December 23, 2024 • 40 mins
On Halloween night in 2012, shots rang out at a party on the campus of the University of Southern California. Four people were injured and no one died. Prosecutors went after 19-year-old Brandon Spencer for the crime. Despite the fact that Brandon had no criminal record and was known for his involvement in sports and community activities, prosecutors claimed he was seeking revenge in a gang feud and charged him with attempted first degree murder. They relied heavily on witness testimony that was later found to be flawed. Yet and still, he was convicted and sentenced to 40 years to life.
To learn more and get involved:
https://www.instagram.com/freebrandonspencer/?hl=en
The Innocence Center
https://theinnocencecenter.org/about-us/
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Thank you for you thing Green kill Link hey man
young was say this before you ask your question? Yeah? Yeah,
So I writ this book It's called to Kill a Mockingbird, right,
So I was kind of feeling like the modern day
Colin Robinson, and I could say that I can relate
to to him because better than anybody, because I know
(00:21):
what it feels like to be Falster accused. And then
that book like shows what happens to someone that looks
like in our conditional system.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
This is Brandon Spencer. I've known Brandon since twenty twenty
when I first reported on his case.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
Brandon, you were so young when you went to prison?
How old were you?
Speaker 1 (00:49):
I was written it at nineteen, but when I actually
went to see saw on CFR, I was twenty one.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
Brandon grew up in prison. He's been in over twelve years,
but has never lost the quirks and charm that make
him him the kind of guy who talks about himself
in the third person.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
Grady's pressure, It's probably, I would say the modern Mandela
the Perst advance, as he's young man has shown the brilliance,
the forty tude and face of this adversity.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
Brendan used to want to be an actor.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
Like it will Smith. That was that was my hide
on it, especially when I was younger, the first stress
of delire, that was that was my story. A lot
of people told me I should do comedy. I'm not
really good. Was just free, uh, just standing up there joking.
I'm just a natural joker, so I could just say
stuff off to the grid.
Speaker 3 (01:43):
Would you describe yourself as a goofball.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
Yes, I believe I still am. A lot of people
in here say that I'm always laughing and joking. So
they're like, oh, that's how you cope with this. I said, well,
you know, last at the best minute.
Speaker 4 (01:56):
I don't know how to put it. He is like
a bundle of just positivity.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
This is Claudia Salinas, Brendan's attorney.
Speaker 4 (02:04):
I'm a pretty positive person and I'm always looking at
like best case scenario. But I think he even tops me,
and that's kind of tough to do.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
But Brendon is also very serious, particularly about personal development.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
There's this philosoph of psychology called post traumatic growth. So
we're saying that post traumatic growth enables us, at times
of difficulties or struggle or traumatic experience to create a
life for ourselves as more meaningful and more purposeful and
more fertility than ever. So when is until you only
makes you stronger. So I have that mindset that I'd
(02:39):
either be a victim and willow and self hatingful we
have reagent me, or I can use this time widely
and cultivate ourselves and develop ourselves to the very best
version of.
Speaker 2 (02:49):
Myself from love of for good. This is wrongful conviction.
With Maggie Freeling bringis prisoner.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
I've been wrongfully convicted for the.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
Past twelve years today. Brendan Spencer. Brendan Spencer was born
November third, nineteen ninety two. He grew up with three
siblings in a well off, upper middle class household in Inglewood, California.
Speaker 1 (03:17):
I was born in Inglewood, California, the city of Champions.
Both of my parents they both ran up for public
office and how to be respected, so I came from
a positive home.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
I can say his family went to church together and
Brandon played soccer, baseball, and did martial arts. For vacations,
Brandon and his family would travel to Mississippi and Saint Louis,
where his parents were from.
Speaker 1 (03:43):
So we kind of were like But he knew our
cousins and where we came from, and I had a
really good childhood. I can't really complain.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
About it, but Brendan says, when he was twelve, his
parents divorced, So that.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
Was pretty hard on me to see that separate. So
that kind of fed a key role in my life
a young I was confused. I kind of blamed myself, mate,
because my dad wasn't as round as much.
Speaker 2 (04:12):
Feeling the weight of the divorce, Brendan started associating with
the wrong crowds. Inglewood, California, has a long history of
gangs and violence. In fact, Brendan was born just months
after one of the most infamous events in US history,
the La Riots. After a group of police officers were
(04:40):
acquitted of beating Rodney King, a black man, the city
erupted in anger. Protesters took to the streets and rioted
for days.
Speaker 5 (04:50):
The heart of every American aches at the side of
the violence, deaths, and hundreds of millions of dollars of
destruction in Los Angeles. Yesterday, the violence spread to Atlanta, Seattle,
San Francisco, but the pain and fear is now being
felt all across this nation.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
Over fifty people were killed and thousand injured. Brandon's neighborhood
was hit hard. When Brandon was growing up in the
nineties and early two thousands, the violent crime rate in
Englewood was significantly higher than the US average. Systemic and
structural racism forced people to seek other means of survival,
(05:35):
and gangs were rampant. So Brandon says, his parents worried
about him as a young teen upset over the divorce.
They thought he would be susceptible to the outside influence
of gangs, so they tried sending him to Mississippi to
live with family.
Speaker 3 (05:51):
So what was living in Mississippi like?
Speaker 1 (05:53):
Lower than California's kind of boring I was, says Caliboy,
Way faster out there.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
It's kind of like just the country too slow for Brandon,
So he went back to Englewood. It's what he knew.
It was home. He went to a few different schools
before graduating from high school in twenty ten with dreams
of pursuing acting, but gang life always wound in the background.
Speaker 1 (06:19):
In that environment. You have to know the school so
you don't get robbed, so you don't get on every
day about where are you from? You have to know
these individuals to survive that area. In that environment, it
was more gangs and actively right on the corner from
my house, you know, So I have to know these
individuals just to go to the store or go to rallies.
(06:40):
I remember one time my mom was so scared to
get out the car at rallies one time. That's at
the corner where we lived. And I was like, Mom,
I'm don't worried about it. I go to school with
these duds and I'm going to do that. But I
get them perspective because it's scary. But you have to
know the schools, just like now my mom was scared.
I was able to get out the car and I
always have. But you're going along just getting a murder
(07:02):
from my mom and said, what's you how doing? Just
sit there and being goofy. That was goofy to me,
Like that life style, right.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
Brandon says he was never part of a gang, but
they were almost impossible to avoid, and the repercussions of
growing up around that life would be impossible to escape.
In the summer of twenty eleven, Brandon went to a
(07:31):
party at the Proud Bird Restaurant and Event Center near
lax airport, and shortly after he arrived, shots rang out.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
Did I start walking? I felt like somebody kicking in
my stomach and then taking my shirt off was like,
oh no, man like something in my stomach.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
Brandon realized he'd been shot.
Speaker 1 (07:49):
So I see the glus spreading out, and I'm just
laying there on that ground and sloby the same like
I was dying.
Speaker 2 (07:56):
Emergency responders raced him to the hospital.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
Ronald Reagan Medical When they saved my life.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
However, they were unable to remove the bullet lodged in
his spine, so the.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
Doctor said, we don't know how we saved you thought
you're not supposed to be here now.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
That bullet got Brandon thinking long and hard about the
company he was keeping.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
I want to know better people. I want to know
people that he had in my life.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
So he decided to become a nurse.
Speaker 1 (08:24):
I said, well, I want to get back. Hopefully I
can help save others.
Speaker 2 (08:30):
Brandon applied and was accepted to UCLA's EMT program. He
planned to go to college the following year and was
also working a licensed security job. Brandon says, at eighteen,
he was living his best life.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
I have all the security job I was working for
a stressing company part time out of four concrete, so
I was making like forty seven dollars an hours or
I was pretty fun and I had a girlfriend. I
thought I was in love at that time, and you know,
I was awesome. They knew for me, you know, and
I going to look back at those memories because of
(09:03):
the only memories I have. But that was very cool
at that time.
Speaker 2 (09:10):
But his world was about to turn upside down. On
Halloween twenty twelve, Brandon was three days away from turning nineteen.
He and his then girlfriend were looking for a Halloween party.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
I never wanted to go out this night. That was
one of the things too, Like myke's girlfriend wanted to
go to this party. I wasn't really certain about it
because my birthday was a few days after, so I
was more focused on my birthday celebration over Halloween.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
But they went out anyway to a party in Hollywood.
Speaker 1 (09:44):
In Hollywood and it was a shooting. So we left.
And there is a party in USC.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
The University of Southern California.
Speaker 4 (09:53):
This there was around the time of when USC was,
you know, a top twenty five school.
Speaker 2 (09:58):
This is Claudia Selina's again. She's a staff attorney at
the Innocent Center based in San Diego.
