It’s time to #FreeBlackMamas , #EndCashBail , and secure #PhoneJustice for all!
Join Michigan Liberation this Sunday, May 9, 2021 for a rally and car caravan. We will meet at 3 pm with materials for signs and car decorations at Nagel Park, 3100 Wabash St, Detroit, MI 48216. The rally will start at 3:30 pm and focus on the fight to #EndCashBail and to secure #PhoneJustice across Michigan.
This event will be COVID-safe. Please stay inside vehicles unless otherwise instructed by car marshals. Masks and hand sanitizer will be provided to those who need it.
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Community mural initiated by Christopher Cardinale on wall of the Robert N. Davoren Complex, Rikers Island. NY. It quotes the late South African President Nelson Mandela, “For to be free is not merely to cast off one’s chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.” The heart over Mandela’s chest signifies strength, perseverance, and love; his fist represents victory over huge odds and racism. Mandela, his wife Winnie, and the global anti-apartheid movement won his freedom from prison, after 27 years.
Sentenced to LWOP at 17, Victor Polk wins re-sentencing to term of years
Judge Elizabeth Kelly’s decision reflects “overwhelming majority of Michigan judges” (94%) striking down JLWOP sentences in re-hearings
Family of victim forgives Polk at hearing, wishes him well in life
By Efrén Paredes, Jr.
May 6, 2021
Victor Lee Polk/MDOC
In 1993 a 17-year-old Flint youth named Victor Polk was charged, along with four other juveniles, for the armed robbery of a store and shooting death of a man.
He was subsequently convicted by a Genesee County jury for conspiracy to commit armed robbery and as the principal person responsible for the shooting. The four other juveniles were convicted of lesser offenses.
Polk was sentenced to life without parole (LWOP) for the shooting and life for the armed robbery. He is one of Michigan’s 367 juvenile lifers, people originally sentenced to LWOP for crimes they were convicted of committing when they were minors.
I met Polk when he first entered the prison system at the Michigan Reformatory (MR) in 1994 when he was 18 years old. MR was a medium security prison that housed incarcerated people between the ages of 16 and 25. At the time we met I was 21 and had already been incarcerated five years.
MR is one of only three completely walled prisons in Michigan. It was built in 1877 and its walls resemble those ringing a medieval castle. For decades it was referred to as “gladiator school” because of its reputation for being one of the most dangerous prisons in the state.
I was housed at MR three different times between 1989 and 1995. I first arrived at age 16 and was the youngest person there at the time. It was the first prison I went to after leaving the Reception and Guidance Center, where people initially go from the county jail to be processed into the prison system shortly after they are sentenced.
Michigan Reformatory at Ionia.
While at MR I witnessed dozens of stabbings and fights. It was common to observe officers perched on the prison roof carrying loaded rifles. They would occasionally shoot warning shots in an effort to stop people from harming one another if a conflict erupted on the prison yard.
Last year a person incarcerated at MR was shot through the shoulder by an officer from the rooftop during an incident involving an assault on the yard.
Polk and I interacted for the first time while participating in a study group together which taught us the value of self-knowledge, self-determination, cultural competence, spirituality, and social justice. It also introduced us to the role that politics and civic engagement play in our lives.
One of our most important takeaways from the group early on was that universes of opportunities are born whenever people open their hearts and minds and become receptive to new ideas.
Graduating class of MDOC prisoners.
Polk was a reserved person who displayed a quiet calmness. He was eager to learn, always attentive in our classes, and completed all assigned classwork. During the year we spent at MR together I had the opportunity to witness significant growth in him in just a short period of time.
Outside of class Polk and I would walk and talk on the yard about a variety of subjects. We talked about life in general, sports, music, where we were from, and things occurring inside the prison. He became one of many younger brothers and friends I would come to mentor over the years.
Over time I also came to discover that like me Polk, too, was sentenced to die in prison when he was a juvenile.
I left MR for the final time in 1995 and wouldn’t see Polk again for another 26 years. Though we were housed at separate prisons during that time, I monitored the trajectory of his growth and progress by talking to mutual friends who shared space with him at different prisons over the years.
We also occasionally wrote letters to each other before the practice of allowing people incarcerated in Michigan prisons to correspond with one another ended in 2009.
Polk continued to ameliorate his life despite living in a gray wasteland teeming with social toxins which devalues life and progression and is designed to extinguish the human spirit.
He demonstrated that we are all a work in progress. “[P]eople do not exist in an eternal moment … but are constantly changing their minds, projecting new actions into the world, learning and growing. We cannot reduce them to one moment only, to one crime or one good deed.” (Linda Ross Meyer, “Forgiveness and Public Trust,” 27 Fordham Urb. L.J. 1515, 1539 (2000)).
