By Robert J. Hansen | OBSERVER Staff Writer

Franki Jones was a frightened, pregnant 17-year-old in 2009 when her testimony sent Doshmen Johnson to prison for life.

Jones was the lone eyewitness against Johnson, also 17 at the time, in a case in which he was convicted for the murder of Perry Steele. Wracked for years with guilt, she says she was manipulated by the police and her mother into giving false testimony.

“They told me that the weight was all on my shoulders because nobody else was there,” she says.

She’s now determined to share “her truth.” Johnson’s attorney says it has come to light that Jones was coerced into identifying Johnson under distress, influenced by external pressures rather than her recollection of events. Moreover, new evidence suggests Johnson could not have been at the crime scene at the time of the incident.

Jones told The OBSERVER in an exclusive interview that a Sacramento Police Department detective, using Jones’ mother, coerced her to identify Johnson.

In 2009, Johnson’s court-appointed attorney cross-examined Jones, pointing out that she had worked as a prostitute for a gang that was a rival of Johnson’s gang. She made several inconsistent statements and could not identify Johnson in a photographic lineup of potential suspects, said his current attorney, George Jones.

Franki Jones has a strong desire to right the wrongs in her involvement in taking Doshmen’s freedom. She lives with grief to this day.

“I wasn’t supposed to be a part of this story,” she says.

‘They Just Ended Up Crucifying Me’

In 2008, at age 16, Franki became pregnant, faced abuse at home and ran away. She ended up living with and sleeping on the sofa of the victim, Perry Steele, for whom Franki briefly worked as a prostitute.

“I wasn’t really into it [prostitution] at all, I was just scared and didn’t have a home to go to,” she says.

Franki was in the back seat of the vehicle Steele was in at the time of the shooting. She remembers hearing someone solicit them for cannabis, then shooting Steele, but maintains she never saw the perpetrator. Her mother, motivated by a $900 enticement from the police, encouraged her to say she saw someone. The police further manipulated the situation, signaling Franki to identify Johnson by pointing a pen at him in pictures of a suspect lineup.

George Jones calls such devaluation of a person’s life “a tragic injustice” and says the situation highlights corruption in policing.

In 2017, Franki Jones recanted at an evidentiary hearing. The experience was far from what she expected.

“I took the stand and they just ended up crucifying me,” she says.

Other facts, such as cell phone records, provide evidence that Johnson was in the Meadowview area when the incident occurred in North Sacramento on Del Paso Boulevard, about 30 minutes away. Cell phone records weren’t presented at the 2009 trial, George Jones says.

Johnson’s wrongful conviction case is George Jones’ third such in his 15-year career. He says he took the case out of frustration over Johnson’s poor representation by his previous attorneys.

“His appeal and his habeas was well below standard,” Jones says. “The cell phone records are persuasive evidence of Johnson’s innocence because the records put the phone too far away from the crime site for its holder to be the perpetrator and [they] establish that Johnson had the phone on the night in question.”

On April 14, 2008, at approximately 1 a.m, Steele, accompanied by another man and Franki Jones, was driving to a liquor store on Del Paso Boulevard when he was shot and killed, according to court records.

Cell phone records put Johnson near Meadowview Road and 24th Street at 1:01 a.m., not far from the Sam and Bonnie Pannel Community Center, which is where the phone pinged next at 1:13 a.m. That location is more than 10 miles south of the crime scene at the next ping. At 1:17 a.m., it pinged even farther south of the crime scene.

Johnson could not have traveled 21 miles in a 12-minute interval to get to and from the scene of the murder, Jones argues.

“Even if the murder happened earlier than it likely did, doubling back in the four-minute interval is even less plausible,” the attorney says.

Jones adds that if defense counsel had introduced the records, the state would not be able to explain why Johnson would have given his phone to someone else and why that person repeatedly would have called, and received calls from, Johnson’s brother – a member of a rival gang to Johnson’s – his sister, another friend, and two girlfriends on the night of the murder.

“His lawyer at the time failed him,” Jones says. 

Errors by ineffective court-appointed counsel led to Johnson’s conviction for a shooting he did not commit, his attorney maintains. After his appeal, Johnson unsuccessfully sought state habeas relief, claiming his trial counsel was ineffective.

“The California Supreme Court’s rationale is unreasonable,” Jones says. “The state court’s decision is wrong and unreasonable. There is no longer anything linking Doshmen to this crime; in reality, there never was. The cell phone records would have made a difference given the paucity of the state’s evidence, which only linked Johnson to the crime through a single, uncredible eyewitness testimony.

“It is unjust that the same evidence that our system used to take a 17-year-old boy’s life away is not enough to give it back to him.”

Support Builds; Johnson Waits, Wonders

Johnson’s only chance at freedom is if the district attorney reevaluates his case. The office is in receipt of the information and letters of support, and says it is reviewing them.

Several community organizations have written letters of support to Sacramento County District Attorney Thien Ho requesting that he reexamine Johnson’s case. Among them are the Black American Political Association of California, the California Black Chamber of Commerce and the Roberts Family Development Center.

Doshmen Johnson’s case is not just a matter of an individual’s freedom, wrote Jay King, Black Chamber president and CEO, but a litmus test for our justice system’s commitment to truth and fairness. As a young African American, he says, Johnson’s plight also echoes the broader societal issues of systemic bias and the urgent need for reform in our judicial processes.

“This case presents an opportunity for a profound reassessment, not only of the conviction in question but of our values as a society committed to justice,” King wrote the DA. “I implore you to consider the new evidence and the inconsistencies in the original trial. A reconsideration of this case could restore a young man’s life and, equally importantly, reinforce public trust in our legal system.”

Rory Kaufman, regional vice president for the Black American Political Association of California, wrote to Ho that Johnson’s civil rights were violated and that the inability of Franki Jones, the lone eyewitness, to identify him in a lineup precludes a finding beyond a reasonable doubt, the standard required to convict.

“I hope and pray that the courts examine this evidence and information and set this man free,” Kaufman wrote. “We anticipate that the District Attorney’s office will take these issues seriously, and the process will begin to demonstrate innocence.”

Derrell Roberts, CEO of the Roberts Family Development Center, argues that Johnson should be released for time served with an apology and compensation from the court system, while also asking that the cellphone evidence be investigated.

These organizations, as well as the family of the victim, Perry Steele, believe Johnson is innocent.

Meanwhile Johnson, now 33, continues to languish in prison, where he has spent his entire adult life, absent as nieces, nephews and a daughter grow up, and missing holidays, birthdays and funerals of loved ones. All for a crime he maintains he didn’t commit.

“My entire adult life was taken just to satisfy the police’s agenda of getting another Black kid off the streets,” he says in an exclusive phone interview.

“I don’t understand why the evidence that took my life away is not enough to get it back.”

Editors Note: First of a series