Speaker 4 (10:04):
I always have known it to be really good. It's
a prestigious school, both the law school and the regular school.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
We spoke two months ago about that night in twenty twelve.
Speaker 4 (10:13):
So October thirty first, so close to this day of
the interview. Actually, so it's kind of wild that we're
sitting here talking about it. But there was a Freaks
and Geeks party at the USC.
Speaker 2 (10:26):
Campus when Brandon arrived. There were a few hundred people
outside waiting to get into the party.
Speaker 4 (10:31):
It seems like the party was popping because there was
a lion outside the door of people waiting to get in.
Speaker 1 (10:38):
We were staying a line, and then so which just
heard gunshots? I just started learning.
Speaker 2 (10:46):
Brandon says they were only there for about five minutes
before gunshots rang out.
Speaker 4 (10:50):
There's about five gunshots, and then it turns out that
four people ended up getting.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
Shot, DeVante Smith, Thomas Ritchie, My Sundowns, and Gino Hall.
Fortunately all survived, but in the chaos, nothing was clear.
Everyone was in a panic. Screaming, scattering, running for their lives.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
Is real. So I like had that flashback of tenn
and I got shot and I just started running and
all that timely pay back.
Speaker 2 (11:21):
As he was running, Brandan pulled off his shirt to
check if he'd been shot, but he wasn't.
Speaker 1 (11:26):
And I get to the parking lot and the police
I put your hands up. I'm like, dang, what do
I do?
Speaker 2 (11:35):
Police confronted Brandon in the parking lot. They were suspicious
about why he was running without a shirt. They took
his phone and went through it and found some photos
of him with guns and other photos of what police
thought were him flashing gang signs. So they took Brandon
to the station. Meanwhile, on campus police were asking questions.
Speaker 4 (11:57):
They talked to two security guards and then they also
have like some other witness who provides She said that
she actually saw the shooting take place. She provides like
a general description as well. Once they had like those
three witnesses, they were pretty much drawn towards Brandon.
Speaker 2 (12:12):
At the station, police question Brandon. They appeared to suspect
that Brandon had taken his shirt off because it had
red on it, a color associated with the Black Pea
Stones gang.
Speaker 3 (12:23):
They tried to say that was because you were trying
to hide your gang colors.
Speaker 1 (12:28):
YEA, nothing to do with gang colors. I was checking
to make sure they shot again and I had that
traumatic experience. So I'm sitting there like, I know I
didn't do nothing to home.
Speaker 2 (12:37):
I could go home, but he didn't go home.
Speaker 1 (12:40):
Well, then they come in there and like, can't be
pressing up against me, like hey you did it? Just
say you did it? I said, say I did what, bro?
And they're like, you know, say you did it. And
then there's a detective coming in. He comes in and
sits next to me and like rubbing my shoulder, like look, man,
we know you did it. So just goes and say
didn't pretentious and they come back and say, hey you did.
Speaker 2 (13:02):
Brendan insisted he was innocent.
Speaker 1 (13:05):
So then they paid my arms up and put him
in these avanilla envelope and I said, I what's this
and I was TSR R testing. I said, all he's.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
Going, bro, because yea gunshot residue testing. When a gun
is shot, it releases microscopic particles onto hands and clothing.
But nothing came up on Brandon.
Speaker 1 (13:25):
And they said, we'll tell us where the gun is.
And I said, what gun?
Speaker 4 (13:28):
Bro?
Speaker 1 (13:28):
You first the Parker like y'all tested me for the
TSRs me right, I had no gun, I didn't do nothing.
Speaker 4 (13:34):
And then three hours later they ended up finding a
gun and it kind of all unwrappled from there and
they started building the case around him.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
So that was it.
Speaker 3 (13:44):
So you never saw the free world. Aga asked for that.
Speaker 4 (13:49):
No.
Speaker 2 (13:52):
Brandon was charged with four counts of attempted first degree
murder and went to trial in January of twenty fourteen.
Deputy District Attorney Anchonella Nista Rescue told jurors that when
Brandon got to the USC party, he saw a member
of a rival gang, Gino Hall. She alleged that Gino
had been the one who shot Brandon in twenty eleven.
(14:14):
She told jurors, quote, this is a rivalry steeped in violence.
Claudia says, the prosecution's case really played up these gang allegations.
Speaker 4 (14:25):
We were trying to count how many times the word
gang was used in this case, and it's it's a
ton of.
Speaker 1 (14:30):
Time, gangang, gang.
Speaker 4 (14:33):
The more times you hear gangs, and the more time
you hear violence and tensions between the bloods and the
crypts and whatever it is, it's that is very inflammatory
for a jury.
Speaker 2 (14:44):
The prosecution also presented the photos they found on his
phone of Brandon with guns and of Brandon flashing gang signs.
They also introduced a photo of Brandon's chest tattoo a BS.
The prosecution said it stood for the Black Pea Stone Gang.
Brandon says it's just his name. But Gino Hall testified
(15:06):
at trial and did not identify Brandon as his shooter.
In fact, none of the survivors implicated Brandon at trial.
Only two security guards I d'd him, plus a star witness,
a young man named La Paul Lane. Lapaul was at
the party and testified that he had seen Brandon confronting Gino.
Speaker 1 (15:28):
They see that last came back with gun and approved.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
Premeditation, premeditated attempted murder. The prosecution presented evidence to back
up this beef between Gino and Brandon in the form
of exchanges on Twitter.
Speaker 4 (15:44):
Tweets of children essentially going back and forth between one
of the victims that the prosecutor liked to use. But
a lot of these words in these tweets is a
lot of what they kind of call like fronting.
Speaker 2 (15:56):
According to the prosecution, one of the tweets ended with,
you know, challenging Brandon to come and find him.
Speaker 4 (16:03):
And they might be general, but they still have inflammatory parts.
Where then you get a police officer who gets deemed
a gang expert, gets on the stand and starts making
connections about what these things mean, what they see in
the field, and then they do generalizations of the peace
stone bloods fueling with the rolling forties, and so now
(16:25):
you have this like little bow that the gang experts
get to kind of put and you just see that
throughout most of my gang cases here in the office,
and it is quite inflammatory.
Speaker 1 (16:35):
Well, I was here at at mar trial, sitting here
scratching my head when.
Speaker 2 (16:38):
I did what Brendan insists. He was never in a gang.
He was a good kid with no record.
Speaker 1 (16:45):
They show the pictures in me at the congressional black
coffees when I was fifteen. I've got Obama other pictures
with me where lacting waters and they're different congressional people.
But the court allows this lady who doesn't note me,
to tell twelve people lies that I'm just I'm this criminal.
I'm well documented stereo Typeas for someone that looks like
(17:08):
me is a game member a criminal in my jury
just goes off to that.
Speaker 2 (17:13):
The judge even criticized the prosecution for this displaying things
to the jury without offering evidence. He said, quote, this
is an improper and unprofessional move on your part. I
don't know if you're lazy, or you're nervous, or you
don't know how to do that. There was no physical
(17:33):
evidence linking Brandon to the crime. There were no fingerprints
on the gun. However, law enforcement did recover a partial
DNA profile.
Speaker 4 (17:43):
They said that there was a one in forty chance
that that was a hit to Brandon, whereas the shirt
was a one in seven sextillion chance.
Speaker 2 (17:51):
A one in forty comparison can include way too many
people compared to a conclusive ID like Brandon's shirt, which
was also.
Speaker 4 (18:01):
So shirt there's no there's no doubt that it is
his shirt, Like there was no contest there that it's his,
but the gun. To go on the stand and tell
jurors that one in forty chance, like nobody really understands
what that means, and it's too many people that can
be included into that lumpsum, but they don't take that
extra step to kind of explain that at that level.
Speaker 1 (18:22):
So I'm sitting here the whole time, like, well, the
evidence poofs, there's no TSR, my fingerprice on is done,
my DNA's on the gun.
Speaker 2 (18:30):
But Brandon's defense was weak. His girlfriend, who was with
him at the party and could say Brandon wasn't the shooter,
wasn't called to testify even though she was his alibi,
and it's unclear why. Still Brandon was hopeful.
Speaker 1 (18:46):
There's no video evidence, like, I'm sure he's come. It's
like the evidence pools that I had nothing.
Speaker 2 (18:52):
To do with this, but stacked against police officers, key witness,
gang experts, and a climate of fear crime in Los Angeles.
Brandon was convicted of four counts of attempted murder.
Speaker 1 (19:07):
Are we playing right now? Pretty serious?
Speaker 3 (19:12):
Do you think the jury was thinking like, well, even
if he didn't do this, he's in a gang, so
he did something.
Speaker 1 (19:17):
Bad exactly, I could kill Looking at my jury that
holiday thought, I didn't see Brandon. I didn't see the
security guard, the young man who'd never had a record,
the young man who a mayor of a city was
highly of.