Research shows that sustained social isolation and living in an environment comprised of pathological and nihilistic elements can induce a diminution of meaning and self-worth.
Prisons are places where failure and degradation reign. I had seen the lives of incarcerated people ravaged far too many times, particularly the lives of young people, struggling to navigate the minefield of moral decay pervasive behind prison walls.
I was very cognizant that at any point despair or the misguided actions of others could send Polk in a downward spiral of self-destruction if he didn’t cultivate resiliency factors and remain self-disciplined.
Kuntrell Jackson and Evan Miller, each 14 at the times of their crimes in Arkansas and Alabama, were the defendants in historic Jackson v. Arkansas/ Miller v. Alabama ruling in 2012.
When we reconnected again in 2019, Polk and I walked together on a prison yard much different than the one we walked on decades earlier. The prison we are at now houses many older people, including the largest population of people serving life sentences in Michigan.
Polk and I caught up about events that had transpired in our lives during the past nearly three decades, including the delays we have both experienced waiting to be resentenced years after the 2012 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Miller v. Alabama.
The Miller v. Alabama case banned mandatory LWOP sentences for juvenile offenders. At the time of the ruling 2,500 people were impacted.
Trial courts were ordered to review each juvenile lifer case to determine whether their case reflected transient immaturity or they are the rare juvenile lifer who is irreparably corrupt and rehabilitation is impossible.
Four years later the U.S. Supreme Court in Montgomery v. Louisiana made clear how extraordinarily uncommon LWOP sentences should become by emphasizing six separate times throughout the opinion that the sentence is only constitutional for the “rare” juvenile.
Henry Montgomery, 17, booked into jail in East Baton Rouge Parish, Louisiana, accused of killing deputy sheriff in 1963.
The Court also mentioned eight times in the Montgomery ruling that LWOP is barred for all juvenile defendants except for those who have committed homicide, whose crimes reflect “permanent incorrigibility” and “irreparable corruption,” and for whom “rehabilitation is impossible.”
It added, “[Juvenile lifers] must be given the opportunity to show their crime did not reflect irreparable corruption; and if it did not, their hope for some years of life outside prison walls must be restored.”
In short, juvenile offenders who demonstrate the capacity for change and rehabilitation must receive new sentences that allow release consideration at some point in the future.
In speaking to Polk again in 2019, I observed firsthand he had continued evolving into a thoughtful, compassionate, and empathetic man. He was still making productive use of his time and using his choice architecture to effectuate transformational change.
Polk refused to allow himself to be defined by his crime or remain trapped in the past. He was now personifying the wisdom of Dr. Ashley E. Lucas, Professor, University of Michigan, who wrote in her illuminating book, “Prison Theatre and the Global Crisis of Incarceration” 145-146 (Methuen Drama: 2020):
“Human beings cannot grow or improve when they are tethered permanently and irrevocably to the past, when things that cannot be changed become the sum total of a person’s existence and their potential to be anything else in the future.”
I would often find Polk sitting alone on a picnic table or bench on the prison yard during afternoons watching cars drive. It was typical of him: still that reticent person I remembered many years earlier who found tranquility in his inner world.
During one of our conversations, Polk updated me about waiting to return to court to have his case evaluated for resentencing consideration based on the Miller v. Alabama ruling.
We had both experienced a series of delays because prosecutors in our counties were seeking LWOP sentences against us again rather than allowing us to receive new sentences that provide release consideration at some point in the future by the Parole Board.
The victim’s wife, son, and daughter in Polk’s case also understandably continued to oppose his release as they had since his arrest. The son and daughter were ages seven and five when the crime occurred.
After Polk’s 1993 trial the victim’s wife found purpose in her pain by becoming a nationally recognized champion for crime victim rights. She transformed her mourning into mission by initiating a statewide citizen petition for juvenile law reforms.
Pres. Bill Clinton signs 1994 Crime Bill. He says now he regrets doing so due to its escalation of mass incarceration.
She also used her voice to promote enactment of truth in sentencing laws ensuring that offenders serve their entire minimum sentence before being considered for release.
The year following the murder of her husband she was present at the White House for the signing of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 (the 1994 Crime Bill). The historic bill — comprised of 33 titles — was designed to reduce violent crime and increase punishment against perpetrators of violent crimes.
