation of what actually happened.
If anything, she could have only seen what was on
(11:45):
the side of that building. She didn't see when the
person was actually shooting. She told police to sell. Kuka
was chasing another man around the car, and then Kuka
bumped into a knockdown another man who got up, chased
him down the street and sloping down on the hill
and open fire close range. It wasn't me who Sale
had knocked down? What was her agenda here? Do you know?
(12:06):
Her whole thing? And the family which I was deeply
connected to, felt like they weren't scared of me, they
were scared of the person who actually did it, right,
So by way of throwing me in there, they felt
that I was gonna tell on the person who actually
(12:27):
did it. So that's the big boom right there. And
then things take another crazy turn, right because the TV
show airs the show that you were in, which should
have been a cause for celebration. She happens to see
the TV show, right, and then she comes back and says, oh,
now I know it's definitely him. Yeah, So they were
(12:47):
getting her closer and closer to that it was me
one And then on top of her saying that she
talked to her cousin and then on top of the
detectives really trying to get somebody to go to jail
for this. You know, that's what brewed up to what
that ultimately ended up being. But even still that didn't
(13:08):
work well ultimately end up happening was I said. About
fourteen months later, the police had did a traffic stop
with this other woman named Letitia, who had a gun
in her lap, had crack cocaine on her baby in
the back, had her boyfriend who was on parole, and
(13:29):
the passenger seat pulled over. She's going to jail, and
she goes down and they basically say, well, if you
could tell us X, Y, and Z about this case,
everybody basically goes free. She initially tells them that it
was daylight and this altercation happened, and then she says
(13:50):
she looked through the window and looked all the way
down the block and seeing that this happened, and just
threw my name in there. So there was a lot
of things is wrong with that, right as if First,
she says that she's seen it for fifty yards away
on a slant hill in the daylight when it didn't
happen in the daytime. It happened at night. But what
(14:13):
got the arrest warrant was the right up that detectives
had wrote up. They were guiding her the whole way,
making everything like it was a clear record, and then
wrote at the bottom extremely credible. So now when they
take that to the d A, now they feel they
have two witnesses saying the same exact thing. So this
(14:38):
is a crazy timeline too, because the crime we know
happens in two thousand seven, you don't get brought in
and arrested until two thousand and eight, over a year later,
and then the trial doesn't happen until two correct. So
during that time were you in jail, did you bail out?
How did how did that unfold? After you arrested? Well,
(14:58):
after I was arrested, they wanted to question me. Obviously
there's two things you can do. You can give up information,
but never mind that because in that situation, which you're
taught in the streets, is you know it's not to stitch,
not to give up information. Something happened to me my family,
you know, So I balanced that we also knowing that
(15:19):
it's not my duty to put somebody else into jail.
That's for them to actually get it right. And that
was my way of going at it. So it actually
took me about a year and a half to go
to trial. It was hard trying to get the thirty
people that I was out there to actually come in,
you know, not say who did it, you know, but
to say I didn't do it. I wasn't trying to
put nobody in a situation where I was trying to
(15:41):
have somebody else tell on the sail it because I
wasn't gonna do anything like that. Then I have to
go what hide for the rest of my life for
something that's just not my job. That's up to the
system to do so. And nobody would want to be
in that situation. But you were in it, and you're
still just a young guy without you know, reach or citizen,
so you you roll with it and you go to trial. Yeah,
(16:03):
so we thought the case, that's an identity case. You know,
I didn't testify, We didn't call nobody to testify or whatever.
So it took three days and then it took five
days of deliberation. Ultimately they came back with a murder
one conviction. It was it was definitely tough. I stayed
optimistic because I know I didn't do it at the
(16:24):
end of the day. And that's what ultimately, you know,
kept the wills turning in my mind, or how do
I figure this out? And you were convicted, of course,
and you were sentenced to fifty years in prison. So
I want you to understand this. Right before I get
(16:45):
sentence the fifty the life I'm inside of my cell,
I become we're doing a retrial motion right to ask
for a retrial before sentencing. I'm coming back from church.
Com inside. It's a twelve man like tank in this
kid by the name of Oliver barr sin Is comes
up to me. Now I don't know who this kid is.