Speaker 2 (19:32):
Before sentencing, one of the survivors said that he knew
Brandon and he didn't think Brandon would do this. He
asked the judge to be lenient with his sentencing. A
sergeant in the LAPD's seventy seventh division, familiar with gang activity,
called Brandon a quote nice, respectable young man. Even the
mayor of Inglewood vouched for Brandon, but after three hours
(19:55):
of deliberating, the jury found him guilty and Brandan lost it.
Speaker 1 (20:04):
I kind of like blackout. I turned the chair, and
what's pussling with the sheriff department. I told him he thought,
just killed me? You know that that was my mindset
at that time. I said, you want to just go
to shoot me right now because even took it too
far now And like that was like a powerless moment
in my life.
Speaker 6 (20:24):
As to count three, a conviction of penal co Section
sixty six four.
Speaker 2 (20:28):
On April eighteenth, twenty fourteen, judge sentence Brandon to fifteen
years to life on four attempted murder convictions running concurrently.
Speaker 6 (20:38):
The minimum period of parole eligibility is fifteen years plus
twenty five years the life in accordance with penal COO
sections one.
Speaker 2 (20:45):
Two zero two two plus twenty five years to life
for gun enhancements, all made worse by the alleged gang retaliation.
As the judge read the sentence, Brendan.
Speaker 1 (20:58):
Solved fived this is to be kind of current.
Speaker 2 (21:03):
Sitting there with his hands cuffed behind his back, he
banged his head against the table and he pleaded with
the judge.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
IM sorry, but like the president, and I'm not a
bad person, but I made a stage. But I'm not
just some game begger that you try to betray me yet.
Speaker 2 (21:28):
But it didn't matter. Brandon was sentenced to forty years
to life at twenty one years old for four shots
that killed no one. After his sentencing, a column came
out in the La Times. The author was Sandy Banks.
Speaker 6 (21:49):
I'm a journalist who worked with Lost Handless Times for
more than thirty years, most of that as a columnist
covering issues that might be missed by others but that
were roiling the community.
Speaker 2 (22:03):
The column held no punches in it. Sandy called out
Brandon for throwing a tantrum at his sentencing. She called
him a two year old and wrote that the last
thing Ela needed was more hoodlums carrying guns.
Speaker 6 (22:17):
What got me there was that here was this young
man who had kind of a glowing resume except for
a couple of mishaps in his young teenage years, and
yet he was about to go to prison for forty
years for shooting into a crowd of kids, And initially
I thought that's really pretty dramatic and overkill, But then
(22:40):
I thought back to how many times people in my
community and the greater Los Angeles community felt threatened by
the young being with guns. I'm the mother of three
girls who were teenagers at that point, and I don't
have enough fingers to count the times they had encountered
(23:02):
the potential for shootings or violence. And so I just
felt like he was a representative, in my mind of
all these young men who were Willie Milly shooting to
settle their scores and don't seem concerned about, you know,
the collateral damage.
Speaker 2 (23:21):
Her column was merciless, calling him.
Speaker 6 (23:24):
A fry baby, and you know what, there's a thug
with a gun, and Brandon read it and that gainst.
Speaker 1 (23:30):
Us is actually coming disresprateful that I'm associated with it.
That's not who I am. And then that's there, like
a repeating with someone that looks like me, is that
their eggnorant, their dug, their criminals, and that hurts.
Speaker 2 (23:42):
Brandon says his entire being was reduced simply to thug.
He stewed on Sandy's article. Brandon wouldn't be eligible for
parole until twenty thirty one, but he wanted to prove
everyone wrong. He wasn't who they thought he was, and
he needed to make sure he had the best shot
he could at parole, so he continued his education and
(24:06):
personal development.
Speaker 4 (24:08):
He has done so much schooling, like probably more than
any of the other clients that I personally have worked with.
At least he's in the dogcare program, so he helps
train dogs for veterans and for people who want to
adopt these dogs.
Speaker 1 (24:21):
I took it full ownership of my life. I've been
able to not and bring to the victims attitude that
became a constant learner. That's my nuphilosophy to remain a
lifelong learner.
Speaker 2 (24:34):
Barny Flesher is striving to be the best version of
himself the whole time hoping something would break in his case. Then,
six years after being arrested, it happened. In twenty eighteen,
the prosecution's star witness recanted. In a written off of
David Lapaul Lane said that he was threatened by law
(24:57):
enforcement and the prosecution.
Speaker 4 (25:00):
He actually had some pending criminal charges at the time,
and that is leveraged to be able to negotiate a deal.
I can't pretend to imagine what it's like to be
under those circumstances, So that is what he talks about.
In the declaration.
Speaker 2 (25:17):
The Paul's Affidavid reads.
Speaker 7 (25:19):
I was threatened by the detectives investigating the case and
by the district attorney prosecuting the case that if I
did not say what they needed me to say, that
the district attorney would intervene in my own pending criminal
case and cause me to be harmed or sentenced more severely.
I am sincerely sorry that I testified falsely against mister Spencer,
(25:40):
but I was afraid of what the prosecutor would do
to me if I didn't.
Speaker 4 (25:46):
He also does describe some of the six pack identification
procedures from what he remembers and the specifics that he
has about that does raise a couple red flags.
Speaker 2 (25:57):
Here's a reading of the affidavit again.
Speaker 7 (26:00):
Detective Jones had me review at least three six packs
of photographs to try to get me to identify Brandon Spencer.
The first three six packs were of black men wearing
black shirts, except that in each six pack The photograph
of mister Spencer was at least twice the size of
the other photographs, and mister Spencer was wearing a red shirt.
(26:22):
When the detective asked me if any of the men
looked familiar, of course I pointed to the larger photograph
with the red instead of black shirt. After the detective
showed me another six pack of photographs, but this time
all the photographs were the same size, I was told
to circle an initial the photograph of mister Spencer on
the last six pack only. I don't know what the
(26:45):
detective did with the other lineups, but afterward I was
allowed to leave.
Speaker 2 (26:50):
Finally, Brandon felt like he had something, but it took
years of fighting his case on his own to make
any headway.
Speaker 4 (26:59):
He is his greatest advocate, and I don't know that
you know, had he not had that really strong advocacy
and positivity and willingness to help in his own case,
that he would have gone as far as he has
gone today and got the attention of the people that
he needs to get the attention.
Speaker 2 (27:18):
Of, like Claudia and the Innocent Center, who officially started
working on Brandon's case this year.
Speaker 4 (27:25):
He did have a recantations and so for us, you know,
you always got to look at those with some kind
of scrutiny. But it had a lot of information in
there about the six pack identification procedures, about some of
the potential coercion that took place during the identification and
investigation process, and so that kind of opened the door
(27:47):
into kind of just, okay, well, what's this case about.
Speaker 2 (27:53):
The shooting took place on USC campus, a prestigious institution, They.
Speaker 4 (27:58):
Had a reputation to uphold, and of course nobody wants
there to be just a bunch of shootings taking place.
But it certainly doesn't help that six months prior to
this Halloween night shooting, there was a prior shooting of
two USC students, Ming and Ying, who were actually shot
and killed on campus as well.
Speaker 2 (28:19):
They were killed in an apparent robbery. So the rush
to arrest and prosecute someone in this second shooting became clear.
Claudia says. Then she focused on the sentence forty years
to life for a shooting where no one died, but
the judge actually gave Brandon the lowest possible sentence he could.
(28:39):
That's because of mandatory minimums sentences that require a minimum
prison term for certain crimes, regardless of mitigating circumstances. Mandatory
minimums are just one of many policies from the tough
on crime era that still exists today. Brandon was given
the minimum for each crime years to life on four
(29:01):
attempted murder convictions running concurrently, plus twenty five years to
life for a gun enhancement.
Speaker 4 (29:10):
I think that, you know, the United States is working
the way it's intended to write, which is to create
casts of people that incarcerate people, specifically black and brown
people and other minorities. And so I'm actually sadly not
surprised that, you know, he got such a big sentence.
(29:32):
You know, a person in like a white supremacist type
of gang, you typically don't see them getting the gang
enhancement as much as your typical blood or crip gang.
Speaker 2 (29:43):
Claudia points to examples from trial where this bias was
on display, like the photo and videos the prosecution shows
the jury of Brandon flashing gang signs.
Speaker 4 (29:53):
If you grow up in a gang neighborhood, these are
the people that you're associated with, whether you know you're
put onto the game or not.
Speaker 1 (30:01):
The gang signs. I would say that I was young,
just being goofy just hanging in and those pictures that
they use. I was like fifteen sixteen.