Signed into law by President Bill Clinton, the Crime Bill was and remains the single largest “sweeping piece of federal criminal justice legislation in U.S. history that touched nearly every function or initiative of the criminal justice system.” (Richard Rosenfeld, “The 1994 Crime Bill: Legacy and Lessons — Overview and Reflections,” 32 Fed. Sent. R. 147 (2020)).
7th Circuit of Michigan Judge Elizabeth A. Kelly
On October 8, 2020, Polk received a court hearing for a judge to consider whether his crime reflected transient immaturity, or he was the rare, irreparably corrupt juvenile offender who can never be rehabilitated. The hearing was presided over by Genesee County Trial Court Judge Elizabeth A. Kelly.
Judge Kelly heard testimony provided by expert witnesses on Polk’s behalf and considered a wealth of evidence of his change and rehabilitation. She subsequently issued a ruling February 1, 2021 dismissing the prosecutor’s motion seeking a LWOP sentence against him.
Her decision reflected the overwhelming majority of judges who have declared the extreme sentence of LWOP unconstitutional in 94% of juvenile lifer cases being evaluated for resentencing across the state.
Two months later Judge Kelly resentenced Polk on April 13, 2021 to two concurrent sentences of 28 to 60 years for both the homicide and conspiracy to commit armed robbery charges. He was supposed to be resentenced a month earlier but was delayed due to a scheduling conflict.
SECOND CHANCE: Victims joined families and supporters of juvenile lifers, to lobby the Michigan legislature in 2006 to end JLWOP. It wasn’t until the USSC outlawed it in 2012 and 2016 that they succeeded. Photo: Diane Bukowski
At the conclusion of his resentencing hearing, the prosecutor asked the judge if the victim’s family could speak to Polk off the record. After receiving permission from the judge, the widow, son, and daughter of the victim in his case each spoke to Polk.
Rather than unleashing a salvo of contemptuous words against Polk, the family forgave him and wished him well with his life. They also conveyed that their family member who died was a good man and asked Polk to honor him by living the remainder of his life like their family member would have.
At court hearing, father forgives man who killed his son in Virginia/Photo: Lexington Herald Leader
The son told Polk if not for the COVID-19 pandemic social distancing rules being in place he would have given him a hug.
The family demonstrated the embodiment of grace and compassion through their magnanimity and benevolence of their mercy. They were determined not to allow the resentencing hearing to become one more event added to the gallery of their grief.
It was a profoundly powerful and deeply moving moment, particularly in light of their previous seemingly implacable position that Polk remain behind bars until his life expired, and advocating for passage of legislation to ensure that that fate materialized.
The interface occurred between the victim’s family and Polk as he stood facing them handcuffed inside of the jury box. Only a short wooden wall separated them from one another.
Polk told me, “The family refused to be imprisoned by anger and hatred anymore that day. They taught me a powerful lesson about forgiveness and humanity that I’ll never forget. We cried together in the courtroom and I cried again this morning. It’s been overwhelming.”
In addition to the aforementioned details he shared with me, we discussed how decades-old trauma is reactivated during court hearings, and the heartbreak of observing the acute affliction that victim family members in our cases have endured due to the horror of violence.
Naji Abi-Hashem
“Sudden losses, unexpected traumas, and intrusive tragedies … are difficult to handle and process. They can be … destabilizing and devastating to the whole person, family, organization, or community.” (Naji Abi-Hashem, “Grief, Bereavement, and Traumatic Stress,” 32 Issues L. & Med. 245 (2017)).
Trauma and its baneful aftermath often shakes human life to its core. Crime survivors are left reeling in agony whenever they or someone they love suffers harm. Pernicious acts against them are indelibly seared into their souls. They “mark their memories forever and chang[e] their future identity in fundamental and irrevocable ways.” (Jeffrey C. Alexander, “The Meanings of Social Life: A Cultural Sociology” 3 (2003)).
No person should ever have their life desecrated, violently disrupted, or cut short because of another person’s virulent behavior. Every life is sacred and deserves to be respected and valued.
Polk went on to share his plans to live with the grandmother who raised him in the same childhood bedroom he slept in prior to his 1993 arrest. His grandmother has preserved the bedroom for him for nearly three decades.
She found it too painful to discard any of its contents all these years. They were tangible memories she clung to that helped her cope with his absence and allowed her to maintain a connection to him.
When asked about his post-release plans, Polk remarked that he wants to work full-time and further his education. He also wants to live a life of service to others by participating in activities to help improve his community in Flint.
Flint mother and children at meeting on poisoned water lawsuit settlement.
According to Polk, “More than anything I want to help my grandmother who stood by and supported me all these years. I want to be there to help her do things like throw out her trash, help her clean the house, and buy her gifts on Mother’s Day.”
