At about 2 a.m. Saturday morning, October 23, 2010, outside the residence of Brandon Savage (street name “Ghostface”) at 1843 North Harvard Avenue in Tulsa, Oklahoma, two people were shot. One was Carlameisha Jefferson (street name “24”), and she was treated in the emergency room and survived her wounds. The other was Dominique Jasper (street name “D-Loc”), who was also treated in the emergency room and who died from complications resulting from his gunshot wounds on November 15, 2010
On February 15, 2013, Channen Smith (street name “Cross”) was found guilty of the shootings – of murder in the first degree, shooting with intent to kill, possession of a firearm after former conviction of a felony, and discharging a weapon into a dwelling or public place. He was sentenced to life on the first count, 20 more years (consecutive to the life sentence) on the second count, and 10 years each on the third and fourth counts, both concurrent with the second count’s sentence.
After several appeals have been denied, Channen Smith remains in prison.
The First Official Version – police reports from first officers on the scene:
The witness, Brandon Savage, and the two victims told similar stories to investigating officers at the crime scene and in the emergency room: Brandon Savage, Carlameisha Jefferson and Dominique Jasper were on the front porch of Savage’s house when a dark SUV drove up and parked across the street. A black man, about 6’3,” wearing a black hoodie and black trousers, got out of the SUV and crossed the street toward them.
In Brandon Savage’s first account, the black man said, “Can I ask y’all a question?” then pulled a “chrome plated semi-automatic pistol” and began firing as Savage took cover behind a car parked in his driveway.
After firing ceased, the shooter ran back to the SUV, got in, and it sped off. Savage saw that Dominique Jasper was on the ground by the street and Carlameisha Jefferson, who had been trying to re-enter the house, had also been shot. Jasper and Jefferson were taken by EMTs to the emergency room at St. John’s hospital.
There, they were questioned by Tulsa Detective Sergeant L.J. Bayles, Jr. Carlameisha Jefferson “advised that she did not see the shooter.” Bayles’ report continues, “I then went and spoke to the victim [Dominique] Jasper. I asked him who shot him and he advised that he did not know. . . . Mr. Jasper kept going to sleep and no further interview could be conducted.”
Interviewing Brandon Savage at the crime scene, Tulsa Officer Vernon McNeal reported, “Savage stated he had never seen the suspect before.” That, according to his later testimony, is what he told everyone else in the house to say: shooter unknown.
Carlameisha Jefferson told Sgt. Bayles something else during his hospital interview of her: “I inquired about the shooting the previous night [meaning 10/21]. Ms. Jefferson told me that someone she knew had been involved in an altercation the previous night but she was not sure who was involved.”
The Previous Night (10/21/2010)
Carlameisha Jefferson’s Version:
She wasn’t exactly being forthcoming. In her testimony at Channen Smith’s trial, years later, she said that she, Dominique Jasper, and Brandon Savage had driven to the Comanche Park Apartments the night of October 21st because “There’s a lady named Eisha that stayed out there also, and her children were my God kids, and Brandon [Savage] was wanting to go out there to get Eisha’s number. They kind of liked each other, if you want to call it.”
In her account at trial, after they arrived at the Comanche Apartments, she got out of the car to fetch Eisha for Brandon. Returning to the car, she encountered Freddie Smith and “like five of his homeboys,” who started cussing her. (She identified Freddie Smith as “Channen’s cousin,” a relationship denied on the stand by Channen’s stepfather. The State never made the slightest effort to substantiate it, though frequently reiterating the claim of kinship during the trial.) Brandon Savage got out of the car to intercede and a fight began between the homeboys and Jefferson and Savage. Jefferson made no mention of Dominique Jasper’s involvement. She and Brandon jumped back in their car after Freddie Smith fired a pistol into the air, and the three returned to the Harvard house.
Early the next morning, Carlameisha Jefferson drove the same car back to the Comanche “to see if everyone was all right out there.” She was stopped by the police, originally for a vehicle safety issue, and detained on an outstanding warrant. When police searched the car, “they ended up finding a firearm.” (She later stated on cross-examination at trial, “I didn’t even know the gun was in the car.”) The morning of 10/23, she bonded out and returned to Brandon Savage’s house.
Asked in cross-examination at trial, “Did you see Channen Smith at Comanche Park at all?” Jefferson replied, “Not that night, no.”
Brandon Savage’s Version:
Brandon Savage’s account of the same events differs substantially from Carlameisha Jefferson’s. In his version, his motive for the visit was not romantic but commercial: “I went to go meet with a female to give her – – to talk with her about a business proposition. . . . I was going to talk to her about selling drugs for me.” As for Jefferson, “She was going to meet with one of her exes.”