Speaker 4 (30:10):
But nonetheless, you know, a jury doesn't necessarily know that,
you don't necessarily have a jury of your peers. So
what you're seeing is these kind of inflammatory pictures that
were allowed.
Speaker 2 (30:21):
But Claudia says there's actually a new law in California
that could be beneficial to helping Brandon specifically in these avenues.
It's called the Racial Justice Act, and.
Speaker 4 (30:32):
It's meant to target issues of the government or a prosecutor,
a judge, or a law enforcement officer, even an attorney
if they exhibit actual bias or implicit bias or any
kind of amagust towards the suspect or the defendant because
of their race, ethnicity, or origin. So this is great.
(30:54):
This is like a mode to be able to look
into gang enhancements. Are the prosecutors applying the gang enhancement
at the same rate for the same similar circumstances to
white people that they are to black or brown people.
Speaker 2 (31:11):
She also says it's being used in the over criminalization
of rap lyrics.
Speaker 4 (31:16):
Rap Lyrics are one of like the prominent issues that
are going on in California, they finally have some legal
standard to be able to attack those because we do
know that rap lyrics are an expression of art and
it does not always necessarily mean that this person did
this crime, and it is more inflammatory for people who
might not listen to rap music on a general basis
and understand that context.
Speaker 8 (31:37):
If I was tweeting those lyrics and beefing with somebody else,
the assumption might not be she's in a gang because
I'm a white woman. Yeah, and he was a black guy,
and it's like, oh, he's tweeting me. Is he's a
black kid, He's in a gang?
Speaker 4 (31:50):
Absolutely?
Speaker 7 (31:51):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (31:51):
And then same with you know, the the guns that
were on the phone. You know, I can think of
many times that I've seen guns on my friend phones.
But they are lawyers and they wear suits, and so
it's not the same.
Speaker 2 (32:04):
She also sees using the Racial Justice Act to examine
the way the prosecution used the tweets between Brandon and
Gino Hall.
Speaker 4 (32:12):
Some of the tweets we had the word gun play
in them. In twenty twelve when this case occurred, Gunplay
was actually one of the artists that were like peeking
in the hip hop kind of industry at the time too,
so that context didn't necessarily get to come out at trial,
but it's all very important information. Are there different ways
(32:32):
that these tweets can be interpreted? And if so, then
was the gang expert, you know, using some type of
racial bias to apply these to him? They also tried
to use like his tattoos. I know tattoos are coming
up in the Racial Justice Act as well, and so
that that could be an option.
Speaker 2 (32:53):
Claudia says she's excited to take on Brandon's case because
of how many potential avenues into court. There are some.
Speaker 4 (33:00):
Cases that we run into where it's like, I can
believe in this person's innocence all I want, but there's
no areas of investigation. It was literally just the testimony
of like one person. You know, that's not the case here.
There's a few different red flags and areas that we
can pursue, and that always just makes me much more excited.
Speaker 2 (33:17):
She's also going to look into more DNA testing since
science has advanced, and of course regular shoe leather investigation.
Speaker 4 (33:25):
It's my hope to track down some of the people
that were involved so we can talk to them directly.
The security guards from the USC. They were pretty significant
prosecution witnesses, and I'd love to see some of the
circumstances around what happened with the six pack identification procedures.
You know, you just want to get out there, You
(33:46):
want to talk to the people and just figure out
what happened. Really, I think that's kind of what we
all want, is we want the truth to come out.
And that's exciting for me. That's why I got into
this work for sure.
Speaker 2 (34:02):
Brandon has been in prison for over a decade for
a crime he says he didn't commit, and he continues
to work on himself. He says next he wants to
get his PhD.
Speaker 1 (34:12):
I want to do my dissertation about post traumatic growth,
like I was saying earlier, hopefully become a motivational speaker
and help young men, you know, page their mindset and
understand that that that lifestyle and that way of hating
is hating.
Speaker 2 (34:29):
And another person has also spent years reflecting on her mindset.
Sandy Banks has had time to look back on her
column about Brandon.
Speaker 6 (34:39):
And I wrote a column and when I read it
now kind of embarrasses me because it was so nature
and I realized I was biased by the fact that
I were about my girls every time they would leave
the house, you know, when they're going to a party
or a football game or whatever. And that shouldn't be what,
(35:00):
you know, steering my opinion. You know, it's tough as
a columnist because you're supposed to have an opinion, and
we try to explain why we have this opinion. But
me being worried for my girls is not a valid
reason for making Brandon the symbol of game violence in
(35:20):
the city.
Speaker 2 (35:22):
In twenty twenty, I released an episode about Brandon on
my podcast Unjustin Unsolved. A listener sent it to Sandy
after reading her article. Sandy saw the name Brandon Spencer
and listened.
Speaker 6 (35:35):
I got to see him and hear him, and it
was a very different experience than you know, watching the
scene in the courtroom unfold where he's screaming and carrying on.
It was a young man who was kind of perplexed
himself about how he got there and who proclaimed his
innocence still and you know, and had things to back
(35:58):
him up.
Speaker 2 (35:58):
So Sandy started taking of her own experiences as a
black woman, and I will tell.
Speaker 6 (36:03):
You I live in the San Fernando Valley, which is,
you know, had reputationally very white. There have been times
that I have been considered suspicious. I can remember walking
home from the Whole Foods with Whole Foods bags, but
I had a hoodie on and my hair wasn't combed,
and I was you know, you know, and there was
a guy following me in the car, and I realized,
(36:26):
you know, I'm going to be on the next door
feed next time about the suspicious black lady who might
be homeless because she's walking around with shopping beds, you know,
and that would not happen to a white neighbor.
Speaker 1 (36:38):
So yeah, I'm aware of.
Speaker 6 (36:40):
That, and that's kind of you know, I should I
should have thought of that, even when I was castigating him.
Speaker 2 (36:48):
Sandy and Brandon connected after she listened to my episode.
Speaker 1 (36:52):
Well, she finally got to hear me and talk to me.
You know, I kind of emotional. I've got it cures
when I spoke to her that you know, how she
supports me, and she apologized to and that that really
was motivation.
Speaker 6 (37:06):
I think we need to be we need to be
able to step back, to plunge deeper into the backgrounds
of the people that are you know, quote unquote doing
the shooting, because that's what's going to give us the
answer on how we be a less violent society. Talk
into them, listening to them, having programs in prisons to
(37:27):
help them see the light.
Speaker 5 (37:29):
You know.
Speaker 2 (37:30):
Sandy also spoke to Brandon's parents for context for her
most recent column about Brandon, titled I once applauded a
forty year sentence for a shooter, not now.
Speaker 6 (37:40):
His parents are good people. They did the best they
can in our heartbreak into and are still working every
day to free their son. What he did, if he's guilty,
was certainly wrong, but his forty years in prison and
appropriate sentence for that when you have you know, child
(38:01):
molesters and you know other kind of guys getting out
after you know, five or six years, and I think
we need to kind of embrace the notion that these
are young people growing up in difficult times, and aren't
there ways that we can help and support them instead
of just you know, castigate them when they do wrong.
Speaker 2 (38:23):
And that's exactly what Brandon wants to do.
Speaker 1 (38:26):
Now. I want to hope other young men not get
involved or caught up with that, or don't even be
associated with that, because me being knowing these people got
me my license and I just want to go home
and live my life. I'm an asset to earn society
amount of liability. You know, one time I was suicidal.
I rather had to get than where I am today,
(38:48):
you know, and to see who I become now and
is very inspiring, and I believe it's it's motivational for
some other people that we all say struggles in our lives,
but we're not designed by those only insistence. It's about
pushing forward, you know, looking at me out and rowloaded
by as system that everyone in the America, in the
world knows that is designed first someone that looks like
(39:08):
need to fail that. But all the odds right now
are backed against. This is the modern daily versus the lions.
I'm going against USC this is a billion dollar dollars.
I'm going against false this police department, and you know,
harnessing that and embracing struggle, and you know, don't don't
want over yourself paid, you know, I just I just
(39:29):
want my justice. I want to get free, and I
hope that we're able to speak on the facts and
I'm able to be commerrating one day and receive the
justice I deserve.
Speaker 2 (39:49):
Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction with Maggie Freeling.
Please support your local innocence organizations and go to the
links on our website to see how you can help Brandon.
This episode was written by me Maggie Freeling, with story
editing and sound design by senior producer Rebecca Ibarra. Our
producer is Kathleen Fink. Our mixer is Josh Allen, with
research by Alison Levy. An additional production help by Jeff Cleiburn.
(40:13):
Executive producers are Jason Flam, Jeff Kempler, and Kevin Wordis.
The music is by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph.
