“IT’S ME VS. KIEFER COX, NOT ME VS. THE PEOPLE.” — Darrell Ewing on motion to disqualify Cox for “the appearance of impropriety, due process infringements, and actual bias/prejudice,” including 4 yrs. with WCPO
“I had little if any interaction with Kym Worthy and Jon Wojtala . . . Kam Towns was not my supervisor.” —WCCC Judge Kiefer Cox
APPEAL HEARING FRI. DEC. 23, 9 AM–PRESIDING JUDGE DON KNAPP
2ND TRIAL FOR DARRELL EWING/DERRICO SEARCY SET FOR MARCH 25
By Diane Bukowski
Feb. 20, 2024
WCCC Presiding Judge Donald Knapp, elected to bench in 2021, previously Livonia’s city atty.
DETROIT — “It’s me vs. Kiefer Cox, not me vs. the people,” Darrell Ewing told Wayne 3rd Circuit Court Judge Kiefer Cox after the judge denied Ewing’s motion to disqualify him Feb. 9. “They [assistant prosecutors] haven’t said a peep in any hearing—it’s been you defending them and certain of their positions.”
In denying the motion. Cox said his four years with the prosecutor’s office before taking the bench did not create an “appearance of impropriety” or “actual bias,” citing case law. He announced that Ewing’s appeal of the motion to disqualify will take place in front of Presiding Criminal Court Judge Donald Knapp Friday, Feb. 23.
Knapp was elected to the bench in 2021, after serving as Livonia City Attorney while working for Fausone Bohn, LLP. Previously, he was a Livonia City Council member. He is a member of the Livonia Chamber of Commerce and Livonia Kiwanis. Judge Cox and family members are from Livonia, where his election campaign was headquartered.
Darrell Ewing (l) Derrico Searcy (r)
Ewing told VOD that regardless of the appeal’s outcome, he is ready to take on a second trial, He is representing himself.
Atty. Blase Kearney, who represents Searcy, joined many of Ewing’s pre-trial motions. Among other issues, he cited due process violations by Cox conducting separate pre-trial hearings for Searcy and Ewing. The trial is to proceed jointly.
Ewing and Searcy are being retried for the Dec. 2009 murder of J.B. Watson on Detroit’s east side, after multiple federal and state courts overturned their 2010 convictions due to jury misconduct. Another man, Tyree Washington, confessed to the murder to Michigan State Police in a Mirandized interview, multiple affidavits, and a videotaped interview with private investigator Scott Lewis.
Before Ewing’s Feb. 9 hearing, a Wayne Co. Deputy Sheriff warned observers for the first time, “There will not be any outbursts, there will not be any clapping, there will not be any noise in general. We’re going to have consequences if that happens, please be respectful to everyone in the courtroom.”
His motion cites “the appearance of impropriety, due process infringements, and actual bias/prejudice.”
Ewing contends Cox’s four-year employment in the prosecutor’s office directly before he took the bench in 2023 violates MCR 2.003(e), which says a judge can be disqualified, if “[he/she was partner of a party, atty. for a party, or member of a law firm representing the party within the preceding two years.” He contends Cox’s rulings on his motion have almost exclusively favored the prosecution’s written positions.
Darrell Ewing’s family: mother LaSonya Dodson (ctr) and father Ricky Ewing (2nd from r) Feb. 9, 2024.
Cox denied the motion to disqualify, citing various U.S. Supreme Court and state court rulings on disqualification motions.
“Actual bias is based on an objective, reasonable perception,” Cox said. “It is not established by repeated rulings against the defendant.” He said he himself had not been involved in any prior adjudication involving Ewing.
He cited a state case involving Attorney Geoffrey Fieger, where disqualification was not allowed due to “offensive statements” Fieger had made against the court. He said, “All a party would have to do is call the judge a name; that’s judge shopping.”
He denied his previous WCPO employment created “actual bias” or “an appearance of impropriety.”
Under former Pres. Donald Trump, the USDOJ’s Operation Legend sent federal troops to major U.S. cities including Detroit, Chicago and Milwaukee in 2020 to stem protests against the police murder of George Floyd.
“I had little if any interaction with Kym Worthy and Jon Wojtala,” he said. “Regarding [Ewing’s trial prosecutor] Kam Towns, I recall her being in homicide and the non-fatal shootings and community prosecutions units. When I was there Kam Towns had already left the office. When she was there, she was not my supervisor.”
He said he “could not recall” if Towns was there during his involvement with Operation Legend. The WCPO says its Operation Legend unit “assists in the investigation and vertical prosecution of gangs/groups, drug trafficking, gun crimes and high impact offenders driving crime within the city of Detroit . . .collaboratively with the United States Attorney’s Office and our law enforcement partners.”
Tyree Washington (l) former AP Kam Towns (r). Towns is now with the Michigan AG’s office.
Under Towns in 2010 and during appeals in front of Wojtala, the prosecution contended the murder of J.B. Watson resulted from a feud between two rival gangs. Tyree Washington confessed to the murder in a Mirandized confession to a Michigan State Trooper in 2017, and in multiple affidavits and a video interview by private investigator Scott Lewis. He denied it had anything to do with a gang feud, saying he and Watson had a personal dispute over a woman.
Federal and state courts overturned the convictions of Ewing and Searcy due to the jury’s review of internet and Facebook information about gangs, prompted by the prosecution’s theory of the case.
RELATED STORIES:
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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