He added, “I want to do the small things many people take for granted. I’m not thinking about big things. I’ll be grateful to just live a simple life and celebrate my freedom every day.”
Since he has served 27 years in prison Polk will become eligible for parole consideration within the next year.
In his 2017 Harvard Law Review article titled, “The President’s Role in Advancing Criminal Justice Reform,” President Barack Obama wrote:
“How we treat those who have made mistakes speaks to who we are as a society and is a statement about our values — about our dedication to fairness, equality, and justice, and about how to protect our families and communities from harm, heal after loss and trauma, and lift back up those among us who have earned a chance at redemption.”
When he is eventually paroled Polk will experience freedom for the first time in his adult life. He looks forward to that day and is committed to living a meaningful and productive life of purpose.
Even if his fresh start begins with cleaning out his childhood bedroom and replacing his belongings with items he will now need as an adult mid-way into his 40s.
Efren Paredes was a 15-year old honor student in Berrien County when he was falsely charged with first degree murder in the death of a store proprietor. He still awaits re-sentencing under U.S. Supreme Court rulings barring mandatory JLWOP sentences for children.
(Efrén Paredes, Jr. is a blogger, thought leader, social justice changemaker, and Michigan juvenile lifer who has been incarcerated 32 years. You can find links to his writings, TV news/radio/podcast interviews, and activism by visiting http://fb.com/Free.Efren.)
Voice of Detroit is a pro bono newspaper. VOD’s editors and reporters, most of whom live on fixed incomes or are incarcerated, are not paid for their work. Ongoing costs include quarterly web charges of $380, P.O. box fee of $150/yr. and costs for research including court records, and internet fees, as well as office supplies, gas, etc.
International Commission of Inquiry on Systemic Racist Police Violence on People of African Descent in the United States:
“The purpose of the Commission of Inquiry on Systemic Racial Police Violence is to examine whether widespread and systematic racist violence in policing against people of African descent in the United States of America (U.S.) has resulted in a continuing pattern of gross and reliably attested violations of human rights and fundamental freedoms. The Commissioners find a pattern and practice of racist police violence in the U.S. in the context of a history of oppression dating back to the extermination of First Nations peoples, the enslavement of Africans, the militarization of U.S. society, and the continued perpetuation of structural racism.”
Commissioners call on Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court in the Hague to Open Investigation Aimed at Bringing Charges
George Floyd (l) murdered by Derek Chauvin(r) May 25, 2020
NEW YORK– A week after the former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin was convicted of murder in George Floyd’s death, the unabated epidemic of police killings of Black men and women in the US has now attracted scorching international attention.
In a devastating report running to 188 pages, human rights experts from 11 countries hold the US accountable for what they say is a long history of violations of international law that rise in some cases to the level of crimes against humanity.
They point to what they call “police murders” as well as “severe deprivation of physical liberty, torture, persecution and other inhuman acts” as systematic attacks on the Black community that meet the definition of such crimes.
They also call on the prosecutor of the international criminal court (ICC) in The Hague to open an immediate investigation with a view to prosecutions.
Photo: Mothers Against Police Brutality
“This finding of crimes against humanity was not given lightly, we included it with a very clear mind,” Hina Jilani, one of the 12 commissioners who led the inquiry, told the Guardian. “We examined all the facts and concluded that that there are situations in the US that beg the urgent scrutiny of the ICC.”
Hina Jilani
The report arose directly out of the foment that swept the country in the wake of Floyd’s murder last May. As protests erupted across the nation and around the world, the families of Floyd and other Black people killed by police in recent years petitioned the UN to set up an official inquiry into the shootings.
Under intense pressure from the Trump administration, however, the UN shrank from being drawn into the debate. A coalition of three leading lawyers’ organizations – the US-based National Conference of Black Lawyers and the National Lawyers Guild, and the worldwide International Association of Democratic Lawyers – stepped into the breach, joining forces to stage their own independent inquiry into US police brutality.
A panel of commissioners from Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean was assembled to look into police violence, and the structural racism that underpins it. Virtual public hearings were held earlier this year, with testimony from the families of the victims of some of the most notorious police killings in recent times.
Protest against police murder of Daunte Wright in suburban Minneapolis April 16, 2021
Jilani told the Guardian that as a native of Pakistan who has participated in many UN investigations probing human rights abuses, she is familiar with accounts of extreme brutality by law enforcement. “But even I found the testimonies we heard in the US extremely distressing. I was taken aback that this country, which claims to be a global champion of human rights, itself fails to comply with international law.”