Make sure to follow us on all social media platforms
at Lava for Good and at Wrongful Conviction. You can
also follow me on all platforms at Maggie Freeling. Wrongful
Conviction with Maggie Freeling is a production of Lava for
(40:33):
Good Podcasts in association with Signal Company Number One. We
have worked hard to ensure that all facts reported in
this show are accurate. The views and opinions expressed by
the individuals featured in this show are their own and
do not necessarily reflect those of lava for good
Thank you for you thing Green kill Link hey man
young was say this before you ask your question? Yeah? Yeah,
So I writ this book It's called to Kill a Mockingbird, right,
So I was kind of feeling like the modern day
Colin Robinson, and I could say that I can relate
to to him because better than anybody, because I know
(00:21):
what it feels like to be Falster accused. And then
that book like shows what happens to someone that looks
like in our conditional system.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
This is Brandon Spencer. I've known Brandon since twenty twenty
when I first reported on his case.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
Brandon, you were so young when you went to prison?
How old were you?
Speaker 1 (00:49):
I was written it at nineteen, but when I actually
went to see saw on CFR, I was twenty one.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
Brandon grew up in prison. He's been in over twelve years,
but has never lost the quirks and charm that make
him him the kind of guy who talks about himself
in the third person.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
Grady's pressure, It's probably, I would say the modern Mandela
the Perst advance, as he's young man has shown the brilliance,
the forty tude and face of this adversity.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
Brendan used to want to be an actor.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
Like it will Smith. That was that was my hide
on it, especially when I was younger, the first stress
of delire, that was that was my story. A lot
of people told me I should do comedy. I'm not
really good. Was just free, uh, just standing up there joking.
I'm just a natural joker, so I could just say
stuff off to the grid.
Speaker 3 (01:43):
Would you describe yourself as a goofball.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
Yes, I believe I still am. A lot of people
in here say that I'm always laughing and joking. So
they're like, oh, that's how you cope with this. I said, well,
you know, last at the best minute.
Speaker 4 (01:56):
I don't know how to put it. He is like
a bundle of just positivity.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
This is Claudia Salinas, Brendan's attorney.
Speaker 4 (02:04):
I'm a pretty positive person and I'm always looking at
like best case scenario. But I think he even tops me,
and that's kind of tough to do.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
But Brendon is also very serious, particularly about personal development.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
There's this philosoph of psychology called post traumatic growth. So
we're saying that post traumatic growth enables us, at times
of difficulties or struggle or traumatic experience to create a
life for ourselves as more meaningful and more purposeful and
more fertility than ever. So when is until you only
makes you stronger. So I have that mindset that I'd
(02:39):
either be a victim and willow and self hatingful we
have reagent me, or I can use this time widely
and cultivate ourselves and develop ourselves to the very best
version of.
Speaker 2 (02:49):
Myself from love of for good. This is wrongful conviction.
With Maggie Freeling bringis prisoner.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
I've been wrongfully convicted for the.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
Past twelve years today. Brendan Spencer. Brendan Spencer was born
November third, nineteen ninety two. He grew up with three
siblings in a well off, upper middle class household in Inglewood, California.
Speaker 1 (03:17):
I was born in Inglewood, California, the city of Champions.
Both of my parents they both ran up for public
office and how to be respected, so I came from
a positive home.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
I can say his family went to church together and
Brandon played soccer, baseball, and did martial arts. For vacations,
Brandon and his family would travel to Mississippi and Saint Louis,
where his parents were from.
Speaker 1 (03:43):
So we kind of were like But he knew our
cousins and where we came from, and I had a
really good childhood. I can't really complain.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
About it, but Brendan says, when he was twelve, his
parents divorced, So that.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
Was pretty hard on me to see that separate. So
that kind of fed a key role in my life
a young I was confused. I kind of blamed myself, mate,
because my dad wasn't as round as much.
Speaker 2 (04:12):
Feeling the weight of the divorce, Brendan started associating with
the wrong crowds. Inglewood, California, has a long history of
gangs and violence. In fact, Brendan was born just months
after one of the most infamous events in US history,
the La Riots. After a group of police officers were
(04:40):
acquitted of beating Rodney King, a black man, the city
erupted in anger. Protesters took to the streets and rioted
for days.
Speaker 5 (04:50):
The heart of every American aches at the side of
the violence, deaths, and hundreds of millions of dollars of
destruction in Los Angeles. Yesterday, the violence spread to Atlanta, Seattle,
San Francisco, but the pain and fear is now being
felt all across this nation.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
Over fifty people were killed and thousand injured. Brandon's neighborhood
was hit hard. When Brandon was growing up in the
nineties and early two thousands, the violent crime rate in
Englewood was significantly higher than the US average. Systemic and
structural racism forced people to seek other means of survival,
(05:35):
and gangs were rampant. So Brandon says, his parents worried
about him as a young teen upset over the divorce.
They thought he would be susceptible to the outside influence
of gangs, so they tried sending him to Mississippi to
live with family.
Speaker 3 (05:51):
So what was living in Mississippi like?
Speaker 1 (05:53):
Lower than California's kind of boring I was, says Caliboy,
Way faster out there.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
It's kind of like just the country too slow for Brandon,
So he went back to Englewood. It's what he knew.
It was home. He went to a few different schools
before graduating from high school in twenty ten with dreams
of pursuing acting, but gang life always wound in the background.
Speaker 1 (06:19):
In that environment. You have to know the school so
you don't get robbed, so you don't get on every
day about where are you from? You have to know
these individuals to survive that area. In that environment, it
was more gangs and actively right on the corner from
my house, you know, So I have to know these
individuals just to go to the store or go to rallies.
(06:40):
I remember one time my mom was so scared to
get out the car at rallies one time. That's at
the corner where we lived. And I was like, Mom,
I'm don't worried about it. I go to school with
these duds and I'm going to do that. But I
get them perspective because it's scary. But you have to
know the schools, just like now my mom was scared.
I was able to get out the car and I
always have. But you're going along just getting a murder
(07:02):
from my mom and said, what's you how doing? Just
sit there and being goofy. That was goofy to me,
Like that life style, right.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
Brandon says he was never part of a gang, but
they were almost impossible to avoid, and the repercussions of
growing up around that life would be impossible to escape.
In the summer of twenty eleven, Brandon went to a
(07:31):
party at the Proud Bird Restaurant and Event Center near
lax airport, and shortly after he arrived, shots rang out.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
Did I start walking? I felt like somebody kicking in
my stomach and then taking my shirt off was like,
oh no, man like something in my stomach.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
Brandon realized he'd been shot.
Speaker 1 (07:49):
So I see the glus spreading out, and I'm just
laying there on that ground and sloby the same like
I was dying.
Speaker 2 (07:56):
Emergency responders raced him to the hospital.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
Ronald Reagan Medical When they saved my life.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
However, they were unable to remove the bullet lodged in
his spine, so the.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
Doctor said, we don't know how we saved you thought
you're not supposed to be here now.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
That bullet got Brandon thinking long and hard about the
company he was keeping.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
I want to know better people. I want to know
people that he had in my life.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
So he decided to become a nurse.
Speaker 1 (08:24):
I said, well, I want to get back. Hopefully I
can help save others.
Speaker 2 (08:30):
Brandon applied and was accepted to UCLA's EMT program. He
planned to go to college the following year and was
also working a licensed security job. Brandon says, at eighteen,
he was living his best life.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
I have all the security job I was working for
a stressing company part time out of four concrete, so
I was making like forty seven dollars an hours or
I was pretty fun and I had a girlfriend. I
thought I was in love at that time, and you know,
I was awesome. They knew for me, you know, and
I going to look back at those memories because of
(09:03):
the only memories I have. But that was very cool
at that time.
Speaker 2 (09:10):
But his world was about to turn upside down. On
Halloween twenty twelve, Brandon was three days away from turning nineteen.
He and his then girlfriend were looking for a Halloween party.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
I never wanted to go out this night. That was
one of the things too, Like myke's girlfriend wanted to
go to this party. I wasn't really certain about it
because my birthday was a few days after, so I
was more focused on my birthday celebration over Halloween.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
But they went out anyway to a party in Hollywood.
Speaker 1 (09:44):
In Hollywood and it was a shooting. So we left.
And there is a party in USC.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
The University of Southern California.
Speaker 4 (09:53):
This there was around the time of when USC was,
you know, a top twenty five school.
Speaker 2 (09:58):
This is Claudia Selina's again. She's a staff attorney at
the Innocent Center based in San Diego.
Speaker 4 (10:04):
I always have known it to be really good. It's
a prestigious school, both the law school and the regular school.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
We spoke two months ago about that night in twenty twelve.
Speaker 4 (10:13):
So October thirty first, so close to this day of
the interview. Actually, so it's kind of wild that we're
sitting here talking about it. But there was a Freaks
and Geeks party at the USC.