He comes up too, man. He asked me, like, you
(17:06):
know it's your last name, true Love, And I say yes. Uh.
He said, did you go to jail like in oh seven?
I'm like no, but that's where my case happened. He
said yes. I remember being in a police station at
the time where some like some moree girl and some
detectives came in and she was crying and they were
(17:28):
pointing out a picture saying are you sure it ain't
something something? True Love and I'm like, whoa, you know,
and it blows my mind that it just so happens
that I run into this guy and he had just
been transported from Saying Bruno Jail to San Francisco County
on his way to prison. And he's seen in the
(17:49):
newspaper when he was in Saying Bruno about my case,
and he remembered the last name that was the first spark.
And then when he ended up in a sail with me,
her at the name again, that's where he actually approached
me and told me these things. So I called my
attorney immediately and tell my attorney about him, and my
attorney came up and, you know, talk to him, got
(18:12):
his statement, and come to find out, he was at
the police station at the exact same time that little
Lamana had came into the police station. He was a
sixteen year old kid come to the bench watching all
of this unfold. So what he ended up saying was
big in my case because remind you that that photo,
(18:35):
that photo and the six pack lineup that had the
date that was different from everybody else's which we called
in the question, made that much more sense because they
had me down as the shooter on day one, And
what made more sense from his testimony is why she
never pointed at my picture on the wall, Because on
(18:58):
day one she was saying it wasn't me. Even on
day two she was saying it wasn't me. Now, this
is newly found evidence. There was no way that we
could have knew that this kid was inside the police station.
So there's no way we could have called him. Now,
just in the heap of that time, what was going
(19:18):
on in San Francisco. You got, you know, Kamala Harris,
who's going to try to be Attorney General. You have
another case which got overturned, and then you have a
big drug scandal that's happening in San Francisco also at
the exact same time. So in the retrial motion hearing
(19:38):
when we put him on the stand to testify, Linda Allen,
the city's attorney, attacked Oh that he was a gang
member and he's trying to do this for a favor
for the blacks, like some prison politics type stuff. And
neither one of us have ever been to president and
we just don't know each other at oh. So in
(20:02):
this moment though that this is new discovered evidence, I
feel like I was politicked out because if they were
to grant me a retrial, that would have been to
murder cases with convictions granted retrial before conviction. And plus
the drug scandal that was national attention. So ultimately, even
(20:24):
with Oliver Barson is they still denied my retrial motion.
That's when I got sentenced to fifty the life in prison. Yeah,
I mean it's important to look at the role that
politics played at this because there was a lot going
on and and now things are really looking a lot
better in San Francisco with the new da chas of Boudin,
(20:47):
who is doing incredible, incredible things. Probably the most impactful
six months of any new prosecutor in the history of
this country, I would say, in terms of what he's
been able to accomplish. But that's a separate issue. Ms.
Harris at the time does not come out. I mean,
we can't sugarcoat it. I mean, she was one of
the villains in this story and your story, and in
too many other stories that took place around this time. Yeah.
(21:11):
The thing about Kamala Harris as a senator, she talks
a lot of things that employs towards the African American community,
and you know, it is good like if I didn't
go through the experience that I went through, then I
would probably be on the side of what Kamala Harris
actually talks about. And that's if you know, I didn't
find out about me. But when we talk about being
(21:32):
a progressive prosecutor, I think of chase A Boudin Kamala
Harris at the time she had opportunity to alleviate this
case and dive into it, especially a murder charge. Any
head d A is overlooking any murder charge that's happened
inside of their city. But also just knowing politics at
(21:53):
that time. I know four people who went to jail
innocently from murders in every single asked, one of them
got convicted. They call it a street sweep. Once elections
come up, they come through and they sweep any case
that they had. They say, arrest them, arrest them, arrest them.
They look. I went to jail right before elections and
(22:14):
one of the detectives my dad had ran into before
I went to trial, Kevin Noble, had told my dad.
My dad was like, Yo, why are you got my son?
And he said, oh, you know how it is. And
during election time, you know d a's they just come
and sweep you know, everybody up, any case that they
got and see if they could pressure people into taking deals.