Aiyana Jones’ family members protest outside courthouse Mar. 8, 2013.
The report gives its own searing figures. Unarmed Black people are almost four times as likely as their white equivalents to be killed by police.
Since 2005, about 15,000 people have been killed by law enforcement – a rate of about 1,000 every year. During that same period only 104 police officers have been charged with murder or manslaughter in relation to the incidents, and of those only 35 were convicted of any crime.
The commissioners make a number of demands on the US government and Congress. They want to see demilitarization of local police forces, and prohibition of no-knock warrants that allow officers to raid the homes of Black people like Breonna Taylor’s without warning and often without cause.
They also want an end to qualified immunity through which police officers avoid civil lawsuits. The commissioners say the loophole “amounts to condoning brutal police violence”.
But the most contentious demand is likely to be the call on the ICC prosecutor to launch an investigation against the US for crimes against humanity.
ABOVE: FULL PRESS CONFERENCE BY THE INT’L COMMISSION OF INQUIRY ON SYSTEMIC RACIST POLICE VIOLENCE IN UNITED STATES
As Detroit awaited verdict in George Floyd murder trial, DPD killed 2 men with alleged mental health issues April 19 and April 20
DPD Chief James Craig conducted ‘scare’ campaign anticipating violent protests, attacked U.S. Reps. Maxine Waters, Rashida Tlaib for their comments
Mainstream media prominently featured DPD allies Min. Malik Shabazz and Cease Fire in its coverage leading up to the verdict
Wayne Co. Pros. Kym Worthy paved the way for Craig’s scare tactics, announcing no charges would be filed in Hakim Littleton’s death July 10, 2020, which family still says was self-defense
By Diane Bukowski
April 23, 2021 Updated April 30, 2021
Screenshot of Final Call front cover dated 4/27/21
DETROIT—In the weeks leading up to the three guilty verdicts rendered against Derek Chauvin April 20 for the gruesome torture/murder of George Floyd last year in Minneapolis, Detroit law enforcement leaders evidently conspired with mainstream news outlets to create an atmosphere of police terror here.
The resulting fear on both sides may have led to the police killings of two still-unnamed Detroit men with mental health issues, on April 19 and April 20, the day of the verdict.
Police said the first man died, allegedly after shooting at officers, after a chase they said wound from the city’s far west side through downtown Detroit, ending on the city’s far east side. Police claimed the second man, “violent male-mental,” stabbed himself and an officer, who was then shot by “friendly fire” from another officer in the chaos. A police “strike force” evidently without qualified mental health personnel. was reportedly involved.
U.S. Reps. Maxine Waters, Rashida Tlaib and DPD Chief James Craig
Detroit Police Chief James Craig mounted a constant scare campaign in the media prior to the Minneapolis verdict, warning of violent protests in the city’s streets whether or not Chauvin was found guilty. He also launched attacks on U.S. Representatives Rashida Tlaib (Detroit) and Maxine Waters (Los Angeles) for comments on the police murder of Daunte Wright in suburban Minneapolis.
Craig’s attacks were aired on Fox News, previously an ardent supporter of former Pres. Donald Trump and a frequent host of Craig’s. Craig echoed Chauvin’s defense attorney’s claims that comments by the two progressive women leaders’ were confrontational and anti-police. But Hennepin County Judge Peter Cahill denied his motion for a mistrial, and then the Chauvin jury rendered three resounding verdicts of “GUILTY.”
Supporting Craig and others, Detroit Min. Malik Shabazz alleged that protesters would likely chant, “Burn, Baby, Burn,” while the group Cease Fire Youth Initiative, Inc. claimed that Detroit Will Breathe protesters were nothing but “agitators.” Shabazz is a long-time supporter of Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan, who strongly supports Craig’s policies, and a co-founder of the Detroit 300, a paramilitary-style organization with ties to the Detroit Police Department. Neither organization publishes financial reports that show who funds their work. The Detroit 300 has been sued for assaulting civilians on DPD’s behalf. See: Family suing community activist group, Detroit police (clickondetroit.com)
Detroit cops pepper spray protester held on ground Aug. 22, 2020 Photo: Adam J. Dewey
However, during the months of “Detroit Will Breathe’ marches after George Floyd’s murder May 25 last year, the only violence evident was that inflicted on protesters by heavily armed squads of police with armored vehicles, who shot rubber bullets, tear gas and pepper spray and mercilessly beat marchers without apparent provocation.