Speaker 2 (10:26):
Campus when Brandon arrived. There were a few hundred people
outside waiting to get into the party.
Speaker 4 (10:31):
It seems like the party was popping because there was
a lion outside the door of people waiting to get in.
Speaker 1 (10:38):
We were staying a line, and then so which just
heard gunshots? I just started learning.
Speaker 2 (10:46):
Brandon says they were only there for about five minutes
before gunshots rang out.
Speaker 4 (10:50):
There's about five gunshots, and then it turns out that
four people ended up getting.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
Shot, DeVante Smith, Thomas Ritchie, My Sundowns, and Gino Hall.
Fortunately all survived, but in the chaos, nothing was clear.
Everyone was in a panic. Screaming, scattering, running for their lives.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
Is real. So I like had that flashback of tenn
and I got shot and I just started running and
all that timely pay back.
Speaker 2 (11:21):
As he was running, Brandan pulled off his shirt to
check if he'd been shot, but he wasn't.
Speaker 1 (11:26):
And I get to the parking lot and the police
I put your hands up. I'm like, dang, what do
I do?
Speaker 2 (11:35):
Police confronted Brandon in the parking lot. They were suspicious
about why he was running without a shirt. They took
his phone and went through it and found some photos
of him with guns and other photos of what police
thought were him flashing gang signs. So they took Brandon
to the station. Meanwhile, on campus police were asking questions.
Speaker 4 (11:57):
They talked to two security guards and then they also
have like some other witness who provides She said that
she actually saw the shooting take place. She provides like
a general description as well. Once they had like those
three witnesses, they were pretty much drawn towards Brandon.
Speaker 2 (12:12):
At the station, police question Brandon. They appeared to suspect
that Brandon had taken his shirt off because it had
red on it, a color associated with the Black Pea
Stones gang.
Speaker 3 (12:23):
They tried to say that was because you were trying
to hide your gang colors.
Speaker 1 (12:28):
YEA, nothing to do with gang colors. I was checking
to make sure they shot again and I had that
traumatic experience. So I'm sitting there like, I know I
didn't do nothing to home.
Speaker 2 (12:37):
I could go home, but he didn't go home.
Speaker 1 (12:40):
Well, then they come in there and like, can't be
pressing up against me, like hey you did it? Just
say you did it? I said, say I did what, bro?
And they're like, you know, say you did it. And
then there's a detective coming in. He comes in and
sits next to me and like rubbing my shoulder, like look, man,
we know you did it. So just goes and say
didn't pretentious and they come back and say, hey you did.
Speaker 2 (13:02):
Brendan insisted he was innocent.
Speaker 1 (13:05):
So then they paid my arms up and put him
in these avanilla envelope and I said, I what's this
and I was TSR R testing. I said, all he's.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
Going, bro, because yea gunshot residue testing. When a gun
is shot, it releases microscopic particles onto hands and clothing.
But nothing came up on Brandon.
Speaker 1 (13:25):
And they said, we'll tell us where the gun is.
And I said, what gun?
Speaker 4 (13:28):
Bro?
Speaker 1 (13:28):
You first the Parker like y'all tested me for the
TSRs me right, I had no gun, I didn't do nothing.
Speaker 4 (13:34):
And then three hours later they ended up finding a
gun and it kind of all unwrappled from there and
they started building the case around him.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
So that was it.
Speaker 3 (13:44):
So you never saw the free world. Aga asked for that.
Speaker 4 (13:49):
No.
Speaker 2 (13:52):
Brandon was charged with four counts of attempted first degree
murder and went to trial in January of twenty fourteen.
Deputy District Attorney Anchonella Nista Rescue told jurors that when
Brandon got to the USC party, he saw a member
of a rival gang, Gino Hall. She alleged that Gino
had been the one who shot Brandon in twenty eleven.
(14:14):
She told jurors, quote, this is a rivalry steeped in violence.
Claudia says, the prosecution's case really played up these gang allegations.
Speaker 4 (14:25):
We were trying to count how many times the word
gang was used in this case, and it's it's a
ton of.
Speaker 1 (14:30):
Time, gangang, gang.
Speaker 4 (14:33):
The more times you hear gangs, and the more time
you hear violence and tensions between the bloods and the
crypts and whatever it is, it's that is very inflammatory
for a jury.
Speaker 2 (14:44):
The prosecution also presented the photos they found on his
phone of Brandon with guns and of Brandon flashing gang signs.
They also introduced a photo of Brandon's chest tattoo a BS.
The prosecution said it stood for the Black Pea Stone Gang.
Brandon says it's just his name. But Gino Hall testified
(15:06):
at trial and did not identify Brandon as his shooter.
In fact, none of the survivors implicated Brandon at trial.
Only two security guards I d'd him, plus a star witness,
a young man named La Paul Lane. Lapaul was at
the party and testified that he had seen Brandon confronting Gino.
Speaker 1 (15:28):
They see that last came back with gun and approved.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
Premeditation, premeditated attempted murder. The prosecution presented evidence to back
up this beef between Gino and Brandon in the form
of exchanges on Twitter.
Speaker 4 (15:44):
Tweets of children essentially going back and forth between one
of the victims that the prosecutor liked to use. But
a lot of these words in these tweets is a
lot of what they kind of call like fronting.
Speaker 2 (15:56):
According to the prosecution, one of the tweets ended with,
you know, challenging Brandon to come and find him.
Speaker 4 (16:03):
And they might be general, but they still have inflammatory parts.
Where then you get a police officer who gets deemed
a gang expert, gets on the stand and starts making
connections about what these things mean, what they see in
the field, and then they do generalizations of the peace
stone bloods fueling with the rolling forties, and so now
(16:25):
you have this like little bow that the gang experts
get to kind of put and you just see that
throughout most of my gang cases here in the office,
and it is quite inflammatory.
Speaker 1 (16:35):
Well, I was here at at mar trial, sitting here
scratching my head when.
Speaker 2 (16:38):
I did what Brendan insists. He was never in a gang.
He was a good kid with no record.
Speaker 1 (16:45):
They show the pictures in me at the congressional black
coffees when I was fifteen. I've got Obama other pictures
with me where lacting waters and they're different congressional people.
But the court allows this lady who doesn't note me,
to tell twelve people lies that I'm just I'm this criminal.
I'm well documented stereo Typeas for someone that looks like
(17:08):
me is a game member a criminal in my jury
just goes off to that.
Speaker 2 (17:13):
The judge even criticized the prosecution for this displaying things
to the jury without offering evidence. He said, quote, this
is an improper and unprofessional move on your part. I
don't know if you're lazy, or you're nervous, or you
don't know how to do that. There was no physical
(17:33):
evidence linking Brandon to the crime. There were no fingerprints
on the gun. However, law enforcement did recover a partial
DNA profile.
Speaker 4 (17:43):
They said that there was a one in forty chance
that that was a hit to Brandon, whereas the shirt
was a one in seven sextillion chance.
Speaker 2 (17:51):
A one in forty comparison can include way too many
people compared to a conclusive ID like Brandon's shirt, which
was also.
Speaker 4 (18:01):
So shirt there's no there's no doubt that it is
his shirt, Like there was no contest there that it's his,
but the gun. To go on the stand and tell
jurors that one in forty chance, like nobody really understands
what that means, and it's too many people that can
be included into that lumpsum, but they don't take that
extra step to kind of explain that at that level.
Speaker 1 (18:22):
So I'm sitting here the whole time, like, well, the
evidence poofs, there's no TSR, my fingerprice on is done,
my DNA's on the gun.
Speaker 2 (18:30):
But Brandon's defense was weak. His girlfriend, who was with
him at the party and could say Brandon wasn't the shooter,
wasn't called to testify even though she was his alibi,
and it's unclear why. Still Brandon was hopeful.
Speaker 1 (18:46):
There's no video evidence, like, I'm sure he's come. It's
like the evidence pools that I had nothing.
Speaker 2 (18:52):
To do with this, but stacked against police officers, key witness,
gang experts, and a climate of fear crime in Los Angeles.
Brandon was convicted of four counts of attempted murder.
Speaker 1 (19:07):
Are we playing right now? Pretty serious?
Speaker 3 (19:12):
Do you think the jury was thinking like, well, even
if he didn't do this, he's in a gang, so
he did something.
Speaker 1 (19:17):
Bad exactly, I could kill Looking at my jury that
holiday thought, I didn't see Brandon. I didn't see the
security guard, the young man who'd never had a record,
the young man who a mayor of a city was
highly of.
Speaker 2 (19:32):
Before sentencing, one of the survivors said that he knew
Brandon and he didn't think Brandon would do this. He
asked the judge to be lenient with his sentencing. A
sergeant in the LAPD's seventy seventh division, familiar with gang activity,
called Brandon a quote nice, respectable young man. Even the
mayor of Inglewood vouched for Brandon, but after three hours
(19:55):
of deliberating, the jury found him guilty and Brandan lost it.