(22:35):
Because they offered me a deal, you know, before I
went to try my first time, I was like, you know,
you complete out and take voluntary man, So I didn't
take thirteen years under her watch. So my feeling up
Kamala Harris been in that position, being African American coming
from the Bay Area and being hard on crime the
way that she was, and how many people that was
(22:55):
going to jail for marijuana charges at one of the
highest rates in the country, you know, played a big
part of mass incarceration and also to gentrification in San Francisco.
So I cannot unfeel that r c that are when
I'm getting sentenced, you know, are my conviction. She's in
there and smiling and you know, proud of what this is,
(23:17):
what this conviction is, and what it means to her career.
And then right after I lose my case, she wins
you know, Attorney General. So that all tells a story,
you know, just within itself. Yeah, And what a sick
thing to say to your father. I mean it's I mean,
that's as cold as it gets, Like it's your father,
for fox sakes, So Kevin Noble. Before I went to
(23:39):
trial and this was not turned over to us, Kevin
Noble actually came in with a confidential formant saying that
somebody else did it. So he was out there investigating
and he found somebody saying that this person did it,
and they took it and they tucked it under the rug.
You know, they felt like they had their god that
(23:59):
they was actually sold on on doing it. Joan, if
you could talk about for a minute, and we're gonna
get to the to the retrial, of course your ex
generation because you were fully exonerated. That being said, can
you tell us when you were in prison, was there
a best moment when I was waiting for the courts
to give their opinion on if I was gonna get
(24:21):
a retrial or not. And they initially I came back
and I'm on the phone at the same time with
my appellate attorney, Mark Zilbersmith, and they did not well,
they didn't deny. They changed the conviction from first degree
murder to second degree murder, which I would have had
from fifty years. I would have went down the forty
(24:42):
years to life. And I'm like, WHOA, Like, you know
what I mean, And my sailly at the time was
like that's good. I mean, they're really looking at it now.
Mind you, I'm in prison for three years before I
even get this opinion from the appellate courts. But I
knew that until I get another descension, as you, I
will be in prison for at least another two to
(25:02):
three years because that's the time that it typically takes.
So then my attorney put in a motion to review.
So with this strategy at the same time, I ended
up getting two witnesses to sign FFI David's testifying to
what happened that day without saying the person who did it,
(25:23):
and we filed the Haby's corpus through the Pellet court
so it could go across Judge climb them table at
the exact same time as our review was and to
say that there's two more witnesses saying that he didn't
do it. So ninety days later we got the opinion
(25:43):
back that the judges said, you know what, you're right,
and they granted a new retrial. It was a crying moment,
you know, I cried like a baby, you know inside
that self. Yeah, and I don't think anyone who's ever
not been through that could possibly even imagine such a
transformative I mean, you get your life back. Well. The well,
(26:04):
the crazy part about it is like in that moment,
you feel excited, right, but come to find out once
you get back to County Jim, you just know that
you don't have the life sentence no more, but you
still have a whole another fight, and that's a potentially
going to trial or them coming to you and offering
you a deal where you're almost close to want to
(26:25):
take that deal just so you don't have to go
to trial and lose again, because at that point, you
know you don't I don't believe in the system. You know,
I just got convictive problem. I didn't do like you
ask anybody who has a life sentence right now innocent?
Are not innocent? If they had a deal on the
(26:46):
table right now to take it and they get to
come home in two years, they're taking it. So let's
get to the good stuff, because we don't have a
ton of time left. But I do want to, of course,
talk about how you manage to finally get some measure
of justice, and by that I mean, of course the
retrial and your egeneration. When I got back to county,
(27:09):
it took me a year to go back to trial.
I had two extraordinary lawyers, Kate chat Field and Alex Richman.
The way that we fought the case, we asked for
the original homicide file and the judge granted it to us.
What helped us was that they were tampering with the evidence.