The three – Savage, Jefferson and Jasper – pulled up in the Comanche parking lot next to an SUV (no further description requested or suggested) and offered to sell the guys in it some good weed. The two groups exchanged insults on the subject of weed, then Savage, Jefferson and Jasper “went in the house,” staying in it “about ten minutes.”
(“The house” refers to the apartment of Jefferson’s ex.)
When they came back out, the four men from the SUV were standing in the shadows.
Challenging words led to all seven going into the parking lot and fighting. Jefferson jumped into their car, “a guy came out with a gun. . . . He pointed the gun into the ground and let off one shot.” Carlameisha Jefferson attempted to run down the shooter with their car but missed him. Brandon Savage and Dominique Jasper jumped in, and they drove back to Savage’s Harvard house.
After some talk about the fight, Jefferson took off in the car. The gun in the car when she was arrested belonged to Savage, and he implied that she must have taken it with her from his house, since he had not taken it to Comanche Park earlier.
Accounts of fights by participants can be expected to differ substantially from one another. A significant similarity between Jefferson’s and Savage’s version of this fight is that neither makes any mention of Dominque Jasper’s involvement in it. The many differences between their accounts do not inspire a great deal of confidence in their reliability. Nevertheless, the State’s case against Channen Smith was very largely dependent on the testimony of three people: Carlameisha Jefferson, Brandon Savage, and Phyllis Jasper, the late Dominique Jasper’s mother. More on her testimony later.
Carlameisha Jefferson’s trial account of the 10/23 shooting:
The evening of October 23, Savage, Jasper and Jefferson purchased a couple of jugs and sat around playing a drinking game until they went out on the porch to cool off, accompanied by Savage’s sister, Eisha (Carlameisha Jefferson’s current lover) and Savage’s fiancee, Lovely Harris. Jefferson went back in the house. After a while she “heard Channen’s voice and thought I was tripping.” (She did not explain, nor was she asked, why hearing Channen’s voice had this effect on her.)
When she went back outside, Channen Smith was talking about Savage, Jefferson and Jasper coming the previous night to the Comanche “to start stuff with his cousin.” Savage and Jasper replied that it was the other gang’s members who started the trouble. Asked specifically if the car they’d been driving the previous night was in the driveway this night, Jefferson said, “No, sir . . . I think from me getting it wrecked, that they were trying to get it fixed so it wasn’t at the house.”
Then Channen Smith began calling Jefferson a snitch, they traded insults, and she went back in the house. Savage and Jasper came in and persuaded her to to come back out because Channen Smith wanted to apologize and set things straight. But when she reluctantly went back outside, Smith began cursing her again. She turned to go back inside, whereupon Smith shot her three times.
Jefferson repeatedly denied that she had spoken to Officer Gossett or Detective Boyles that night in the emergency room.
Jefferson, to boil it down, testified that four people were outside when Channen Smith arrived at the Harvard house. She re-joined them when she heard and recognized Smith’s voice. There was an argument over the previous night’s scuffle at the Comanche Park apartments, another argument over Jefferson’s snitch-hood. There was no car in the driveway.
Brandon Savage’s trial account of the shooting:
After the drinking game ended on the night of October 23, Brandon Savage and Dominique Jasper (only) went outside because Jasper had telephoned Channen Smith and Smith had arrived at the Harvard house.
Smith introduced himself to Savage (“I’m Cross”), he and Jasper hugged, and Smith or Jasper said, “This is my day one,” indicating the other and meaning, Savage explained, “somebody that you been knowing for many years . . . . since birth, you been good friends.”
Then Carlameisha Jefferson came outside, she and Smith argued about his accusation that she was a snitch. She said, according to Savage, “The reason that you’re mad at me is not because I’m an informant but because I took a female from you and I gave her back. I didn’t have sex with her and I gave her back to you.”
Smith, who up until then “hadn’t been argumentative, confrontational, or anything like that,” began calling Jefferson a bitch, “my bitch, as a matter of fact,” and Jefferson went back in the house. Savage went in and persuaded her to come back out and “squash” the dispute with Smith.
When she came back out, Smith resumed his verbal abuse of her. Disgusted, she turned to go back in the house, whereupon Smith pulled a “chrome-plated or nickel-plated 9 millimeter semi-automatic” and fired about nine shots at the house and four or five at Jasper, who was running away. Savage had thrown his fiancé Lovely Harris (who mysteriously appeared at this point in Savage’s account) down behind the car and taken cover there himself, watching the shooting through the car’s front windows.