“We are watching the next generation of civil rights leaders being demonized by those in positions of power and the media,” Tlaib said last year. “You can’t deny the facts. Peaceful protesters were violently assaulted, run over and tear gassed by our police department during one of the largest social justice mobilizations of our lifetime. These attacks were carried out while many of the leaders and representatives of [Detroit] applauded their actions or stood by in silent approval.”
WHERE ARE THE NAMES OF THE TEN OFFICERS SHOWN ON POLICE VIDEOS, THE NAMES OF THE WITNESSES AND THEIR COMPLETE WRITTEN STATEMENTS REGARDING THE KILLING OF HAKIM LITTLETON? WHERE ARE THE ORIGINAL INDIVIDUAL BODYCAM AND DASHCAM VIDEOES OF THIS EVENT? HAVE THE COPS KILLED OTHERS IN THE PAST, AND WILL THEY GO ON TO KILL MORE?
Three weeks earlier, apparently out of the blue, Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy announced April 7 that police would not be charged for last year’s killing of Hakim Littleton, 20 on July 10, 2020. His death led to large protests and a call by the Detroit Coalition for Police Accountability and Transparency (DCPAT) for an independent inquiry. No such official inquiry has taken place, although DCPAT held its own people’s forum Oct 25, 2020. (See video at end of story.)
“After a thorough investigation of the case by the Michigan State Police (MSP), the Detroit Police Department (DPD) Homicide Task Force, and an independent review of the case by the WCPO Public Integrity Unit (PIU), it has been determined that no charges will be issued against the three officers involved in the fatal shooting of Hakim Littleton,” Worthy said. “The police were acting in lawful self-defense and defense of others.”
The WCPO Public Integrity Unit operates directly under Worthy’s supervision, calling into question how “independent” its review was. Worthy prefaced her statement by claiming that she has always held police officers accountable for killings, since her role as assistant prosecutor against Larry Nevers and Walter Budzyn for the death of Malice Green in 1992. See http://voiceofdetroit.net/wp-content/uploads/DETROITERS-KILLED-BY-POLICE-SINCE-1992-1-merged.pdf.
Since she took office in 2004, Worthy has not brought a single murder charge against a Detroit police officer in the deaths of dozens of civilians. This reporter covered the cases of every individual in the photo above for the Michigan Citizen and for VOD and their families’ pleas that Worthy bring charges, which she ignored.
Aiyana Jones, 7 (l) was shot to death by DPD officer Joseph Weekley (r) May 16, 2010.
Even After Aiyana Jones, 7, was killed in a police military-style raid on her home in 2010, it was Third Circuit Court Judge Timothy Kenny who brought involuntary manslaughter charges against Joseph Weekley. Weekley shot the child at close range in the head with a submachine gun immediately after a flash bang was thrown into the home and the door was broken down.
Numerous police officers and a firearms expert testified that Weekley could not have accidentally discharged his weapon, but he walked after Judge Cynthia Gray-Hathaway declared two mistrials. Aiyana’s father is still in prison for the killing of Je’Rean Blake two days earlier. His conviction was based primarily on the testimony of two jail-house snitches.
Littleton’s family and DCPAT have called for the release of the names of the officers involved in Littleton’s killing last July 20, unedited versions of DPD bodycam videos of the event, and other information. Worthy released neither the names of 10 officers seen on the videos or of witnesses, nor complete statements by them. Likewise, DPD has not released to date the names of three other men killed by DPD in the two weeks after Littleton’s death. Legal experts say this violates the constitutional rights of victims and families, as well as the public, which funds law enforcement agencies at all levels.
Photo from WCPO power point shows Hakim Littleton crouching to his left, where Gang Squad cops hid behind bushes ready to fire, not visible from the street.
With no direct evidence other than blurry video screenshots, Worthy claimed Littleton kept firing his gun after he was shot several times and fell to the ground, where he was straddled by one of the officers.
The DCPAT earlier published a video analysis of the police bodycam videos provided by Craig after Littleton’s death, which centered on the claim that police kicked away his gun before he was shot in the head at close range. The new screenshots show a vague mark next to Littleton’s hand that might or might not have been a gun, or might or might not have been doctored, just before an officer shot him in the head at point-blank range.
In addition to the Facebook video of the press conference, the WCPO provided a power point presentation. Among other exhibits, it includes a photo (left) selected from police bodycam videos. It allegedly shows Littleton pulling out his gun, but it also shows him bending to his left and observing other well-armed cops hidden behind the bushes, not seen in views from the street. See http://voiceofdetroit.net/wp-content/uploads/WCPO-Hakim-Littleton-Presentation2-PDF.pdf
Littleton’s family has said all along he drew his gun in self-defense, fearing for his life, as millions of other people of color and poor people have feared for their lives over hundreds of years.