So when we slipped at the original homicide file, we
(27:32):
seen that the detectives was writing in pen pencil in marker,
so the ballistics of the trajectory of the bullets, it
didn't fit Lula La Manga's testimony of the bullets going
from the left to the right. The trajectory of the
bullets went from the right to the left, and that
(27:54):
made more sense if the shooter was coming up from
the bottom into the top of the hill. So what
they did was erased because they wrote in pencil. They
erased everything that the autopsy lady has said about the
trajectory of the bullet wounds, so they knew that that
was an issue. Also, a gun shoots off the shawcases
(28:19):
from the right, it'so in the rear percent of the time.
So if she saying that this murder happened coming from
this way, then the showcases will be in the street
and not in a straight line in the grass from
where the showcases landed, And it made more sense that
(28:39):
the shooter was coming from the bottom into the top.
So it did not match well what Lulu la Manga
had actually said. So you were able to undermine the
police's theory of the crime because the autopsy and ballistics
findings pointed to the gunman approaching Cell Kuka from downhill,
which was out of Lualamana's view. Now, what about the deliberation.
(29:02):
Every day, within deliberation, you get to choose if you
you want to stay downstairs inside the holding take, or
you can stay upstairs until they come back with a verdict.
I chose to stay downstairs because the deliberation rum was
right next to the holding take and I'm I'm in
there panic and I'm stressing, I'm pacing, you know, I'm
(29:22):
thinking about what I'm gonna do if I win. I'm
thinking about what I'm gonna do if I lose. So
five days later, they finally end up coming back what
with a verdict? So I come downstairs. I didn't have
no opportunity to call my family. Uh. They were living
in the East Bay. Uh. So when I come downstairs
for the verdict, the only people that are sitting on
(29:43):
my side is my attorney's loved ones. And it's also
Chase A Boudin. Chase A Boudin. I don't know who
Chase Budin is at that point, right, But on the
other side the whole d a's office, So Gascon was
the d A at that point, right. So they're all
in there waiting for the verdict, and the clerk reads
off in the case of Jamal true Love on first
(30:05):
degree murder, not guilty, and I break out in tears
of crying. I hugging my attorney and I'm just crying
my eyes out. I can't believe I'm really breaking down.
And then my attorney says, hold on, wait, you gotta
listen for second degree murder. I said what, I don't know,
because I thought I wanted at that point, so oh man,
(30:26):
it was I felt the sweat just coming down my face.
And then they said, in the case of Jamal true
Love on second degree murder, we find the defendant not guilty,
and and I'm I'm literally feeling that right now. I'm
trying not to get emotional, but when I looked over
to the jury, that was the first time that they
(30:47):
could actually show an expression on their faces. And you
see them over there crying. They're giving me prayer heads,
they're sending the kisses at me, you know, and all
of these things, and I'm, you know, and I'm just
crying my eyes out. You know. I looked back. You
see all the district attorneys just leaving, you know, upset,
and I'm just crying out. I'm just crying my eyes out.
(31:09):
And even going back up to the sixth for where
I was being held and telling everybody on the line,
which everybody knew I was innocent, and I told her everybody,
you know, I got found not guilty. The whole floor
of the whole jail erupts, even some of the deputies
that were you know, cool, and even the ones that
(31:29):
was foul as funk because this hell of foul ship
was trying to you know, clap their hands and stuff
like that. So it was a good feeling. And I
went home that day. I was able to surprise my
mother and you know, my family, which they didn't know
if I want or not, but I popped up on
them and they you know, they see me. They couldn't
believe it. It was more tears ship and it was
the most accilating feeling to know that, you know, I'm
(31:53):
free again today. Um, you've been out for how long?
I've been out? Five years? And I've seen you around
and you know, I know you're making the most of
every minute of it. Um, do you want to tell
(32:15):
us a little bit about what you're working on now?
And then we're gonna get to the closing of the show.
I ended up suing, you know, the police. They try
to offer me, you know, some money to shut up. Ultimately,
I held them accountable and I won my civil case.
I was awarded two million dollars that ended up rounding
out to be thirteen point one million, which obviously stut
to get all the money. But from there on whatether
(32:37):
So what's ironic is before I won my civil case,
three days before that, I landed a role in this
movie called The Last Black Man in San Francisco, which
I got the opportunity by volunteering at a nonprofit called
United Players. Rudy Corpetz that's my mentor, and you know
(33:00):
the mantras, it takes the hood to save the Hood.
