Oakland man is declared innocent after serving 7 years

An Oakland man who spent seven years in prison for a double murder in 2010 has been declared factually innocent by a judge and can seek compensation from the state.

An Alameda County jury convicted Deshawn Reed, now 34, of the gang shootings of Victor Johns and John Jones in a West Oakland neighborhood in March 2010. A second jury found that he had been the gunman, and he was sentenced to life in prison without parole.

Reed had been arrested after the shootings and identified by two witnesses, one of them a police officer, as the man who was picked up by a nearby car and driven from the scene. He denied being there, and the prosecution’s case against him has since unraveled.

A state appeals court in San Francisco overturned Reed’s convictions in January 2017 and said jurors should have heard evidence pointing to another man, Al Collins, who is now dead, as the shooter.

Collins’ palm print was found in the getaway

car, and a police officer saw him nearby shortly after the shootings, said the First District Court of Appeal. The court said most witnesses’ descriptions of the gunman’s facial appearance and clothing resembled Collins, not Reed.

Collins also had a potential motive, the court said, as one of the victims had shot one of Collins’ friends. Reed, who suffered from mental disabilities, had no record of violence, and prosecutors did not assert that he had a motive.

The court also said Reed’s lawyer had failed to call witnesses whose description of the passenger resembled Collins or to obtain other evidence that might have incriminated Collins and cleared Reed.

Reed was released from prison in May 2017 after the Alameda County district attorney decided not to retry him. The driver of the getaway car, Jason Watts, was convicted of murder in a separate trial and sentenced to life without parole.

Reed’s appellate lawyer then sought a finding of innocence, saying Reed had no connection to gangs and had been described by a police officer who had known him for more than a decade as someone who was not violent. On Monday, Superior Court Judge Morris Jacobson said the evidence showed Reed to be “factually innocent.”

The finding makes Reed eligible for state compensation of $140 for every day he spent in prison, or about $350,000, said the attorney, Ronald Kaye. He said Reed now lives with family members in Oakland and “hopes to be able to work and enjoy life again.”

“The injustice that Mr. Reed suffered is difficult to comprehend,” Kaye said.