His pistol emptied, Smith ran to the SUV, jumped in, and it took off. Savage carried Lovely Harris into the house. He told the others in the house that the shooter was an unknown person. He talked to Jasper’s mother later the next morning, either on the phone or at the hospital, and identified Smith as the shooter to her, but also told her, “Don’t say anything to the police.”
Brendan Savage had been placed in the same holding cell as Channen Smith before he was to testify, despite the Rule of Sequestration having been invoked before the trial began. (That Rule forbids discussion of testimony by persons in the courtroom “with any person who may be a witness in the case.”) After viewing State’s Exhibit 83, a videotape of Savage leaving the holding cell in which he had been placed with Smith, Judge Glassco was initially puzzled:
Court:
I don’t know what I saw [after viewing the tape]. What did I see?
Mr. Davis:
Judge, briefly, you saw Mr. Channen Smith come out of cell 339 and was escorted across the screen to get dressed for trial on Monday, and then about two minutes later you saw Mr. Savage come out of the same cell, and he was actually getting escorted out to talk to his attorney, Mr. M.J. Denman. On the second part that we saw, you saw Mr. Savage come back into the cell. They were escorting him to cell 339 again. And the deputies chose not to put him in that cell and brought him down to a different cell, a different holding area.
Court:
And what is that going to do for the jury?
Mr. Davis:
It corroborates Mr. Savage’s statements of being in the same holding area with Mr. Smith, and the statements that Mr. Smith said to Mr. Savage that day.
Court:
Well, it doesn’t corroborate the statements. It just corroborates that they were in the same cell.
Mr. Davis:
Exactly, Judge. Nevertheless, “the statements that Mr. Smith said to Mr. Savage that day” were allowed into testimony. The State’s characterization of this violation as “a mistake” went unchallenged.
Q
[Mr. Davis] Were you all supposed to be in the same holding cell?
A
[Savage] No, sir.
Q
And that’s because you’re testifying against him; is that right?
A
Yes, sir.
Q
So you all were put in the same holding cell by mistake?
A
Yes, sir.
Savage was then allowed to offer the following account of his interaction with Smith in the holding cell:
Q
When you went in and saw him, how did you react?
A
It was fine. I mean it’s nothing personal between either one of us.
Q
Okay. You say, “it’s nothing personal.” What does that mean?
A
The violence that took place, it was based off principle. It wasn’t based off the individual. The violence that could have occurred would have been based off principle, not according to the individual. It would be something that they had done. It wasn’t anything personal. When I went into the holding cell, we gave each other a hug. We sat down and we talked. . . .
Q
I want you to tell the jury about that conversation.
A
Um – – Mr. Dresback: Judge, I’d like to renew my objection that I made earlier. The Court: Objection overruled.
A
We had talked about the case. He was, like – – he said, ‘Bro, I want to know what you gonna do.’ And so I said, ‘Man – – ‘ he said – – I said, ‘I talked with some of the guys,’ and I said, ‘ I’m not – – I’m not going to testify against you. I’m going to get up there and I’m going to give a different type of statement.’ And so he was, like, ‘All right.’ He said, ‘All you got to say is this.’ So I’m, like, ‘All right. I know.’ He had been talking about getting his life right with God. I been talking about getting my life right with God. We were talking about that. It came time for us to leave. I said, ‘Man, you know they probably not going to put us back together again,’ and so that was it. We gave each other another hug, he left and I left . . . .
Q
What did you talk about in regard to the shooting at your house?
A
I told him, I said, ‘Man, look,’ I said, ‘I know it was nothing personal.’
I said, ‘You wasn’t shooting at me.’ I said, ‘You were shooting at them.’
Q
What did he say?
A
He was, like, ‘Yeah, man.’ He said, ‘You know when we out there under Satan’s influence, we don’t think a lot of times.’ And I said, ‘Yeah, man, you right.’ And that was it.
This testimony, including what could be taken as a veiled confession by Smith, was left unchallenged in the jury’s minds. Smith’s attorney failed entirely to challenge the highly unlikely hug-fest and dialog Savage put forth. With the equally hearsay testimony of Phyllis Jasper, this “confession” probably constituted the most effectively damning “evidence” in the case against Channen Smith.
Phyllis Jasper’s Trial Testimony:
Phyllis Jasper testified that Brandon Savage had phoned her at 2:30 on the morning of the shooting to tell her that her son had been shot. She got to the hospital within an hour, and found that Dominique Jasper was in the emergency room. The following exchange took place in the courtroom:
Court:
– – with respect, ma’am, what I need you to do is to listen very carefully to the question and answer only the question that is asked of you . . . .
