Family and friends of Michael DeGraffenried turned out in force for the continuation of his evidentiary hearing in front of Judge Tracy Green Oct. 8, 2024; his mother (at corner next to man in black/white T-shirt) flew in from Texas. DeGraffenried’s son Semaje Manning is at her right. Others told VOD they came from out-of-state and many said they grew up in Inkster with Degraffenried.
“MICHAEL DEGRAFFENRIED WAS NOT THE PERSON WHO SHOT ME”– Willie Wimberly, seriously injured, was never called to testify at trial
“I’ve been fighting my case since the day I was arrested” –Degraffenried testifies re: co-defendant’s accusation that Inkster cop Darian K. Williams Walker coerced false statement from her
Inkster Police OIC Sgt. Darian K. Williams was convicted of extorting money from drug dealers at time of Degraffenried trial, sentenced to prison
Atty. Tiffany Howell asks Judge Tracy Green to order that their Inkster PD personnel files be provided to defense under Brady v. Maryland
Judge Green to rule on relief for DeGraffenried Mon. Nov. 11, 2024
By Diane Bukowski
October 21, 2024
Atty. Tiffany Howell (l) presents the case of Michael Degraffenried (seated) Oct. 8, 2024.
DETROIT — “Michael DeGraffenried was not the person who shot me,” Willie Wimberly testified firmly at the long-delayed second half of an evidentiary hearing in front of Third Circuit Court Judge Tracy Green Oct. 8.
DeGraffenried is serving a term of 30-50 years for a drive-by shooting June 15, 1999 on Florence St. in Inkster. The shooter seriously injured Wimberley and killed Alondre Davis.
“”[Inkster police officers] Darian Williams and Gregory Hill came to my house, showed me photos, and Greg Hill mentioned Michael DeGraffenried’s name to me,” Wimberley said. “I told them no he was not the person who shot me. I did not identify him at the preliminary exam, and I was never interviewed by his attorney or the prosecutor or subpoenaed to testify at the trial. I was 16 back in 1999 and was traumatized by the shooting.”
Willie Wimberley testifies on behalf of Michael DeGraffenried Oct. 8, 2024.
Wimberley said he knew DeGraffenried because he lived down the street from him. He said he saw the face of the shooter as he dove off his bicycle but could not identify him. He said the bullet that hit him traveled up his leg to his pelvis and is still lodged there, causing continued problems. He said doctors told him he could have died if the bullet had gone any further.
Wimberley also testified that his cousin Broderick Ward told him that he had ID’d Degraffenried as the shooter during during court proceedings, but Wimberley said Ward was not present during the shooting. He also said Degraffenried was not there.
Defense Attorney Tiffany P. Howell requested that Judge Green order the production of Inkster Police personnel files on Williams and Anthony Abdallah under disclosure rules mandated by the U.S. Supreme Court in Brady v. Maryland. Judge Green said she will rule on the matter at a hearing Nov. 11.
Inkster exonerees George Clark (l) and Kevin Harrington (r), with exoneree Alphonso Clark.
Vicki Yost, previously Inkster Police Chief and now a private investigator, testified Inkster detective Anthony Abdallah was involved in the cases of exonerees George Clark and Kevin Harrington. She said she discovered Officer Williams was charged and convicted of conspiracy to commit extortion in federal court in Chicago in December, 2001.
In fact, as VOD reported previously, Williams’ conviction involved extorting money from drug dealers from May, 1999 through December, 2001, before the drive-by shooting in June, 1999, and continuing through Degraffenried’s trial in December, 2000.
“At trial, the Government presented evidence that from May 1999 through December 3, 2001, Steele conspired with co-conspirators Darian Williams, Ernest “Newt” Butler, and Andre Patterson to extort money from drug dealers through wrongful use of fear and under color of official right, U.S. District Court Judge Am7. .At the time of the conspiracy, Williams was employed by the Police Department of Inkster, Michigan and held the rank of Detective Sergeant.” See: http://voiceofdetroit.net/wp-content/uploads/Daryl-Steele-et-al-inc-Darian-Williams-US-District-Court-opinion-and-order.pdf
Tiya Manning is the mother of Degraffenried’s son Semaje Manning, who was present at the hearing Oct. 8.
