The night unsettled Glen Johnson as he observed raucous behavior at a Fastrip on South Chester and Ming avenues in September 2002.
Too many rival gangs clustered in the same space. As a Country Boy Crips member, Johnson understood how dangerous gang clashes could easily turn bad. His girlfriend used the restroom inside the gas station and, when she returned, he urged her to leave. Something could happen, he said he told his girlfriend.
“Unfortunately, it did,” Johnson recently told a Californian reporter.
Johnson said he went home with his girlfriend, and woke up hearing someone he knew while attending South High School — Lamar Rufus — was shot and killed in an alley behind Fastrip. He had known of Rufus since junior high and because both were student athletes.
Bakersfield Police Department officers questioned Johnson about his alibi when Rufus died in September 2002 and eventually arrested him as a getaway driver in connection with Rufus’ shooting. Police said Johnson drove away Arthur Lourdes Lenix, another gang member, after Lenix killed Rufus and fired at Rufus’ cousin, Curtis Rufus. Another man, Deshonta Grayson, was shot in the shoulder and survived.
Johnson denies ever being there, but a Kern County jury convicted him in 2003. Kern County Superior Court records spell his first name as Glenn, but he says his name is spelled Glen.
The conviction was overturned, because the Fifth District Court of Appeal said the jury received an incorrect definition of finding someone guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.
A Kern County Superior Court judge instructed prospective jurors to find Johnson guilty even if they have “some doubt” and a person rendering a guilty verdict with “no doubt” is “brain dead,” according to an appeal opinion handed down in 2004 ordering a second trial for Johnson.
He was retried by the Kern County District Attorney’s Office and convicted again in 2005.
That conviction was overturned because the appeal court said the prosecutor trying the case inappropriately withheld evidence from a defense attorney.
The DA’s office retried Johnson for a third time, and Johnson was once again convicted in 2008 of second-degree murder, conspiracy and accessory. He’s been serving a 27-years-to-life sentence in prison from when he was about 25 years old.
Three trials later, Johnson filed a petition in 2019 to be resentenced under a law that narrowed the definition of felony murder in many cases to only apply to the actual shooter.
Johnson’s chance at freedom will begin once again in this year. On Tuesday, there’s an evidentiary hearing set to begin fighting for the Bakersfield man’s case for the fourth time.
“All three times, I got railroaded,” Johnson, 45, said in a Jan. 31 jailhouse interview with The Californian.
THE CASE
No physical evidence ties Johnson to the scene.
A sole eyewitness connected Johnson to the incident: the cousin of Lamar Rufus, Curtis Rufus.
Curtis Rufus said he bought a bottle of water inside the Fastrip on South Chester and Ming in September 2002 when he noticed people “scurrying around as if they were leaving hastily” outside, according to a Fifth District Court of Appeal opinion ordering Johnson receive a hearing to determine if he should be resentenced under the new law.
Lamar and Curtis Rufus walked in an alley when, Curtis said, he saw Johnson and Lenix, the shooter, walking toward them. Johnson looked like he had had a few drinks, so Curtis said he tapped him on the shoulder and said “Hey, wake up,” according to the opinion.
The two groups passed each other, and Curtis heard a thud, as if a metallic object dropped on the ground. Curtis turned around to see Lenix reach down and put “something” in his waistband, the opinion added.
Curtis Rufus, while sitting in a car, saw another person they knew, Deshonta Grayson, talking to Lamar Rufus.
That’s when he saw Lenix “walk over and fire two, three shots” into Lamar’s head, the opinion said. Curtis Rufus began driving toward them, wanting to hit them with his car.
Lenix fired three or four shots in Curtis Rufus’ direction, and a bullet hit Grayson, said a 2006 appeal court opinion, which ordered a new trial after Johnson’s second conviction.
While driving, Curtis saw Lenix get into a vehicle with Johnson at the wheel, the opinion ordering a hearing to hear Johnson’s 2019 petition said.
“In court, Curtis testified there was no doubt in his mind that (Johnson) was the driver of the other car,” the opinion stated.
Johnson called this testimony a “Steven Spielberg script” during a jailhouse interview.
“The whole thing is made up,” Johnson added.
Deputy District Attorney Arthur Norris, who prosecuted Johnson’s case, never showed a video of Curtis Rufus inside the store buying water, Johnson said. If Curtis’ testimony is key to building the case, then why not show the tape available for prosecutors, the now 45-year-old man wonders. He alleges Norris didn’t play it because the footage’s time stamp didn’t match the story prosecutors created of that night.
The thrice-convicted man also theorized Curtis Rufus’ statements about a commotion while he bought water could mean a shooting happened before Curtis went to the alley.
Norris did not respond to multiple requests for comment about this case.