The Witness:
Yes, sir . . . .
Q (By Mr. Davis):
Now, I want you to describe to the ladies and gentlemen of the jury what his [Dominique’s] demeanor was when you saw him.
A
When I saw him, he was steady saying – –
Q
Not – – not what he was saying. . . . I want you to describe, not what he said, but what his emotions were, okay, when you saw him.
A
His emotions was he was – – he kept saying, “Mom, Cross shot me.”
Mr. Dresback:
Objection.
Court:
The jury will disregard that statement . . . .
Mr. Dresback:
Judge, may I approach?
Court:
Yes, you may.
(At this time the following proceedings were had at the bench outside the hearing of the jury:)
Mr. Dresback:
Judge, just blurting that out a few minutes ago is exactly what I was worried about and why I lodged my objection, why I stood up and said, “Objection” at that time. And I know the Court stopped her and asked her – –
Court:
I didn’t ask, I admonished.
Mr. Dresback:
. . . . We would move for mistrial based on her statements.
Court:
That’ll be denied.
(At this time the following proceedings were had within the hearing of the jury:)
Q (By Mr. Davis):
Did it appear to you, as him being your son, that he was still upset or under the stress of being shot that night?
A
Yes.
Mr. Dresback:
Objection, Your Honor, calls for speculation.
Court:
Overruled.
Mr. Dresback:
And leading, Your Honor . . . .
Court:
Objection overruled . . . .
(At this time the following proceedings were had at the bench outside the hearing of the jury:)
Mr. Dresback:
Judge, we once again object to this as hearsay. It does not fall within any exception and the foundation doesn’t exist. Also, it’s more prejudicial than probative, Judge . . . . What the State’s trying to do here is bolster their other witnesses with this one . . . .
Court:
At this time I’m going to find the State has laid a foundation for excited utterance. I’ll note your exception. I’ll overrule your objection and I’ll grant you an exception.
Mr. Dresback:
Okay. We’d move again for a mistrial.
Court:
Request is denied.
Mr. Dresback:
Okay.
(At this time the following proceedings were had within the hearing of the jury:)
Court:
Objection overruled. You may answer the question.
A
He said – – I asked him, “Who did it?” He said, “Cross.”
Q (By Mr. Davis):
What did he say?
A
He said, “Momma, Cross shot me. Momma, Cross shot me. Momma, Cross shot me.”
Court:
Thank you, ma’am.
“You may answer the question,” the Court says. The question was, “Did it appear to you . . . that he was still upset or under the stress of being shot that night?” The Court had “admonished” Phyllis Jasper to “answer only the question that is asked of you.” Her answer does not follow that admonishment by any stretch of the imagination, but the Court not only allows it, and her repetition of it, to stand, but thanks her for her testimony.
Cross-examined by Public Defender Dresback, Phyllis Jasper, having gotten in her hearsay testimony, appeared somewhat more relaxed and a good deal less than committed to the truth of her written statement:
Q
Does the first paragraph [of her November 15 written statement] in there talk about you being told what happened by somebody? . . . .
A
Yes, it does say that I talked to Brandon Savage.
Q
Okay. What’s the other name in that paragraph?
A
It says ‘Dominique.’ It says ’24 [Carlameisha Jefferson],’ but I didn’t talk to 24. 24 was at the hospital. I never got to talk to 24. I didn’t talk to 24 until – –
COURT:
I think you’ve answered the question.
A
I’m sorry.
Q
Does it say Freddie Smith was sitting across the street?
A
Did it say Freddie Smith was sitting across the street? Where do you see that?
Q
In that first paragraph right there (indicating).
A
That’s what they said. I wasn’t there.
Channen Smith’s defense attorney didn’t think to enquire who “they” were, nor did he follow up on Phyllis Jasper’s interrupted statement, “I didn’t talk to 24 until – -” and ask her to complete her thought and say when she had talked to Carlameisha Jefferson, and what they had said to each other. The judge seemed quite determined to prevent her completing that thought.
How Channen Smith became the only suspect:
On November 2, 2010, at a traffic stop which somehow involved gang unit Detectives, Carlameisha Jefferson reportedly told them that, “she was told Cross [Channen Smith] was the shooter, but is reluctant to get involved.”
On November 8, 2010, interviewed by Detective Hickey, Brandon Savage named Channen Smith as the shooter and Smith was formally identified as a suspect in the 10/23 shooting.