Speaker 1 (20:04):
I kind of like blackout. I turned the chair, and
what's pussling with the sheriff department. I told him he thought,
just killed me? You know that that was my mindset
at that time. I said, you want to just go
to shoot me right now because even took it too
far now And like that was like a powerless moment
in my life.
Speaker 6 (20:24):
As to count three, a conviction of penal co Section
sixty six four.
Speaker 2 (20:28):
On April eighteenth, twenty fourteen, judge sentence Brandon to fifteen
years to life on four attempted murder convictions running concurrently.
Speaker 6 (20:38):
The minimum period of parole eligibility is fifteen years plus
twenty five years the life in accordance with penal COO
sections one.
Speaker 2 (20:45):
Two zero two two plus twenty five years to life
for gun enhancements, all made worse by the alleged gang retaliation.
As the judge read the sentence, Brendan.
Speaker 1 (20:58):
Solved fived this is to be kind of current.
Speaker 2 (21:03):
Sitting there with his hands cuffed behind his back, he
banged his head against the table and he pleaded with
the judge.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
IM sorry, but like the president, and I'm not a
bad person, but I made a stage. But I'm not
just some game begger that you try to betray me yet.
Speaker 2 (21:28):
But it didn't matter. Brandon was sentenced to forty years
to life at twenty one years old for four shots
that killed no one. After his sentencing, a column came
out in the La Times. The author was Sandy Banks.
Speaker 6 (21:49):
I'm a journalist who worked with Lost Handless Times for
more than thirty years, most of that as a columnist
covering issues that might be missed by others but that
were roiling the community.
Speaker 2 (22:03):
The column held no punches in it. Sandy called out
Brandon for throwing a tantrum at his sentencing. She called
him a two year old and wrote that the last
thing Ela needed was more hoodlums carrying guns.
Speaker 6 (22:17):
What got me there was that here was this young
man who had kind of a glowing resume except for
a couple of mishaps in his young teenage years, and
yet he was about to go to prison for forty
years for shooting into a crowd of kids, And initially
I thought that's really pretty dramatic and overkill, But then
(22:40):
I thought back to how many times people in my
community and the greater Los Angeles community felt threatened by
the young being with guns. I'm the mother of three
girls who were teenagers at that point, and I don't
have enough fingers to count the times they had encountered
(23:02):
the potential for shootings or violence. And so I just
felt like he was a representative, in my mind of
all these young men who were Willie Milly shooting to
settle their scores and don't seem concerned about, you know,
the collateral damage.
Speaker 2 (23:21):
Her column was merciless, calling him.
Speaker 6 (23:24):
A fry baby, and you know what, there's a thug
with a gun, and Brandon read it and that gainst.
Speaker 1 (23:30):
Us is actually coming disresprateful that I'm associated with it.
That's not who I am. And then that's there, like
a repeating with someone that looks like me, is that
their eggnorant, their dug, their criminals, and that hurts.
Speaker 2 (23:42):
Brandon says his entire being was reduced simply to thug.
He stewed on Sandy's article. Brandon wouldn't be eligible for
parole until twenty thirty one, but he wanted to prove
everyone wrong. He wasn't who they thought he was, and
he needed to make sure he had the best shot
he could at parole, so he continued his education and
(24:06):
personal development.
Speaker 4 (24:08):
He has done so much schooling, like probably more than
any of the other clients that I personally have worked with.
At least he's in the dogcare program, so he helps
train dogs for veterans and for people who want to
adopt these dogs.
Speaker 1 (24:21):
I took it full ownership of my life. I've been
able to not and bring to the victims attitude that
became a constant learner. That's my nuphilosophy to remain a
lifelong learner.
Speaker 2 (24:34):
Barny Flesher is striving to be the best version of
himself the whole time hoping something would break in his case. Then,
six years after being arrested, it happened. In twenty eighteen,
the prosecution's star witness recanted. In a written off of
David Lapaul Lane said that he was threatened by law
(24:57):
enforcement and the prosecution.
Speaker 4 (25:00):
He actually had some pending criminal charges at the time,
and that is leveraged to be able to negotiate a deal.
I can't pretend to imagine what it's like to be
under those circumstances, So that is what he talks about.
In the declaration.
Speaker 2 (25:17):
The Paul's Affidavid reads.
Speaker 7 (25:19):
I was threatened by the detectives investigating the case and
by the district attorney prosecuting the case that if I
did not say what they needed me to say, that
the district attorney would intervene in my own pending criminal
case and cause me to be harmed or sentenced more severely.
I am sincerely sorry that I testified falsely against mister Spencer,
(25:40):
but I was afraid of what the prosecutor would do
to me if I didn't.
Speaker 4 (25:46):
He also does describe some of the six pack identification
procedures from what he remembers and the specifics that he
has about that does raise a couple red flags.
Speaker 2 (25:57):
Here's a reading of the affidavit again.
Speaker 7 (26:00):
Detective Jones had me review at least three six packs
of photographs to try to get me to identify Brandon Spencer.
The first three six packs were of black men wearing
black shirts, except that in each six pack The photograph
of mister Spencer was at least twice the size of
the other photographs, and mister Spencer was wearing a red shirt.
(26:22):
When the detective asked me if any of the men
looked familiar, of course I pointed to the larger photograph
with the red instead of black shirt. After the detective
showed me another six pack of photographs, but this time
all the photographs were the same size, I was told
to circle an initial the photograph of mister Spencer on
the last six pack only. I don't know what the
(26:45):
detective did with the other lineups, but afterward I was
allowed to leave.
Speaker 2 (26:50):
Finally, Brandon felt like he had something, but it took
years of fighting his case on his own to make
any headway.
Speaker 4 (26:59):
He is his greatest advocate, and I don't know that
you know, had he not had that really strong advocacy
and positivity and willingness to help in his own case,
that he would have gone as far as he has
gone today and got the attention of the people that
he needs to get the attention.
Speaker 2 (27:18):
Of, like Claudia and the Innocent Center, who officially started
working on Brandon's case this year.
Speaker 4 (27:25):
He did have a recantations and so for us, you know,
you always got to look at those with some kind
of scrutiny. But it had a lot of information in
there about the six pack identification procedures, about some of
the potential coercion that took place during the identification and
investigation process, and so that kind of opened the door
(27:47):
into kind of just, okay, well, what's this case about.
Speaker 2 (27:53):
The shooting took place on USC campus, a prestigious institution, They.
Speaker 4 (27:58):
Had a reputation to uphold, and of course nobody wants
there to be just a bunch of shootings taking place.
But it certainly doesn't help that six months prior to
this Halloween night shooting, there was a prior shooting of
two USC students, Ming and Ying, who were actually shot
and killed on campus as well.
Speaker 2 (28:19):
They were killed in an apparent robbery. So the rush
to arrest and prosecute someone in this second shooting became clear.
Claudia says. Then she focused on the sentence forty years
to life for a shooting where no one died, but
the judge actually gave Brandon the lowest possible sentence he could.
(28:39):
That's because of mandatory minimums sentences that require a minimum
prison term for certain crimes, regardless of mitigating circumstances. Mandatory
minimums are just one of many policies from the tough
on crime era that still exists today. Brandon was given
the minimum for each crime years to life on four
(29:01):
attempted murder convictions running concurrently, plus twenty five years to
life for a gun enhancement.
Speaker 4 (29:10):
I think that, you know, the United States is working
the way it's intended to write, which is to create
casts of people that incarcerate people, specifically black and brown
people and other minorities. And so I'm actually sadly not
surprised that, you know, he got such a big sentence.
(29:32):
You know, a person in like a white supremacist type
of gang, you typically don't see them getting the gang
enhancement as much as your typical blood or crip gang.
Speaker 2 (29:43):
Claudia points to examples from trial where this bias was
on display, like the photo and videos the prosecution shows
the jury of Brandon flashing gang signs.
Speaker 4 (29:53):
If you grow up in a gang neighborhood, these are
the people that you're associated with, whether you know you're
put onto the game or not.
Speaker 1 (30:01):
The gang signs. I would say that I was young,
just being goofy just hanging in and those pictures that
they use. I was like fifteen sixteen.
Speaker 4 (30:10):
But nonetheless, you know, a jury doesn't necessarily know that,
you don't necessarily have a jury of your peers. So
what you're seeing is these kind of inflammatory pictures that
were allowed.
Speaker 2 (30:21):
But Claudia says there's actually a new law in California
that could be beneficial to helping Brandon specifically in these avenues.
It's called the Racial Justice Act, and.