So they were coming there to get some kids for
the rock throwing scene. Here comes that opportunity. I say, look,
I know how to act. I'm acting all my life,
you know, trying to fit in the city where I
stand out in And I think that was the line
that got me the opportunity to read. Joe Talbot Jimmy
Fails called me back two times after I got it.
(33:22):
Three days later, I went my civil case and from
there on I took on what I believe my life
was meant to be. And before all of that, I
went to school for Psychology Africana Studies at State and
after one semester identified that much more of what my
life was supposed to be. So when you were saying manifestation,
(33:44):
you know, I run my life on you know, manifesto desto.
If you can manifest it and you can see the
steps that you gotta take to actually get there, then
you take what's it a tangible right in front of you,
and you make sense of it on how you ultimately
get to that next plat for him. I also landed
the role on this upcoming animation film called Pierre the Pigeonhawk,
(34:06):
which has whoop and go Word, Keenan Thompson, how He Mandel,
and of course myself and a slew of other names.
I'm producing this film called Black and White, it's about
the USC seventy two football team, and working on other projects.
I launched my production company with one of my good
(34:26):
friends and business partners, said Twili Holger called True Narrative.
Also launching a record label at my son and a
few other artists that's coming up that I plan on
putting out there with their music. And I do a
lot of you know, activism. I used my platform to
to speak on you know, social issues and to bring
(34:47):
the enlightenment to my community about you know, what we
need to be doing with the voting and letting our
voices be heard behind you know, specific racism behind all
these police involved shootings. Know, I can't paign for Chase
A Bouded now. Before I would have never in my
life be a campaigning for a d A because the
DA has looked at as basically the police. But once
(35:10):
I got the understanding that there's gonna be a d
A regardless, and don't you want it to be the
right one. So that's what I start pressing onto my
people to understand that there's gonna be a d A regardless,
and we have to say so and who the d
A actually is, So get out and vote. So that's
everything in a nutshell. That's a pretty damn good nutshell.
(35:31):
And you know, I gotta say I was a big
supporter of Chase A. Boudin's campaign as well, and I'm
super proud of everything he's been doing. You know, the
truth is, we need to clone that guy and put
the clones of him in d A offices all over
the country. And while we're on the subject of dismantling
systemic racism and all the other things that we've managed
(35:52):
to talk about in this brief time we've had together,
we can't leave out the young man who testified for
you about what he's in the police station, right, And
that was the guy who talked about the police coercing
Lou Alamaga. His name, of course, was Oliver bar Senez
and he was actually shot in the back by the police, right,
(36:13):
Oliver Barsene is the story is really that much like
we we will have to have two hours because the
police shot him after he testified against me the first time,
San Francisco Police Department, right when he went to prison,
came home within sixty days. They shot him in the
back while he was running. He had a gun on him.
Right he goes to jail, he does three years, come
(36:35):
home around the same time I come home. And then
he stays home three years, get all probation, We go
to trial. We actually use him to testify in my
civil case. He testifies in my civil case, and within
two months again SFPD again shoots him in the back
while he's running. It tries to literally kill him, which
(36:59):
he doesn't die. They had it on camera, and he
actually just two weeks ago settled for less than five
hundred thousand dollars in a civil suit. And the media
has not connected these at all, both cases. But what
I when I know what they ended up doing. Because
(37:20):
we know this ship is crooked, they gave a belief
like a dolphine or somebody. It's called a chipped gun,
so a drop a drop gun to make sure that
this guns gets in this person's hands so they could
go ahead and trail them ultimately to go to take
them down. And when they're going to take them down,
there's only two things they could do. So if they
(37:41):
run and they got the gun on them. Then all
they gotta do is kill them, and then they're gonna say, oh,
well he had a gun on him. I seen the
gun and bla blas the thing with Oliver, he didn't
die both times. Okay, wait, wait what a chipped gun
like with GPS or something. Yes, exactly what they do, right.