On November 15, 2010, Dominique Jasper died in the hospital due to complications of the multiple gunshot wounds he had sustained on October 23, 2010.
On November 15, 2010, Phyllis Jasper, Dominique’s mother, gave police a written statement in which she alleged that Dominique had told her, in the emergency room on the night of October 23rd, “Cross shot me.”
On November 15, 2010, Homicide Investigator Vic Regalado took over the 10/23 shooting case and interviewed Brandon Savage. Savage identified Channen Smith as the shooter from a photographic lineup. Smith was charged with the 10/23 crimes and an arrest warrant issued.
On November 17, 2010, Regalado interviewed Channen Smith and Smith was jailed pending trial.
Detective Regalado’s testimony at trial offers a clear picture of the nature of the police “investigation” of this crime:
Q
All right. Now, what was the first thing you did after it was assigned to you?
A
I reviewed reports that had been completed by the officers as well as the original detective assigned, and then I went back and interviewed a witness.
Q
Who did you interview?
A
An individual by the name of Brandon Savage.
Q
Okay. Did you also develop a suspect?
A
Yes.
Q
What was that person’s name?
A
Channen Smith, Channen Ray Ozell Smith.
Q
Did you have an opportunity to speak to Mr. Smith?
A
Yes, I did.
Q
And was that on November 17th, 2010?
A
Yes, it was.
Q
Where did you speak with Mr. Smith at?
A
It was in our offices, in interview room No. 1, located at the Tulsa Police Detective Division at 600 Civic Center . . . .
Q
What did he say?
A
Initially that he didn’t know what I was talking about. As I became more detailed in my questions, he told me that he wasn’t there and didn’t – – in fact, didn’t even know who I was talking about when I mentioned certain individuals.
Q
Okay. Who were those individuals?
A
Dominique Jasper and Carlameisha Jefferson.
Q
Were those the two individuals who were the victims on October 23rd, 2010?
A
Yes.
Q
And what else did he say?
A
And again, as I became a little more pointed with the questions, he informed me that he may have been in Tulsa; however, it was probably at his father’s that lived a couple of blocks north on Woodrow Street or he may have been in Comanche which is an apartment complex located in the north side of Tulsa.
Q
. . . . did you confront Mr. Smith with the victims in this case that you were assigned to?
A
. . . . I obtained two photos of Dominique Jasper and Carlameisha Jefferson and asked him if he recognized these individuals. And at that point he confirmed that he did, in fact, know them; however, he knew Carlameisha by a nickname of 24 and the victim Dominique Jasper by the nickname “D” Loc.
Q
Now, throughout your interview with Mr. Smith, did you pick up on any consistencies or inconsistencies with his statement? . . . .
A
Initially that he wasn’t even in Tulsa, then it was he was probably at his father’s, then possibly Comanche. And ultimately, I believe he said he was, in fact, in Claremore with an individual by the name of Sabrina who he claimed was a girlfriend at the time. However, when asked for Sabrina’s information to corroborate that, he was unable to give me any information other than it was Sabrina and she lived in Claremore. And I do believe he gave me a street but he was unable to give me a complete address nor a phone number or anything else that would allow me to contact her to verify his claim. However, he maintained that he had never been around the location of the shooting . . . .”
If Channen Smith’s differing accounts of his whereabouts on the night of October 23rd cast doubt on his veracity, then Brandon Savage’s and Carlameisha Jefferson’s differing accounts of that night’s events should cast at least as much doubt on their veracity. Throughout the trial, the various participants in the case nearly always referred to each other by their street names, so Smith’s failure to recognize Savage or Jefferson by their birth names is hardly surprising, nor evidence of dishonesty. Many people don’t carry around street addresses or phone numbers in their heads, and it’s peculiar that a trained police investigator would claim he couldn’t track down Smith’s alibi witness, Sabrina, without being given her “complete address nor a phone number or anything else that would allow me to contact her.” Beyond peculiar, in fact. It’s simply not credible that a police detective couldn’t have found Sabrina if he had wanted to.
Detective Regalado, though, felt no need to pursue Smith’s alibi witness, since he knew already that Smith was guilty. On cross examination:
Q
Basically, you’re kind of telling me, I guess, that you had an arrest warrant for him [Smith]. You thought you had your guy at that point in time?
A
Well, when I obtained that arrest warrant for a first-degree murder, I was positive he was the individual.
No testimony by any State’s witness ever so much as mentioned any “evidence” against Smith other than the accusations made by Savage and Jefferson. The defense attorney pointed this out:
Q
Okay. I believe you also mentioned that it was not right to arrest based on some people just saying something, but yet, isn’t that exactly what happened in this case?