Worthy claimed to have no ready knowledge regarding why a large heavily-armed squad of police, many with “Gang Intel” T-shirts, were present at the scene to arrest Darnell Wayne Sylvester, 20, shown in the video on the ground in a white T-shirt. DPD Chief Craig had claimed police were canvassing neighborhoods related to the shooting, allegedly gang-related, of several people at a neighborhood block party two weeks previously. Littleton’s girl friend told WWJ-Radio in the broadcast above that he was with her and was not in the location of the block party.
North Dakota U.S. Federal District Court
Sylvester was detained by police on on a federal arrest warrant issued in the District of North Dakotaby the Bismarck Police Department, according to federal and state court records.
The Bismarck PD claimed he had been charged federally with conspiracy to distribute drugs, but their records show he was released from North Dakota on a $500 bond for the charge of “giving false info to police.” He had a hearing in federal court in Detroit after his arrest July 10, 2020, and was released from there on a $5,000 “unsecured” bond with the understanding that he would return to North Dakota for further proceedings. One hearing scheduled there was postponed, and no further information has been available from court records.
On April 6, the day before Worthy’s press conference, Fox2News Detroit aired an interview with Littleton’s brother (below):
The DC-PAT reacted on its website, “Since the July 10 killing, Detroiters have been given three conflicting official stories of the incident: Chief Craig presented one set of ‘facts’ at his press conference immediately following the killing on July 10. On August 5, in statements to the Detroit News, Chief Craig presented a different set of ‘facts.’ Now Prosecutor Worthy has presented a third, different set of ‘facts.’ There are multiple contradictions and inconsistencies among these three sets of ‘facts’. . .”
Craig’s first version was presented July 10, 2020 below:
It led to an analysis published by the DCPAT which pointed to the “kill shot” aimed at Littleton’s head, the 10th bullet fired in the incident. The DCPAT questioned whether it was necessary to “execute” Littleton after he had been shot three times and collapsed on the ground. Seconds after his collapse, an officer is seen running up to Littleton on the ground and aimed his gun directly at the back of Littleton’s head, a shot confirmed by the official autopsy report. Click on Watch on You Tube below, video will appear after warning statements.
But the mainstream media as a whole acquiesced to Worthy’s updated version of events, which conflicted with two earlier versions issued by Craig and Worthy. The media abandoned any challenge or further investigation. It played the same role in Detroit during the weeks leading up to the Minneapolis jury’s 3 X GUILTY verdict in the death of George Floyd.
See Channel 7’s coverage of DCPAT’s press conference on the Hakim Littleton killing in 2020, and video of Oct. 25, 2020 Hakim Littleton People’s Tribunal.
Editor: The first episode of “Philly D.A.” on PBS, aired on April 20, 2021, was published on YouTube, so VOD is providing it here for our readers to watch. There are eight episodes, to be aired on coming Tuesdays at 9 PM EST. Please be sure to watch. This is a stunning documentary which validates years of stories in Voice of Detroit regarding wrongful convictions in Michigan.
VOD has called for charges and disciplinary action against police and assistant prosecutors responsible for such convictions, with no action to date. This may be the ONLY way to stop such horrific miscarriages of justice, which have resulted in THOUSANDS of people still serving up to 50 years in prison, estimated at up to 30 percent and more of MDOC’s population.
WRONGFULLY CONVICTED IN MICHIGAN: (L to R) Thelonious Searcy, Darrell Ewing, Derrico Searcy, Ricky Rimmer-Bey, Carl Hubbard, David Shelton, and Temujin Kens
See links to VOD’s most recent stories on wrongful convictions in Wayne, Oakland and St. Clair Counties below. The men in the photos above are still incarcerated in the MDOC, EXCEPT for Thelonious “Shawn” Searcy (see photos below), released on bond April 20, pending the Wayne County Prosecutor’s decision on appeal.
Thelonious Searcy with his attorney Michael Dezsi (l) and (r) with legal advisor Travis Herndon, who worked with Searcy on the 2016 pro se motion which led to his release on bond April 20, 2021.
VOD broke Searcy’s story and followed up with numerous articles beginning in 2017. Admitted hitman Vincent Smothers testified during a 2018 evidentiary hearing that HE committed the murder for which Shawn served 17 years in the MDOC. Other testimony at that hearing and in a Michigan Court of Appeals ruling exposed the deceitful roles trial judge Timothy Kenny and AP Patrick Muscat played in the frame-up.