Speaker 4 (30:32):
It's meant to target issues of the government or a prosecutor,
a judge, or a law enforcement officer, even an attorney
if they exhibit actual bias or implicit bias or any
kind of amagust towards the suspect or the defendant because
of their race, ethnicity, or origin. So this is great.
(30:54):
This is like a mode to be able to look
into gang enhancements. Are the prosecutors applying the gang enhancement
at the same rate for the same similar circumstances to
white people that they are to black or brown people.
Speaker 2 (31:11):
She also says it's being used in the over criminalization
of rap lyrics.
Speaker 4 (31:16):
Rap Lyrics are one of like the prominent issues that
are going on in California, they finally have some legal
standard to be able to attack those because we do
know that rap lyrics are an expression of art and
it does not always necessarily mean that this person did
this crime, and it is more inflammatory for people who
might not listen to rap music on a general basis
and understand that context.
Speaker 8 (31:37):
If I was tweeting those lyrics and beefing with somebody else,
the assumption might not be she's in a gang because
I'm a white woman. Yeah, and he was a black guy,
and it's like, oh, he's tweeting me. Is he's a
black kid, He's in a gang?
Speaker 4 (31:50):
Absolutely?
Speaker 7 (31:51):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (31:51):
And then same with you know, the the guns that
were on the phone. You know, I can think of
many times that I've seen guns on my friend phones.
But they are lawyers and they wear suits, and so
it's not the same.
Speaker 2 (32:04):
She also sees using the Racial Justice Act to examine
the way the prosecution used the tweets between Brandon and
Gino Hall.
Speaker 4 (32:12):
Some of the tweets we had the word gun play
in them. In twenty twelve when this case occurred, Gunplay
was actually one of the artists that were like peeking
in the hip hop kind of industry at the time too,
so that context didn't necessarily get to come out at trial,
but it's all very important information. Are there different ways
(32:32):
that these tweets can be interpreted? And if so, then
was the gang expert, you know, using some type of
racial bias to apply these to him? They also tried
to use like his tattoos. I know tattoos are coming
up in the Racial Justice Act as well, and so
that that could be an option.
Speaker 2 (32:53):
Claudia says she's excited to take on Brandon's case because
of how many potential avenues into court. There are some.
Speaker 4 (33:00):
Cases that we run into where it's like, I can
believe in this person's innocence all I want, but there's
no areas of investigation. It was literally just the testimony
of like one person. You know, that's not the case here.
There's a few different red flags and areas that we
can pursue, and that always just makes me much more excited.
Speaker 2 (33:17):
She's also going to look into more DNA testing since
science has advanced, and of course regular shoe leather investigation.
Speaker 4 (33:25):
It's my hope to track down some of the people
that were involved so we can talk to them directly.
The security guards from the USC. They were pretty significant
prosecution witnesses, and I'd love to see some of the
circumstances around what happened with the six pack identification procedures.
You know, you just want to get out there, You
(33:46):
want to talk to the people and just figure out
what happened. Really, I think that's kind of what we
all want, is we want the truth to come out.
And that's exciting for me. That's why I got into
this work for sure.
Speaker 2 (34:02):
Brandon has been in prison for over a decade for
a crime he says he didn't commit, and he continues
to work on himself. He says next he wants to
get his PhD.
Speaker 1 (34:12):
I want to do my dissertation about post traumatic growth,
like I was saying earlier, hopefully become a motivational speaker
and help young men, you know, page their mindset and
understand that that that lifestyle and that way of hating
is hating.
Speaker 2 (34:29):
And another person has also spent years reflecting on her mindset.
Sandy Banks has had time to look back on her
column about Brandon.
Speaker 6 (34:39):
And I wrote a column and when I read it
now kind of embarrasses me because it was so nature
and I realized I was biased by the fact that
I were about my girls every time they would leave
the house, you know, when they're going to a party
or a football game or whatever. And that shouldn't be what,
(35:00):
you know, steering my opinion. You know, it's tough as
a columnist because you're supposed to have an opinion, and
we try to explain why we have this opinion. But
me being worried for my girls is not a valid
reason for making Brandon the symbol of game violence in
(35:20):
the city.
Speaker 2 (35:22):
In twenty twenty, I released an episode about Brandon on
my podcast Unjustin Unsolved. A listener sent it to Sandy
after reading her article. Sandy saw the name Brandon Spencer
and listened.
Speaker 6 (35:35):
I got to see him and hear him, and it
was a very different experience than you know, watching the
scene in the courtroom unfold where he's screaming and carrying on.
It was a young man who was kind of perplexed
himself about how he got there and who proclaimed his
innocence still and you know, and had things to back
(35:58):
him up.
Speaker 2 (35:58):
So Sandy started taking of her own experiences as a
black woman, and I will tell.
Speaker 6 (36:03):
You I live in the San Fernando Valley, which is,
you know, had reputationally very white. There have been times
that I have been considered suspicious. I can remember walking
home from the Whole Foods with Whole Foods bags, but
I had a hoodie on and my hair wasn't combed,
and I was you know, you know, and there was
a guy following me in the car, and I realized,
(36:26):
you know, I'm going to be on the next door
feed next time about the suspicious black lady who might
be homeless because she's walking around with shopping beds, you know,
and that would not happen to a white neighbor.
Speaker 1 (36:38):
So yeah, I'm aware of.
Speaker 6 (36:40):
That, and that's kind of you know, I should I
should have thought of that, even when I was castigating him.
Speaker 2 (36:48):
Sandy and Brandon connected after she listened to my episode.
Speaker 1 (36:52):
Well, she finally got to hear me and talk to me.
You know, I kind of emotional. I've got it cures
when I spoke to her that you know, how she
supports me, and she apologized to and that that really
was motivation.
Speaker 6 (37:06):
I think we need to be we need to be
able to step back, to plunge deeper into the backgrounds
of the people that are you know, quote unquote doing
the shooting, because that's what's going to give us the
answer on how we be a less violent society. Talk
into them, listening to them, having programs in prisons to
(37:27):
help them see the light.
Speaker 5 (37:29):
You know.
Speaker 2 (37:30):
Sandy also spoke to Brandon's parents for context for her
most recent column about Brandon, titled I once applauded a
forty year sentence for a shooter, not now.
Speaker 6 (37:40):
His parents are good people. They did the best they
can in our heartbreak into and are still working every
day to free their son. What he did, if he's guilty,
was certainly wrong, but his forty years in prison and
appropriate sentence for that when you have you know, child
(38:01):
molesters and you know other kind of guys getting out
after you know, five or six years, and I think
we need to kind of embrace the notion that these
are young people growing up in difficult times, and aren't
there ways that we can help and support them instead
of just you know, castigate them when they do wrong.
Speaker 2 (38:23):
And that's exactly what Brandon wants to do.
Speaker 1 (38:26):
Now. I want to hope other young men not get
involved or caught up with that, or don't even be
associated with that, because me being knowing these people got
me my license and I just want to go home
and live my life. I'm an asset to earn society
amount of liability. You know, one time I was suicidal.
I rather had to get than where I am today,
(38:48):
you know, and to see who I become now and
is very inspiring, and I believe it's it's motivational for
some other people that we all say struggles in our lives,
but we're not designed by those only insistence. It's about
pushing forward, you know, looking at me out and rowloaded
by as system that everyone in the America, in the
world knows that is designed first someone that looks like
(39:08):
need to fail that. But all the odds right now
are backed against. This is the modern daily versus the lions.
I'm going against USC this is a billion dollar dollars.
I'm going against false this police department, and you know,
harnessing that and embracing struggle, and you know, don't don't
want over yourself paid, you know, I just I just
(39:29):
want my justice. I want to get free, and I
hope that we're able to speak on the facts and
I'm able to be commerrating one day and receive the
justice I deserve.
Speaker 2 (39:49):
Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction with Maggie Freeling.
Please support your local innocence organizations and go to the
links on our website to see how you can help Brandon.
This episode was written by me Maggie Freeling, with story
editing and sound design by senior producer Rebecca Ibarra. Our
producer is Kathleen Fink. Our mixer is Josh Allen, with
research by Alison Levy. An additional production help by Jeff Cleiburn.
(40:13):
Executive producers are Jason Flam, Jeff Kempler, and Kevin Wordis.
The music is by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph.
Make sure to follow us on all social media platforms
at Lava for Good and at Wrongful Conviction. You can
also follow me on all platforms at Maggie Freeling. Wrongful
Conviction with Maggie Freeling is a production of Lava for
(40:33):
Good Podcasts in association with Signal Company Number One. We
have worked hard to ensure that all facts reported in
this show are accurate. The views and opinions expressed by
the individuals featured in this show are their own and
do not necessarily reflect those of lava for good
Hosts And Creators
Lauren Bright Pacheco
Maggie Freleng
Jason Flom
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