A
Yes.
Q
Why would only Brandon Savage and Ms. Jefferson be deemed as telling the truth by you in this case?
A
Because the information that was obtained from them was corroborated. There were (sic) other information in this investigation that corroborated what they said.
Q
Did you ever consider at all anyone besides Mr. Channen Smith as the suspect in this case, such as Mr. Savage or Freddie Smith? Did you consider anyone beyond Mr. Savage telling you or Ms. Jefferson telling you that this was the guy? Did you ever investigate anybody else?
A
No. He was the only shooter.
Q
And that’s what you deemed from your investigation?
A
That’s what the facts deemed.
Detective Regalado and the prosecution frequently referred to supporting “information” or “facts,” without ever once producing them, nor did Channen Smith’s attorney Dresback pursue the Detective’s claim that “other information” corroborated Jefferson’s and Savage’s identification of Channen Smith as the shooter. No “other information” was brought forth by the State.
There were, of course, some facts established during the initial crime scene investigation. Detective Richard Aschoff searched the scene of the shooting and found two shell casings on the ground. Both cartridge cases were 9×18 Makarovs, from rounds made for a Soviet and Eastern Bloc military issue pistol and not accepted by any American-made pistol. The murder weapon was never found, nor is there any record that Savage was required to surrender the weapons in his possession the night of the shooting, nor was any attempt made to link any weapon capable of firing those rounds to Channen Smith, nor was any plausible reason offered why between 7 and 14 reported shots had left only two shell casings behind. Two bullet strikes were documented in the Harvard house. No mention was ever made of any attempt to match the bullets found within them with the Makarov shell casings. Other physical evidence catalogued at the scene seemed irrelevant to the shooting.
Despite Detective Regalado’s agreement that “it was not right to arrest based on some people just saying something,” it is clear that it was solely on the basis of Carlameisha Jefferson’s, Brandon Savage’s and Phyllis Jasper’s accusations that Channen Smith was arrested, charged and convicted. The prosecution provided no other relevant evidence.
Channen Smith’s Version: (Smith’s Public Defender, Glen Dresback, refused to allow Smith to testify, though Smith wanted to.)
On the night of October 21, 2010, Channen Smith was in his friend Theo’s Comanche Park apartment when he and Theo heard sounds of a fight in the parking lot and went outside to see what was going on. Fighting were Carlameisha Jefferfson, Dominique Jasper, and Brandon Savage, all members of the 107 Hoover Crips, and Freddie Smith, Arlen Young, and Henderson Porter, members of a different set of Crips. The fight lasted only a few minutes, during which Dominique Jasper knocked Arlen Young to the ground and began kicking him in the face. Carlameisha Jefferson got back in the car the three 107 Hoover Crips had come there in and attempted to run down Freddie Smith, at which point he fired one shot from his pistol into the air. Jasper and Savage jumped into the car with Jefferson and it drove off. Tulsa Police, already at the complex on another call, saw Freddie Smith with the pistol and took out after him, but he escaped, and the other two neighborhood Crips also eluded further police contact.
Channen Smith called his step-father, Canando Smith, after the fight ended. His step-father arrived about 1 a.m. and drove Channen back to their house, where he spent the night. (Channen Smith lived there with his mother and step-father)
On Friday, October 22, Smith spent time with his parents and a girlfriend. Another girlfriend, Sabrina Schrader, picked him up and the two returned to her brother Philip Schrader’s house in Claremore, nearly 30 miles from Tulsa. He spent the rest of that Friday night, all day and night on Saturday, the 23rd, and the morning of Sunday, the 24th in that house. Sabrina drove him back to Tulsa around noon on Sunday.
Defense witnesses Sabrina Schrader, Philip Schrader and Canando Smith all confirmed Smith’s account of his activities and locations from October 22nd through October 24th, despite considerable cross-examination by the State seeking to cast doubt on their testimonies. Sabrina Schrader testified that she had never been interviewed by the police.
Post-Conviction:
Channen Smith parted company with his public defender after his conviction. Acting pro se, he filed a number of motions and appeals for post-conviction relief over succeeding years. They were based on various procedural, factual and constitutional arguments, and they were uniformly denied by the courts to which he applied.
