John Smith Part II
Learn more about John's case below and then help us finish our work so that we can
Shooting | Evolving Description & Identification | Police Investigation | Alibi |Alternative Suspect | Pretrial Investigation | Trial | Post-Trial Litigation | John's Pleas for Help | Innocence Matters Investigation | Help Us Help John
Relying on innocence . . .
In 1993, John was certain his innocence would set him free. He was certain that the sole eyewitness would either concede that John was not the shooter or John's lawyer would be able to show that the witness was mistaken and that the alibi witnesses were telling the truth. Of course John did not realize then that his court-appointed trial lawyer would not even bother to speak to most of the alibi witnesses until the morning of trial and then make a knee-jerk decision NOT to call them! John did not know that his trial lawyer would not subpoena the independent records that would prove his alibi. All that John knew then was that he was innocent. He thought that would be enough; it wasn't.
More about John's journeyhere.
Alibi
At the time of the shooting--8:05 a.m.--John was at his adopted grandmother's home, approximately three miles away. There were five people who could verify this: his grandmother, his mother, his girlfriend, his cousin, and his cousin's girlfriend. Only two of the five were interviewed and/or called to testify at trial. In addition, there were records that could have been obtained and other witnesses who could have been called to corroborate the alibi and firmly established the timeline. None of those records were obtained and none of the corroborating witnesses were contacted.
John spent the night with his girlfriend, cousin, and cousin's girlfriend while his grandmother worked the night shift. His grandmother drove straight home from work and arrived shortly before 8 a.m. John was home when she arrived. The timeline could have been corroborated by obtaining work records documenting the time her shift ended.
John did not have access to a car, so he arranged for a cab to pick his girlfriend up and bring her home. The time of his girlfriend's departure could have been confirmed through taxi records.
Shortly after his grandmother arrived home, the phone rang. It was John's mother calling to tell John about the shooting that just occurred on 17th Street. His mother lived on the street where the shooting occurred and actually witnessed the shooting, a fact which could have been confirmed by police records. John's mother used a neighbor's phone to make the call. This, too, could have been confirmed by interviewing the neighbor and subpoenaing the neighbor's and/or grandmother's phone records.
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Alternative Suspect
In 1993, there were approximately 385 active Rollin 20's members known to police. Assuming, the shooter was, in fact, a Rollin 20's member, we have no independent knowledge which of the other 384 members were responsible. We know John Smith had absolutely nothing to do with it. What follows is a discussion of the primary alternative suspect whom those closest to the crime believed to be the true shooter.
Gang member "RC" was identified by numerous unrelated sources as the shooter in this case. RC lived in the School Yard Crips' neighborhood with his mother and his younger brothers (at least one of whom was also reported to be a gang member). Although, at one time a School Yard Crips member, RC, apparently, had divided loyalties and was known to claim membership in Rollin 20's, a rival gang, and was also friendly with members of another bloods gang, the Black P-Stones.
On the day of the crime, a percipient witness believed she saw RC in the back seat of the black car as it sped away. She did not report this to the police at the time, but did testify to such at John's trial.
A few weeks after the shooting, the surviving victim independently heard from his friends that RC was believed to be the shooter. According to victim, he immediately relayed this information to the police.
One month after the Mvuemba/Williams shooting, a different set of detectives were investigating another drive-by shooting death of a School Yard Crips member for which RC was identified as the shooter, "October shooting." During that investigation, a confidential informant told the police that RC and his brother were also believed to have committed the Mvuemba/Williams shooting. The confidential informant explained that RC was furious at the School Yard Crips because they had viciously attacked RC's mother over a drug debt and had recently "disciplined" RC for affiliating with bloods. According to the confidential informant, RC shot Mvuemba and Williams in retaliation for the attack on his mother. Although neither victim was a gang member, Williams was well-liked by the Crips gang and it was believed that the shooter knew Williams' death would hurt the gang. The School Yard Crips members were convinced that RC committed the crime and immediately responded in a way that caused RC and his mother to quickly move out of the neighborhood.
The lead detective in the October shooting confirmed that RC and his mother moved out of School Yard Crips neighborhood soon after the Mvuemba/Williams' shooting. When the police who were investigating the October shooting went to RC's new address to arrest RC for the October shooting, family members reported that RC had recently fled the state.
Oddly, the detectives in charge of investigating the Mvuemba/Williams shooting claimed complete ignorance of the October shooting and its investigation results and, yet, they took no steps to locate RC even though he was implicated by several sources as the likely shooter in that case as well.
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Pretrial Investigation
John was initially assigned an experienced deputy public defender with an excellent reputation as very talented trial lawyer, Mark Zavidow. Unfortunately, due to an internal office conflict having nothing to do with the merits of John's case, the public defender's office was ethically obligated to ask the court to appoint another lawyer to represent John.
In the brief time Zavidow had the case, he immediately started to build a defense for his innocent client. Zavidow secured the assistance of an eyewitness identification expert on the case. He requested critical discovery from the prosecution and police regarding the alternative suspect and other evidence that--if turned over--could have been used to establish John was not the shooter and otherwise revealed serious problems with the belated identification of John. Even without the missing discovery, Zavidow was also able to develop some critical testimony from the sole eyewitness at the preliminary hearing. He was in the process of investigating John's alibi when the office discovered the conflict.
When the new court-appointed attorney, Jack Murphy, took over the case, he did nothing to build on the work that Zavidow had started. Murphy did not consult with or utilize the identification expert. He did not follow up on discovery requests or otherwise develop leads on the alternative suspect. Murphy's investigation was limited to sending an investigator to talk to John and his mother. During trial, Murphy interviewed two alibi witnesses in the courthouse hallway moments before calling them.
He did not subpoena any records that would corroborate John's alibi and provide a solid timeline to show that John was home when the shooting happened.
He did not interview the sole eyewitness or conduct any investigation of him.
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Trial
John Smith's trial lasted two days and consisted of approximately five hours of testimony.The sole eyewitness was a very sympathetic witness because he was, in fact, a young victim of a senseless crime where he witnessed the brutal death of his best friend and nearly lost his own life. At the prosecutor's request, Mvuemba lifted his shirt and showed the jurors his scar from where the bullet entered his body. It was only natural that the jurors would want to believe him when he confidently identified John Smith as the shooter. Then, through leading questioning from the prosecutor, Mvuemba claimed for the first time in the history of the case that the reason he did not tell the police that he immediately recognized the shooter from elementary school was that he was in fear of being labeled a snitch.
Murphy's complete lack of preparation left him ill-equipped to effectively challenge Mvuemba's in-court identification of John. As for the last-minute claim that fear caused him to withhold the identity of the shooter for two months, a competent lawyer would have effectively impeached Mvuemba with the fact that he regularly provided the police with leads as soon as he acquired them and that Mvuemba was dependent on others to provide clues as to who shot him. Murphy failed on this front to, as well.
Murphy's incomplete alibi defense included the testimony of two family members who established that sometime after the shooting, John was a few miles away at his grandmother's house. Murphy chose not to present the alibi witnesses who were with John at the precise time of the shooting. Murphy, having failed to conduct the necessary investigation, was unable to present independent proof that would have independently established John was three miles away at the time of the shooting.
The jury took less than three hours to convict John.