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By Diane Bukowski
November 26, 2023
(L to R) Darrell Ewing, Derrico Searcy nod to families at June 6 hearing.
DETROIT. MI — Darrell Rashard Ewing, fondly known to many as APPLE, spent his 35th birthday in the Wayne Co. Jail, where he has been for nearly three years.
He will appear in the courtroom of Third CC Judge Kiefer Cox this Friday, Dec. 1, 2023 at 1 pm, as part of hearings leading up to a second trial, after his conviction and that of his co-defendant Derrico Searcy were overturned in 2019. Ewing is representing himself pro se. He will argue, among others, a key motion to Dismiss all Charges due to the prosecution’s failure to disclose key exculpatory evidence under Brady v. Maryland and its progeny rulings.
Ewing says the Brady violations began even before the 2010 trial that sent him to prison for life. He says AP Kam Towns deliberately engineered the convictions despite testimony from a witness at trial, provided by the federal government, that he had direct knowledge that Tyree Washington was the actual killer, and that neither Ewing nor Searcy were involved. With Towns and OIC Theophilus Williams sitting in front of him at trial, he reminded them that he had met with them twice to exonerate Ewing and Searcy.
At trial, Towns built a case around allegations the drive-by killing was gang-related, poisoning the jurors’ minds to the extent that several decided to conduct research about Black “gangs” on-line. They convinced other jurors that Washington was at at the bottom of a gang “hierarchy” and sacrificed himself to save Ewing. One juror, who had planned to vote “not guilty,” came forward at an evidentiary hearing in front of 3rd CC Judge Michael Hathaway, to expose the juror misconduct.
The hearing was called after U.S. District Court Judge Denise Page Hood overturned the pair’s convictions because of the misconduct. Judge Hathaway likewise granted a new trial in October, 2019, saying he had no choice due to the evident juror misconduct, and also noting that the evidence at trial was sparse.
So far, in the current set of hearings, both Ewing and Searcy have won motions to bar the witness Hathaway mentioned from testifying again. Ewing also won his motion to remove his handcuffs during court hearings because of his need to have his hands free to represent himself, and motions to have investigators and ID experts assigned to the defense at court cost, among others.
Davontae Sanford (l) and Kym Worthy.
The family, friends of supporters of Ewing and Searcy are calling on Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy to dismiss the case because there is no real evidence to take it to trial.
As in the case of exoneree Davontae Sanford, who she still does not concede is innocent, she remains an “Innocence Denier,” as she was called in Slate, a national magazine. When he was 14, Sanford was falsely charged with the murder of four adults in an alleged drug house, although her prosecutors should have known he was not guilty from day one. Detroit police who came to the scene in 2007 interviewed eyewitnesses who saw the killers and said they were taller and older than this child. Vincent Smothers confessed to the crime to DPD only two weeks after Sanford went to prison. He was finally exonerated and released in 2016.
Below, VOD Editor Diane Bukowski appeared on the Jay Love show Nov. 24 for 2 hours to bring awareness to the Ewing/Searcy case and upcoming hearing.
DID PROS. KYM WORTHY AND DPD SUPPRESS KILLER’S CONFESSION IN EWING/SEARCY CASE? HEARING DEC. 1 | VOICE OF DETROIT: The city’s independent newspaper, unbossed and unbought
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