Jamal Trulove, a former prisoner wrongfully convicted while Vice President Kamala Harris served as a prosecutor in San Francisco, has publicly criticized Harris for her handling of his case and her broader approach to law enforcement.
Trulove was sentenced to 50 years for a crime he did not commit, largely due to fabricated evidence and police misconduct.
After serving time, he was exonerated in 2014 and awarded a $13.1 million settlement, yet he feels that Harris exploited his plight for her political gain, as she continued to advocate a tough-on-crime stance during her rise to higher office.
Jamal Trulove on Kamala Harris laughing at him when he was wrongfully convicted and sentenced to 50 years in prison for murder.
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He recounted a moment where Harris laughed during his prosecution, which he found deeply painful.
Trulove expressed ongoing trauma from his incarceration and indicated he would support former President Donald Trump in the upcoming election.
“We locked eyes this one time, and she laughed,” Trulove said. “She literally just, like, kind of busted out laughing. Almost as if she was pointing like, ‘ha-ha’, she didn’t point, but that’s how it felt.”
“If you’re wondering if I’ll be voting for Kamala ‘Laugh-and-Lie’ Harris, [expletive] no.”
“There’s nothing I could do to make up for that time I missed,” he wrote. “No amount of money could ever reverse the time I missed with my kids and the affect that it’s had on [their] up bringing and our relationship.” He briefly pursued careers in acting and hip-hop while suing the state of California over his wrongful conviction. A settlement of $13.1 million was reached in exchange for prosecutors dropping the chance to try him a third time.
“People in the projects knew who she was because she was a black district attorney and we thought we had a black district attorney in office that was from Oakland,” he said. “We would think that she would be a little more favorable to us.”
Critics, including law professor Lara Bazelon, have highlighted Harris’s record as problematic, arguing that she defended wrongful convictions resulting from misconduct.
“Most troubling, Ms. Harris fought tooth and nail to uphold wrongful convictions that had been secured through official misconduct that included evidence tampering, false testimony and the suppression of crucial information by prosecutors,” Bazelon wrote.
Harris has since sought to reframe her image as a progressive advocate for criminal justice reform, a pivot from her previous stances as a district attorney.
