Jarmon Sanford, sent to prison in 2008 on a life sentence for attempted murder in a Pasadena gang shooting, awoke early Friday for the last time as inmate No. G33929 at the California Institution for Men in Chino.
By noon, Sanford was eating pancakes at a Rancho Cucamonga cafe with his wife and baby daughter, a free man after an Orange County attorney won his release following nearly 18 years of incarceration because of a flaw in the prosecution.
“I feel blessed, it’s a blessing,” said Sanford, 36. “I kept my faith in the Lord, that one day I was going to get out, that one day God was going to open the door.”
Sanford represents the latest victory for Laguna Beach attorney Annee Della Donna and Innocence OC, a project she founded with the UC Irvine School of Law to review wrongful convictions.
“I’ve been denied so many times, with lawyers promising so many times and it not coming through. Hope was not there,” Sanford said in an interview with the Southern California News Group. “But Annee fought for it. She didn’t ask for money like everybody else.”
Sanford said his family paid $26,000 to Los Angeles attorney Aaron Spolin, who is charged by the state Bar of California with multiple counts of taking cases under a new resentencing law that he knew were not eligible.
“He didn’t do anything (for us),” he said.
Road to freedom
Sanford’s road to release began in the prison law library, where he found the 2019 state Supreme Court ruling in People v. Canizales, which tightened the “kill zone” theory used in his case and others. Before the ruling, suspected shooters could be charged with attempted murder for everyone in the immediate area of the attack without the need to prove intent. Consequently, a standard shooting would be elevated to a crime that carries a life sentence.
The Canizales ruling, however, said that prosecutors must show the shooter intended to murder one specific person in the kill zone and was willing to kill all the others in the zone to accomplish that goal — a higher legal bar because it requires intent.
Sanford was convicted of shooting a semiautomatic gun from a passing car at two rival gang members standing outside a Pasadena apartment complex in December 2006. One of the men, Trevell Thompson, was hit in the leg. Sanford was convicted of two counts of attempted murder and sentenced to 89 years to life.
‘Kill zone’ theory
In the prison library, Sanford read every case he could find on the “kill zone” theory and the Canizales ruling, talking to his cellmate about what he had found. His cellmate said it sounded like the case of Juan Rayford and Dupree Glass, two men convicted of attempted murder and sentenced to 11 life terms each for a shooting in Lancaster.
Della Donna won the release of Rayford and Glass — as well as a court declaration that they were actually innocent — by applying the Canizales ruling and arguing the theory was misused and overbroad.
Sanford’s family reached out to Glass, who referred them to Della Donna.
“She told us what to do, to send over our files and our transcripts,” Sanford said. “She did what no other lawyer would do. Ms. Della Donna fought the case until I got out.”
In his case, Della Donna persuaded Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge William C. Ryan to overturn one of the two counts of attempted murder. Ryan ruled there may have been a “conscious disregard” for the victim’s safety, but there was no required intent to kill him.
In a separate resentencing hearing in late November, Judge Michael D. Carter ruled that Sanford should be released with time served for the remaining count of attempted murder.
Greeted by family
And at midmorning Friday, Sanford was dropped off by a prison van at a Montclair bus depot, where his family was waiting.
“For nearly 20 years, Jarmon Sanford bore the weight of a system’s failure. Sentenced to life as a teenager under the now-overturned ‘kill zone’ law, he has finally been given his life back,” Della Donna said.
“Jarmon’s release is not just a testament to his personal resilience but a sobering reminder of the countless others who remain wrongfully incarcerated,” she said. “His story demands that we continue to review and challenge cases rooted in flawed legal theories.”
An emerging specialist in attacking the “kill zone” theory, Della Donna said there are more people sitting in prison for life, convicted under the debunked legal argument. And she wants to make their cases heard.
Sanford agreed.
“So many people have the same situation, but they don’t have the help I had,” he said.
Sanford’s immediate plans are to be with his wife, Dejuanet, and their baby, Jaia, and to get a job and find a way to help troubled youths, “young dudes that grew up with not so many opportunities.”
Incarcerated since age 19, Sanford said he grew up in prison. The first 10 years were bleak but the last nine were a period of self-discovery. He joined self-improvement groups, such as Alcoholics Anonymous, which taught him addictions come in many forms. Such as the constant feeling of having to prove himself, having low esteem and other traits that caused him to hang with the wrong crowd. He also strengthened his religious convictions.
He said the difficult part of being free was leaving behind a friend who also was convicted on the “kill zone” theory.
“I’m going to do everything I can to help my friend,” Sanford said. “He didn’t get a fair shake.”