Then on January 25, 2017, Arlen Young died of cancer. Young had been one of the participants in the fight at the Comanche on the night of October 21, 2010. A week before he died, he told his cousin, Tomique Thomas, that he, not Channen Smith, had shot Dominique Jasper. He asked her to get the information out and to apologize to Channen Smith if he died before he could do so, which he did. Tomique was reluctant to carry out Young’s request, fearing it might get her in trouble or that she might not be believed by the police. In the summer of 2019, Tomique told Channen Smith’s sister about Arlen Young’s confession. Not until two years later (8/5/21) did she sign an affidavit attesting to Young’s confession to her. In the meantime, an independent investigator interviewed further witnesses.
Two weeks after Tomique’s affidavit, Tiffany Tanner, another cousin of Arlen Young’s, signed a long affidavit describing Young’s deathbed confession that he shot Dominique Jasper. This information was buttressed by affidavits from Freddie Smith and Henderson Porter, both of whom were involved with Arlen Young in the fight at the Comanche Apartments with Jasper, Jefferson and Young. Both wrote that Arlen Young was upset because Jasper had kicked him in the face several times during the fight and made a threatening phone call to him the following night (8/22/10), that Young had left the two at about 1 a.m. the following morning (8/23/10), driving his girlfriend’s SUV and dressed in black, and that he had returned at about 3:15 a.m. and told them that he had shot Jefferson and Jasper. They had both refrained from coming forward, Freddie Smith because he had heard the police were trying to tie him to the shooting, Henderson Porter because he “did not want to snitch on my best friend.” These four affidavits formed the support for the first item in Channen Smith’s Application for Post-Conviction Relief [PCR} to the District Court in December of 2022.
District Court Judge Dawn Moody accepted the State’s argument that none of these accounts of Arlen Young’s confession qualified as new evidence, on the grounds that “. . . his newly discovered evidence is not newly discovered under the law. All of these witnesses were known to petitioner long before his trial date, especially Freddie Smith, who was mentioned in his jury trial as the second person in Petitioner’s car when he drove up to the scene of the incident. Just because these witnesses did not want to snitch upon Young does not escape (sic) Petitioner from the requirement that he exercise due diligence to uncover said facts.” The State continued, “Even if this Court determines that this information is newly-discovered, none of the information Petitioner presents rises to the level of being material to the point where another trial would result in the acquittal of him.” Furthermore, the State argued, “Nothing presented in the affidavits cast doubt on Carlameisha Jefferson’s, Dominique Jasper’s, and Brandon Savage’s identifications at trial.”
The State offered no evidence that Channen Smith knew any of the four witnesses, except for Freddie Smith. Nor did they bother to explain why those witnesses would have had any reason to implicate Arlen Young, or why Young, knowing another man was in jail awaiting trial for the murder, would confess, before he knew he was going to die, that he had been the shooter The State’s contention that the fact that another person confessed to the murder, and that his confession was corroborated by three other witnesses, does not rise “to the level of being material” is absurd.
In his affidavit, Henderson Porter, who participated in the fight at Comanche, included the following account:
“The next night, October 22nd, 2010, a group of us including Freddie, Mooney [Arlen Young’s street name], Tiffany, and I, were all sitting outside in front of my Freddie’s (sic) apartment in Comanche drinking alcohol and smoking weed. Mooney [Arlen Young] was still really upset about the fight from the night before. His face was bruised very badly because D-Loc [Dominique Jasper] had kicked him in the face several times. Mooney left us at approximately 1 am.
“After he left, we all remained there drinking and getting high until security officers approached us. They ended up calling the police and when they arrived Freddie took off running. They chased him and I sent my girlfriend to go pick him up to take him to her house.
“We all went to my girlfriend’s house and Mooney arrived at approximately 3:15 am. He pulls me to the side and tells me that ‘he just got at them fools.’ When I asked him who he was talking about, and he responded ‘D-Lo and that dyke bitch. That mortherfucker fucked up putting his feet on me like he did. I caught them slipping in their yard, sitting around drinking.’
“He then told me ‘I hit the bitch trying to run in the house, D-Lo tried to run and I hit him in the back and the back of his head. When he was on the ground, D-Lo put his hands up to block his head. I shot him through his hands.’
“3 weeks later, I found out Channen Smith was arrested for this crime. I knew that Mooney had confessed to me about this crime, but I did not want to snitch on my best friend.
“I held his secret until he was diagnosed with cancer. His final wish to me was to come forward with the truth.”