Johnson also finds it odd Grayson, the man who was shot in the alley that night, was never called to testify. Maybe Grayson cannot identify the killer, but he could state a car didn’t veer toward him, Johnson said.
During trial, Norris painted Curtis Rufus as a man without bias, no gang affiliations and as a person only testifying because he wants justice.
A 2006 appeal court opinion found police reports about a separate, unrelated shooting investigation demonstrated “quite a different picture of Curtis from the one in the record of Johnson’s second trial.” The police reports refer to a shooting that happened after Johnson’s first trial but before his second one.
In it, Curtis Rufus was captured on footage giving a gun to a known member of the Westside Crips. That gang member walked with the pistol “fully extended” in his right hand toward the doors, the 2006 opinion added. A shooting ensued.
Curtis Rufus first lied to police when asked about his involvement in this incident, but then changed his story when confronted by police with footage, the 2006 appeal opinion said. Curtis told police he carried a gun because he feared for his life after the death of his cousin, Lamar Rufus. Officers found five nine-millimeter pistol casings at the scene of the same brand as a 50-round box of nine-millimeter ammunition rounds seized from Curtis’ home. Nine rounds were missing from that box, the 2006 appeal opinion added.
The police report documenting this shooting was never given to Johnson’s attorney. Defense attorney Michael Lukehart wouldn’t have known about this incident if he hadn’t watched Lenix’s trial, according to previous reporting by The Californian.
Norris admitted he should have “turned over the evidence, but says he simply forgot,” according to previous reporting. The Los Angeles Daily Review Journal interviewed Norris about this instance and Norris told that paper “he didn’t think the evidence was important,” previous reporting added.
Lukehart and the appeal court agreed jurors could have returned with a different outcome if this evidence was allowed in Johnson’s trial. The panel of judges ordered a new trial in 2006.
The 2006 appeal court opinion noted Curtis’ gang connections, fearing prosecution and hope for immunity from prosecution all gave him motives to lie.
And, according to The Californian’s reporting in 2003, about 50 to 60 people were in the area when Lamar Rufus died, but only Curtis Rufus could identify Lenix as the shooter.
JOHNSON’S INTERVIEW
It’s not like Johnson believes he’s a saint, he told a Californian reporter.
He acknowledges his lifestyle back then revolved around usual gang activities, such as selling drugs and partying. Though he was never charged with a gang enhancement, Johnson said prosecutors showed his gang behavior in trial. That makes jurors look at you as “an animal, not a human being,” he said.
But, the father of three said, that doesn’t mean he should serve a murder sentence for something he didn’t do.
Johnson also acknowledged missteps he took when fighting to prove his innocence.
When he was first arrested on suspicion of murder in his early twenties, Johnson said, he didn’t allow his attorneys enough time to prepare for trial and rebut Curtis Rufus’ testimony. The gravity of the situation didn’t “dawn on him” and he was still “shocked” police arrested him.
Johnson also said a man named Meko Seward confessed to him about killing Lamar Rufus. But he didn’t go to his attorneys to try to exonerate himself because of his gang culture.
Snitching could end up getting his family killed, Johnson said. But, it also meant he continued serving a decades-long prison sentence.
Even when Seward died at a shooting near the now-defunct Rockin’ Rodeo nightclub, Johnson still hesitated to come forward. The now-45-year-old man said he would have taken that “confession to the grave,” but he’s matured.
It took a prison sentence for Johnson to escape a gang mentality. He’s enrolled in two colleges and was very close to becoming a substance abuse counselor.
“You want to have faith in the system,” Johnson said. But, it’s tough when, he said, there hasn’t been “passion” to prove his innocence.
As he was growing up, he said, he wishes he had listened to his mother, who warned him to not fall into gang culture. His father was never around, he added. They both died last year.
Now, he hopes Grayson, an eyewitness, will testify to “get this all over with.”
“I think that’s huge,” he said of getting Grayson to testify.
Deputy public defender Cynda Bunton noted Tuesday’s hearing will likely get moved to another date because her office is still investigating the case.
Cassie Bordeaux, a board member with Riverside-based nonprofit Locked In, has been advocating for Johnson’s release. She deals with many types of inmates, some who are serving a two-year sentence and others behind bars for 40 years.
Johnson was furious with his conviction at first, Bordeaux said, but he’s been able to compartmentalize those emotions to change himself.
“Even after 20 years of incarceration, he hasn’t lost his mind … he’s incredibly articulate,” Bordeaux said. “He’s very intelligent.”
Many emotions fill Johnson as he reflects on his three convictions and thinks he’s completely innocent.
It’s a numbing feeling, he said.
But prison saved and changed his life, Johnson said.
“I could easily have been Lamar,” he said.