Originally a co-defendant in the case, she testified in Dec. 1999 at a “Walker” hearing that Sgt. Damian Williams’ threatened and coerced her into falsely identifying Michael DeGraffenried as the shooter, Atty. Howell said.
Manning said Williams told her to alter her first statement to Sgt. Gregory Hill, which she said was the truth, to another version implicating herself and DeGraffenried. She said the second statement was a lie. (
Atty. Howell then called Degraffenried himself to the stand.
Judge Tracy Green
“I been fighting my case since the day I got arrested,” Degraffenried said. “I was arrested thirty minutes after the shooting, I saw my girl friend’s car on a tow truck and stopped to check on her. But before I could make it halfway up the street—the police saw me, and arrested me. At time of shooting, I was was escorting my grandmother to the Inkster police station because my little cousin was arrested.”
He said he went inside the police station momentarily as he walked his grandmother in, and talked to an officer there at the front desk, in full view of monitoring cameras. He said he asked his lawyer Samuel Yura obtain the video from inside the station to verify his alibi, but that Yura never produced
Michael Degraffenried testifies Oct; 8, 2024
Degraffenried’s motion cites “ineffective assistance of counsel” as one ground for relief.
“I spoke to Yura twice, once when I was first arrested, and once while I was in the county jail,” DeGraffenried said. “The first time he was just coming in, the next time I spoke with him was maybe a week or two before trial.”
He said Yura never interviewed the numerous people who witnessed the drive-by shooting, including Wimberley, and never subpoenaed Wimberley.
“I asked him to interview Wimberley, I wanted everybody at the scene to be interviewed, but he never did,” Degraffenried said. “I asked him to talk to them, take photos of the house. If it was a trial prep it had nothing to do with me.”
Defense Atty. Tiffany Howell
Atty. Howell asked, “Were you aware that Tia Manning had a Walker hearing, where she accused Damian Williams of harassment, and went int0 detail. Were you aware she accused the shooter of being Ramone Williams?” Degraffenried said not until years later.
Records show that Tia Manning and Ramone Williams never testified at trial, but had their preliminary exam testimony read into the record.
Degraffenried said he witnessed Inkster Sgt. Gregory Hill examining Manning’s car in the police station, apparently conducting a gunshot residue test, but that his defense never got the results of the test
He said he did not know about Manning’s Walker hearing or Wimberley’s final account of the shooting until years after he had already filed post-conviction appeals. He said that he discovered Manning’s Walker hearing testimony when he was doing research in the prison law library, and that he hired private investigator Scott Lewis to interview Wimberley, not knowing what Wimberley would say.Asked him to interview—he didn’t testify at my trial, I was charged with shooting him.
Atty. Howell concluded by asking Wimberley, “Were you the shooter June 15, 1999?” he replied, “No I was not.”
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Two of the chief players in Hubbard’s frame-up went to work for Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy after they retired. and were there as Hubbard repeatedly appealed his conviction. They know what they did, and so do others in the prosecutor’s office, missing “prosecutor files” or not. 
Kinney and other DPD officers locked up Thoanchelle Taylor, a mother of two, as a witness to a 1992 murder. They held her until her 12-year-old daughter and 6-year-old son implicated her in the murder. At trial, Judge Kathleen Judge Kathleen McDonald said there was not a “scintilla of evidence” against Taylor. 
A three-judge panel, including one appointed by then President Donald Trump, issued a 2-1 split ruling to deny Hubbard relief at the first level.
2/21/2018 polygraph examination of Curtis Collins: Petitioner attached as an exhibit to his second amended petition the results of a polygraph examination performed by Michael Anthony on Curtis Collins on February 21, 2018. Anthony asked the following questions of Collins: 1. Did you see Carl Hubbard shoot that man? Answer: No 2. Did you see Carl Hubbard shoot anyone at Gray and Mack in January of 1992? Answer: No 3. Were you present when Carl Hubbard shot that man? Answer: No. Anthony opined that Collins was being truthful regarding his answers to these questions.
