Black actor wrongly convicted for murder under then-San Francisco DA Kamala Harris endorses Trump

Jamal Trulove, a film director and actor who was wrongly convicted while Kamala Harris was San Francisco district attorney, is endorsing former President Donald Trump after supporting the Biden-Harris ticket in 2020.

After spending nearly seven years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit, rapper and actor Trulove endorsed President Joe Biden and Harris in the 2020 presidential election. He made the decision just after he started telling his story about his wrongful conviction under the vice presidential candidate’s watch. However, this year, he is supporting Trump, stating that he never liked either Biden or Harris.

“In 2008, I was framed for murder and wrongfully convicted by the office of Kamala Harris, sentenced 50 [years] to life in prison,” Trulove said in a YouTube video late last month where he explained his story.

Harris laughed

Based on one witness’s account, Trulove was convicted in 2010 of first-degree murder with a firearm after being arrested in October 2008 for an October 2007 killing, according to The National Registry of Exonerations. He was also found guilty of being a felon in possession of a firearm because he had previously been convicted of receiving stolen property.

Trulove said that Harris “was in the courtroom” when he was convicted and sentenced, and she smiled and laughed at his sentencing. The San Francisco Record reported that Truvloe recalled "When they came with the verdict guilty … I turned around, and I looked, and I saw Kamala Harris,” said Trulove. “We locked eyes this one time, and she laughed.”

Harris was the San Francisco district attorney from 2004 to 2011.

Trulove appealed the decision and, after California's First District Court of Appeal initially reduced his conviction from first-degree murder to second-degree, he received a rehearing. The appeals court agreed with Trulove’s legal counsel that Assistant District Attorney Linda Allen, who prosecuted Trulove’s case under Harris, had committed misconduct by arguing that the witness was fearful for her life after receiving threats. The court said that Allen “did not present a scintilla of evidence” that the witness had been threatened.

When the evidence was reexamined by Trulove’s defense experts and the case was retried in 2015, he was acquitted.

Attorney misconduct under Harris' supervision

“She was the head of it, she overseen it. She had to, it was a murder case, right?” Trulove said. “And at the end of my paperwork, it’s a stamp and seal, ‘Office of Kamala Harris.’”

When Harris ran for president in the 2020 Democratic primary race, Trulove said that “a lot of people wanted to help me tell my story, especially in Hollywood.” He was talking with studios and had production contracts. “The pressure was on her, and she ended up dropping out of the race,” Trulove said.

Trulove then decided to support Biden and Harris in that election. “I never liked Joe Biden, because of the ‘94 Crime Bill that got all of us locked up,” he said. “And obviously, I don’t like Kamala Harris. She locked up more black people than any DA in San Francisco history.”

Harris's "leadership" cost San Francisco $13.1 million

In January 2016, Trulove filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the city and county of San Francisco over the misconduct of Harris's office. In April 2018, a jury awarded Trulove $10 million. An appeal of the jury verdict was dropped in March 2019 after attorneys for both sides agreed to settle for $13.1 million.

“And if you’re wondering if I’m going to be voting for Kamala Laugh-a-Lot Harris, f*** no,” Trulove said. “I’m going with Donald Trump. Where’s my red hat at?” he later added.

Trulove ended the video saying, “I know this isn’t a popular opinion, and I’m going to get a lot of backlash, but at the end of the day it’s my story and I want to tell it.”

"When Trump was in office, sh-t was cool," Trulove said in a video he shared Thursday on Instagram. "Groceries was low, right? And we wasn't at no wars, you know? We wasn't giving billions and billions of dollars to other country. Sh-t seemed to be cool. That's how we felt. And as soon as Biden got into office, we didn't feel that way no more.

Traumatized by this woman

"But every time I see Kamala, and I want people to understand this, I am literally traumatized by this woman. I'm literally traumatized by this woman," he continued. "So, do I want to see her for the next four, potentially eight years, potentially 12 years because she's been in office for four already? F-ck no. So, it forced me to really think about things from the other side, and as I started diving deeper, I started understanding the conservative ways.

"So if you ask me right here, you know, who I voting for, Kamala Harris or Donald Trump? I'll vote for Donald Trump," Trulove added.

Trulove didn’t respond to interview requests on Thursday. Harris's campaign didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

During her first year as DA, Harris didn’t seek the death penalty for a gang member who killed a police officer. Both police and fellow Democrats came out against her decision, including then-former California Gov. Jerry Brown and Sen. Dianne Feinstein. Senator Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., asked the U.S. Department of Justice to prosecute the case and the state attorney general threatened to take it over.

Harris defends death penalty after campaigning against it

Despite campaigning on the theme that the death penalty disproportionately affected people of color, when Harris was California attorney general, she appealed a judge’s ruling that said the death penalty was unconstitutional. Amid the 2020 presidential cycle, Harris took on more soft-on-crime policy positions.

Following the death of George Floyd, Harris encouraged support on social media for the Minnesota Freedom Fund in June 2020 amid the Black Lives Matter riots. The fund gave hundreds of thousands of dollars to free a twice-convicted rapist and a woman charged with stabbing her friend to death. Of the more than $41 million raised by the fund, only a fraction of it was used to free rioters.

Harris also called for ending the cash bail system during her 2020 presidential campaign.