Guilty Until Proven Innocent
Porter’s account of Young’s motive for shooting Jasper and Jefferson seems more straightforward and believable than the State’s suggestion for Channen Smith’s motives. The State’s closing argument in part was that “the evidence has shown you this week that on October 23rd, 2010, Channen Smith walked up to that house, upset with Carlameisha Jefferson for a number of reasons, because she was a snitching-ass bitch, because of the altercation she got into with Freddie Smith the day before, pulled out that pistol and he shot her in the back.” The State failed to offer any evidence that Smith harbored any such suspicions of Jefferson, or that Channen Smith had any reason to care if Freddie Smith was involved with Jefferson in the previous night’s altercation. Nor did the State, in its closing argument, attempt to explain why Channen Smith supposedly would have embraced Dominique Jasper and said, “This is my day one,” only minutes before blazing away at him – as the State’s own witness had claimed.
In fact, the State’s primary witnesses contradicted themselves and each other so frequently that it is hard to understand how any jury could have accepted their testimonies as evidence of anything but their sociopathic or narcissistic mendacity. Brandon Savage explained his initial lies to the police as the result of his commitment to enacting “street justice” by ordering a hit on Channen Smith, and his later identification of Smith as the result of his concern that Phyllis Jasper obtain “closure,” that his fiancé would not have to testify, or that he was “trying to get right with God.” The state never tried to explain how Channen Smith, jailed for many months before his trial, escaped Savage’s hit team. Carlameisha Jefferson’s account of the night of the shooting differs considerably from Savage’s version, most significantly in that she insists there was no car in the driveway – so there would have been nothing for Savage and Lovely Harris to take shelter behind. No one can logically accept both accounts. Phyllis Jasper’s testimony was, on the face of it, exactly what Smith’s attorney Dresback described: “What the State’s trying to do here is bolster their other witnesses with this one.”
The available documentary history of this case suggests that the police investigating the shooting, stonewalled by the victims and witnesses, had no viable suspect until, suddenly, Carlameisha Jefferson and Brandon Savage provided them with one – Channen Smith – who then became the only target of what police “investigation” followed. No other possible leads, including considerable YouTube footage and commentary suggesting that the shooting might have been part of a gang conflict, were followed up on. The State fixed upon Channen Smith, who had no gang affiliations, and no income sufficient to pay for private defense counsel, as likely fodder for a conviction. They took a prosecution case consisting of two witnesses, both of them multiply convicted criminals and admitted liars, and another (Jasper’s mother) whose testimony was obviously the result of determined coaching, and managed to secure the jury’s assent to their endlessly repeated assertions that “the evidence” showed Smith guilty.
When evidence – in the form of affidavits from four separate witnesses – that someone other than Smith had confessed to the shootings was presented, the State greeted the news with a flurry of the same sort of baseless assertions of “evidence” against Smith and attacks on the characters and motives of those witnesses that had characterized its conduct of the original trial. The Court repeated its supine acceptance of these tactics and its determined indifference to the possibility that an innocent person might be imprisoned.
Police detectives retain their jobs and get promoted based on the rate at which they clear cases by providing suspects to District Attorneys’ offices. District Attorneys get re-elected by securing convictions. Admitting to having been responsible for wrongful convictions does not contribute to their chances for re-election. Judges, if elected, are rarely removed from their chairs by voters unless they are painted as “soft on crime.” The entire legal establishment frequently offers lip service to Blackstone’s principle (“It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer”). Television script writers frequently suggest that that principle drives police and lawyers and investigators to remarkable feats of diligence and selflessness. But the criminal justice system is a business, and the various components of it are professions. Those professions are occupied by humans, generally by humans no less motivated by self-interest than any other set of humans. Meaning that selfless heroes may be found among them, but not as many as Blue Bloods might lead you to expect to find.
So far, there are none to be found in Channen Smith’s case. The criminal justice system, operated by fallible humans, is going to make mistakes. If it is not to become a criminally unjust system, citizens outside its employ need to keep a close eye on its doings. Citizens. Not consumers of dreamworlds.
The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals can be addressed at:
Court of Criminal Appeals
Oklahoma Judicial Center
2100 N. Lincoln Blvd., Suite 2
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma 73105-4907
or reached by telephone at (405) 556-9606 or 556-6927
Channen Smith has now been in the State of Oklahoma’s custody for going on twelve years. His attorney is preparing an appeal of the District Court’s latest ruling. Channen Smith’s sister has created a website containing a petition requesting an evidentiary hearing: https://www.change.org/p/help-unchain-channen-by-supporting-our-appeal-for-an-evidentiary-hearing. An advocate for wrongfully convicted prisoners is working on a website offering more information on his case. It will be at www.justiceforchannen.org.
She has also designed a line of shirts whose purchase will benefit Channen’s defense fund. They can be viewed and purchased at https://www.bonfire.com/store/faith-and-freedom-designs/.