So you know how when they do like set up cars,
(38:01):
they'll put a car right there with the keys in
and stuff like that, kind of like lure you. But
they already got it all set up. Same thing with
a gun, and they was doing this in the nineties, right,
That's how I know about. It's called a drop gun.
So they'll chip the gun, right, and they'll get this
dolfine or something like that that I'll go up to
a specific person or if not a person, a crowd
(38:22):
and be like, we're gonna give you this. Go sell
this gun for a hundred dollars. If you go to
any projects in any hood with a dolfine with a
gun saying that he's selling it for a hundred dollars,
somebody's gonna buy it. And Oliver case, that's what I
believe they did because the same scenario happened twice in
the second time. It just so happened that they have
(38:42):
footage on the day the Warriors won the championship. They
first championship, they pull out on a group of five
Latinos with one can of beer talking about, oh, what
do you guys doing here? And they're like, Warriors, just
one We're just chilling. It's like, oh, well, you gotta
open canna beer. And as like now, at that moment,
you see Oliver kind of like testy a little bit,
(39:03):
and then actually no, he takes off running. As soon
as he takes off running, the officer already pulled out
his gun and start running with the gun. Before the
officer could see even if he had a gun on
him or not, the officer already starts shooting blah blah
blah blah, drops him with three of them, and then
shoot an extra three of them while he on the floor,
(39:23):
saying get down, get down, and he still lives. This
is the thing, though, right that same officer killed the
fourteen year old boy in South San Francisco just three
years prior. Wow, you're right, and we would need at
least a few more hours and I'm leaving sure that'd
(39:45):
be enough to cover all of this stuff that's coming
out now. But you know, at this point, let's go
to our closing argument. This is the part of the
show where uh, everyone think. I think that's a part
of the show everybody looks forward to. Um, I know,
I do. We call it closing arguments. This is where
I get to, first of all, thank you for for
(40:07):
being here sharing your incredible story, um and uh and
doing it so beautifully, and and then I get to
turn my microphone off and just kick back in my chair,
leave my headphones on and listen to you for any
closing thoughts that you have about anything you want to
talk about. My philosophy that I've got out of all
(40:27):
of this that I that I've been through is that
I don't stand for nothing because I find understanding and
everything and what that is it just find a mediation.
You can have an opinion, You can have an opinion
on how you look at things, but also knowing that
there's somebody else's opinion and you have to look at
(40:48):
it from their lenses and identify why they're looking at
it like that causing mediation. Mediation is peaceful. So if
people can always look at what they're going through or
their ideology of how they see things and compare it
to somebody else's and find understanding in that within if
it's a negative or a positive, then you'll be able
(41:11):
to come to a common ground to understand why you're
going through what you're going through and why the opposite
person looks at something the way that they look at it.
And that leads me to knowing that there will not
be a positive for you are in this life without
a negative. You have to accept every negative. Then you'll
(41:33):
understand that me being in this positive situation right now,
there's no way I get here. I could predict that
I get anywhere else in life without going through the
most horrific thing that somebody can actually go through, and
that's being put in jail and given a death sentence
that you have to live the rest of your life
until you actually die on. And that leads me to
(41:55):
the end, and that's knowing your past could better predict
your future than plan it for If you know the
decisions that you've made that led to a positive and
the ones that led to a negative, then you will
better identify where your future is actually going towards. Knowing
that we all have to plan for sure, but not
(42:18):
putting a plan so far ahead are so heavy onto
your shoulders, so when you fail, you don't find understanding
of why you fail, but then you'll understand it that
much more by knowing why you failed before. Don't forget
(42:39):
to give us a fantastic review wherever you get your podcasts,
it really helps. And I'm a proud donor to the
Innocence Project and I really hope you'll join me in
supporting this very important cause and helping to prevent future
wrong for convictions. Go to Innocence Project dot org to
learn how to donate and get involved. I'd like to
thank our production team, Connor Hall and Kevin Wardis. The
(43:01):
music on the show is by three time OSCAR nominated
composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us on Instagram
at Bronful Conviction and on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast.
Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flam is a production of Lava
for Good Podcasts and association with Signal Company Number one
Hosts And Creators
Lauren Bright Pacheco
Maggie Freleng
Jason Flom
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