DAN GILBERT’S GUANTANAMO BAY? Detainees in CJC Jail denied contact with lawyers & family, subjected to brutal conditions
On Sept. 10, a ground-breaking protest outside the new Wayne County Criminal Justice Center was held on behalf of Ricky Rimmer and hundreds of victims of criminal frame-ups by Detroit cops and Wayne County prosecutors. (Full video and story coming later this week.) Meanwhile, multiple articles have been published in the mainstream media about dire conditions in the CJC Jail, built by Dan Gilbert’s Bedrock firm for $670 million, mostly from public tax dollars. 
Worthy’s office and Judge Margaret Van Houten say they disagree with a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in 
FRAMED by DPD’S BARBARA SIMON, WAYNE CO. PROS. KYM WORTHY Criminal Justice Center Aug. 28.. 2024 Photo: Metro Times Steve Neavling
Despite nearly dying from COVID-19, Carl Hubbard has fought his case all the way through to the Sixth Circuit Court, where an en banc hearing is pending after a three judge panel with a Trump appointee refused relief. He is represented pro bono by attorney Gregory Cui of the Washington D.C. office of the prominent MacArthur Justice Center.
Jamario Mitchell and Mario Evans have been serving LWOP sentences since 2001 and 2002, respectively. Detroit homicide investigator Isaiah Smith was the Chief Investigating Officer (CIO) in both cases. Smith lied blatantly to the jury at court proceedings in both cases.
Smith denied that he had been suspended from the homicide bureau in March, 2001 f0r several months, in relation to his role in DPD’s witness dragnet scandal. Local and national mainstream media exposed the fact that DPD police officers were conducting wholesale round-ups and arrests of witnesses and suspects alleged to have information on homicide cases, and holding them indefinitely in jail cells at DPD Headquarters at 1300 Beaubien. 
Smith and others then interrogated them to further investigate the crimes, in many cases threatening them with being charged with the crime and having their children removed from their homes, if they did not testify against others under investigation. In many cases, they did not allow the arrestees access to attorneys. 
Gary Brayboy’s SADO attorney Adrienne Young left to become a Michigan Court of Appeals Judge, a welcome development considering her pro-defense background.
Williams, with other Inkster detectives including Gregory Hill and Anthony Abdallah, who have been involved in other wrongful convictions, fingered Degraffenried as the drive-by shooter who killed one man and wounded two others June 15, 1999 in Inkster.
“Mayor Michael Duggan was in charge of the Wayne County Prosecutor Office when the US Dept. of Justice consent decree investigation started, but he allowed corrupt DPD officer Isaiah Smith to coerce witnesses to make false statements, tamper with evidence, and falsify statements,” Mitchell wrote to VOD.
Mitchell says in his motions that the failure by Detroit police and the prosecution to disclose Smith’s history to the jury violated U.S. Supreme Court rulings in Brady v. Maryland (1963), and Giglio v. United States (1972). 
By Diane Bukowski, VOD Editor
His Asst. Prosecutor, Ryan Elsey, is white and lives in Livonia, where the population is 80 percent white and only 4 percent Black. Wayne Co. Chief Prosecutor Kym Worthy is Black, but her record on behalf of Wayne County’s Black population, particularly its youth, is abysmal.
Fast forward to 1990: another prisoner who was locked away in the same prison as Alex Scott had a discussion with him about the scar on Mr. Scott’s face and said Mr. Scott confessed to him how he got the scar in the course of killing Mr. Visilje. Several years after that discussion with Mr. Scott, that inmate later met Paul at another prison and upon discussing Paul’s case with him, he told Paul what Mr. Scott had confessed to him years earlier.
However, those who are currently serving a term of years sentence under Truth-In-Sentencing” rules will not earn anything, in spite of completing the same rehabilitative programming and achieving their G.E.D.
LANSING, Mich.— Sen. Jeff Irwin (D-Ann Arbor) has introduced 
