The Long Beach-based nonprofit Unite The People has succeeded in getting another client who potentially faced life in prison resentenced to time served on Thursday, Dec. 29.
Ranza Marshall was an 18-year-old Inglewood student when the older man she was dating took her to a jewelry store. That fateful trip would lead to Marshall spending over three decades behind bars.
Marshall claimed in trial that the middle-aged man known to her as “Poppa” or “Darryl” told her he was taking her to buy a birthday present. Prosecutors argued, and a jury later agreed, that Marshall had known that the man she was with was planning to rob the jewelry store, and that Marshall herself was armed with a .38 caliber firearm during the robbery.
What is not up for debate, is that Marshall and a man entered a jewelry store in Paramount on Feb. 5, 1990, where the man shot store-keeper Said Messiha five times and Marshall once before fleeing the store.
“I think about how I affected Mr. Messiha’s life and [his] family’s life, the trauma I’ve caused by participating in this robbery and involving myself in criminal activities,” Marshall wrote in a letter to Unite The People in 2020. “I know an apology cannot fix this harmful act. I do identify with the remorse that I feel daily for what I’ve done.”
After the shooting, Marshall was dumped at a hospital, but originally lied and said she was shot in a drive-by shooting.
A fully loaded .38 caliber handgun was discovered in a parking lot near the crime scene. Some of Marshall’s blood was found in that same parking lot, which prosecutors argued tied her to the gun. It was confirmed that the gun was not fired during the shooting and that Marshall never fired a shot. She argued during her trial that she had never been in possession of the gun, but the circumstantial evidence was enough to convince the jury that she had it on her during the shooting.
“This is what I live for. I love the courtroom and I love being an advocate for folks who deserve to get the benefit of the law just like every citizen.”
Rosemary Chávez on an Instagram livestream.
According to Cesar McDowell, founder of Unite The People, because she did not want to cooperate with the police investigation into the man who did the shooting, prosecutors focused their attention on Marshall.
“When she goes in and gets help, she won’t tell on him. So the DA (district attorney) gave her seven [years] to life,” McDowell said.
Under California’s Indeterminate Sentencing Law, people are given a minimum amount of time they must stay in prison, but after that the Board of Parole Hearings decides when, if ever, they are released. So while Marshall could have been released after seven years, she has been incarcerated for over 30 years.
“You sit there till they decide to let you go,” said McDowell, who spent decades in San Quentin after being illegally sentenced. “Before I came home, anybody that had seven-to-life was normally a really old man and was close to death.”
In her letter to Unite The People, Marshall admits that she thought she would be in prison for the rest of her life, and that that hopelessness led her to fight and do drugs while incarcerated.
Eventually, she began improving herself through education and self-help classes. She has earned an associates degree in general studies, is studying web development and hopes to find a job as a web developer once she’s released.
In 2020, Marshall met an incarcerated client of Unite The People who had recently been resentenced. The woman shared Unite The People’s newsletter with Marshall, who wrote a letter to the nonprofit organization asking for their help in her case.
After two years of fighting, Unite The People’s team won Marshall’s freedom. She was represented Thursday by Rosemary Chávez, a former deputy city attorney for Los Angeles that now works with Unite The People.
“This is what I live for. I love the courtroom and I love being an advocate for folks who deserve to get the benefit of the law just like every citizen,” Chávez said on an Instagram livestream.
According to Chávez, the Messiha family was informed that Marshall was to be resentenced, and were offered an opportunity to address the court.
At the Compton Courthouse on Thursday morning, Marshall was resentenced to time served. While she is currently still in custody, she is expected to be released on either Monday or Tuesday.
Several Unite The People’s staff members showed up to the resentencing to support Marshall, who didn’t have any family that could attend. All of Marshall’s siblings died while she was incarcerated. Her elderly parents were unable to attend her resentencing on Thursday because her physically disabled father is bedridden and her mother is his caretaker.
McDowell encourages incarcerated people and their family members to reach out to Unite The People for assistance.
To contact Unite The People, email info@unitethepeople.org, call (888) 245-9393, or visit their website at unitethepeople.org for more information.
“If people need help, that’s what we’re here to do,” McDowell said.
