Now They Hang Them In The Courtroom
Strung up. Hung. Done. Any of these could have been my new middle name, for l’d become a bad character in a racist tabloid comic strip from a bygone era. At the young age of twenty-three years old, I was facing the death penalty for what the D.A. described as a “murder robbery.” The theory was going to be three men driven by greed in a get-rich-quick scheme planned to make off with their ill-gotten gains by shooting down anyone that dared get in their way. This was, in fact, nothing more than a reclamation project gone wrong. You can’t steal what belongs to you.
I remember standing in the center of the cold empty cell with my brother and codefendant thinking, “What did I ever do in life to deserve this?” I felt confused as I uttered the words, “We should have been out of here already—what is taking so long?” We provided receipts for everything retrieved on the marijuana farm. The list was clear: one trailer, pumps, irrigation PVC, nutrients, and several other items, including a compostable toilet. The one thing we did not have was a receipt for the clones-slang for “baby marijuana plants” —that I cut and rooted for the operation. It mattered not that the D.A’s lead investigator had spoken with the landowner on multiple occasions and had been told that we had permission to be on his property.
What kind of criminal justice system calls itself equitable while asking the state to murder a defendant? Nobody cared that, as a first time offender, I was charged with special circumstances homicide while my supposed “victim” had gunshot residue (GSR) on his hands. I’ll let you chew on that for a while. How quickly do we attribute menace to the unarmed arrestees who die at the hands of police when the blood toxicity reports become revealed at autopsy as having been polluted with methamphetamine at the time of death? My supposed victim was high on meth. He had GSR on his hands. He was a tweaked out shooter—what of my presumption of innocence, where was my imperfect self-defense mitigation reflected in the charging documents? They came for me in spite of clear evidence indicating something less aggravating.
Then it got good. Suddenly, the medical examiner issued a second and contradictory report, reversing the GSR findings, recanting that science, and positing instead that no GSR had been detected after all, without accounting for the basis for the initial findings. Being overcharged in spite of favorable evidence was baffling enough, but watching that same favorable evidence become summarily reversed, shocked my sense of fairness. I feared they could fabricate anything. A Black man in a redneck weed town did not stand a chance at trial.
For me, it was either: take a deal, or risk it all. I took the deal—a bad one.
15,330 days, which equates to forty-two years, is what I signed for. On May 9, 2016, the judge was proud to hand down the long awaited sentence. Two years for voluntary manslaughter, seven years for three counts of robbery, and thirty-three years and four months in gun enhancements. The hinky death was valued at only two years, but the enhancements are how they really demanded their pound of flesh. The D.A., lead investigator, medical examiner, and judge each got just what they’d planned for all along; I would be 65 years old before walking out of prison.
2,920 days later, which translates to eight years, the laws in California began to recognize a few glaring disparities and flawed practices in the criminal justice system that applied to my case. One law that came into sharp focus was the felony murder rule, also known as “murder robbery,” which treated robbers alike even when co-defendants did not partake in conduct that killed their robbery victim. The new statute mandated that all courts examine cases in which people were charged using the “get-rich-quick scheme” theory, and the “kill anyone who dared get in their way” argument for capital cases. Essentially, if a defendant could prove that he was not the shooter, or the direct cause of the robbery victim’s death, he was entitled to mandatory relief that would remove the capital case volatility of his charges and punishment exposure.
In order to prove innocence or guilt, the court would rely upon the record of conviction in court proceedings transcripts to determine whether the D.A.’s office could prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant committed the murder. If the D.A. failed to meet that threshold, the court would have to vacate the conviction, resentence the defendant, or give him a new trial. In 2023, I challenged my conviction by filing a motion to vacate my criminal conviction, because I was not the killer of the supposed robbery victim. My motion was granted and the court vacated the voluntary manslaughter charge I plead guilty to in fear, while also reducing one of the robbery charges to the midterm sentence, instead of the high term sentence, as high terms are to be reserved for repeat offenders. I’d been overcharged in multiple ways.
Due to my case being open via motion, it allowed for further scrutiny, even though the new sentence I have is now thirty-eight years. Upon further scrutiny and highlighting key facts, the evidence proved I did not fire a gun. Although some progress was clearly made, the same judge that conspired with the D.A. office, the lead investigator, and the medical examiner was now back in charge of resentencing me. The same bad actor held all the power to ignore the favorable evidence my motion developed. Days turned into weeks, weeks turned into months, and the judge refused to remove any of the gun enhancements. Staring down the barrel of the acquitted conduct pickle that could take years to fight while going back and forth to the appeals court—with the truth and law on my side—I made the decision to file my first appeal. Like my motion, it was granted.
Eager to prevail, my hopes were dashed when my case was sent back to the superior court for resentencing—to the same judge that colluded with the D.A.’s office, lead investigator, and medical examiner in the first place. He chose to adjust some time credits calculations in my favor; however, he refused again to hear anything pertaining to reducing or removing the gun enhancements. As he was refusing, new case law was published from the California Supreme Court in support of enhancement removal and reduction. With this new information, I filed my second appeal.
It should not take circular jousting to prevent racist judges from exerting unlawful rulings against Black defendants. They tried to kill me. Then they tried to bury me under the prison. Now they want to deny me the equitable resentencing I am owed under the law. When I win multiple appeals on the merits, doesn’t that reveal the racist motive of the white judge who clings to bad laws, though he knows it is unconstitutional? For Black defendants, continued appeals are how we challenge racism in the law. When judges go rogue, it’s on us to save ourselves from the gallows.