VOD also covered the stories of many of those released after intervention by the Wayne County Conviction Integrity Unit. VOD stories on those released and those still incarcerated include the names of police and prosecutors responsible for the wrongful convictions, located after VOD’s research.
Protesters advance on Brookyn Center Police Department April 13 after white cop killed young father Daunte Wright.
See New York Times article, “Throughout Trial Over George Floyd’s Death, Killings by Police Mount” dated April 17, 2021.
“Since testimony began on March 29, at least 64 people have died at the hands of law enforcement nationwide, with Black and Latino people representing more than half of the dead. As of Saturday, the average was more than three killings a day.”
The Black-murder-by-cop next door to Minneapolis shows the world the dehumanization that is built into the white supremacist DNA of settler-colonialism will continue to produce crimes against our collective humanity.
“The murder of George Floyd was no more an aberration in U.S. society than the election of Donald Trump in 2016 was.”
The fix was in. The U.S. state was determined to demonstrate to the world that its system was able to render “justice” to its captive African/Black population.
So, unlike in the handful of cases where charges were brought against police officers for killing a Black or Brown person, the prosecutors this time did not pretend to follow the demands of the ill-informed public to bring charges of first degree or second-degree murder that would set a bar for conviction so high, it could not be met. That is a favorite strategy of prosecutors when conviction is not what they are looking for.
Former NBA star Stephen Jackson grew up with George Floyd in Houston, TX. and maintained a close friendship with him throughout their lives.
The prosecutors in the Derek Chauvin case did the opposite. They stacked the charges in a way that would make it impossible to escape a conviction. And everyone fell in line because the stakes were so high. Could the Shining City on the Hill, whose leadership was now associated with the “decent” Democrats, render justice for the killer of George Floyd? The answer to that question was going to be an emphatic yes. The press committed to gavel-to-gavel coverage and everything was ready for one of the greatest show trials of U.S. history.
But the intractable, racist nature of the relationship between Black people and the U.S. settler-colonial state reared its ugly head again and everything went off script right in the middle of the international production. That is because another young Black male was gunned down, ironically in the same metropolitan area where Floyd’s life was snatched from him.
“Everything went off script right in the middle of the international production.”
Everything was now confused again. What would justice mean for Floyd and any other Black individual murdered or assaulted by agents of the state even if Chauvin is convicted? Would the call for “justice” now just mean a demand for a trial since it is clear cases of Black murder will continue, as they have since the inception of this nation? Is that not what made the U.S. “exceptional” as the first republic ever established on the basis of race in human history?
The ruling class response to Covid-19 demonstrated how cheap life is in the United States, but the lives of Black people are even lower on the scale of human value. Yet, the charade continues. U.S. authorities gun down Black people in the United States, while its armies kill Black and other colonized peoples and nations around the world in the name of advancing democracy.
Extreme, systematic, murderous violence has always been at the heart of the white supremacist settler project.
Everyone knows really that the murder of George Floyd was no more an aberration in U.S. society than the election of Donald Trump in 2016 was. Extreme, systematic, murderous violence has always been at the heart of the white supremacist settler project. The Chauvin show trial was just supposed to help us to forget that for a moment.
It did not matter that no one was held accountable for the murder of Freddie Gray, Breonna Taylor, Tamir Rice, or the now countless murders where local prosecutors failed to bring charges and the government under the Obama and Trump administrations made political decisions not to launch federal investigations.
This case was different. It could not be ignored or explained away. The world had seen the gruesome snuff film of George Floyd that evoked global revulsion. (Above–click on “Watch on YouTube.” An inflection point had been reached in which the U.S. brand was potentially damaged beyond repair—so a sacrifice was required.
With the killing of Daunte Wright, a mistrial may not be the result and Chauvin will probably be convicted. That conviction, however, will not have the effect that the plan had originally imagined. Out of the confusion around what is to be demanded when the killings continue, is the slow awakening to the unavoidable reality that unless African/Black people are able to self-govern and exercise authentic collective self-determination, the degradation and dehumanization that is built into the white supremacist DNA of settler-colonialism will continue to produce Breonna Taylors, Eric Garners, mass incarceration, and crimes against our collective humanity.
And how do we shift that power? Malcolm X gave us a direction from the radical Black human rights tradition. He said you must be ready to pay the price required to experience full dignity as a person and as members of a self-determinant people.
And what is that price?
“The price to make others respect your human rights is death. You have to be ready to die… it’s time for you and me now to let the world know how peaceful we are, how well-meaning we are, how law-abiding we wish to be. But at the same time, we have to let the same world know we’ll blow their world sky-high if we’re not respected and recognized and treated the same as other human beings are treated.” That outcome cannot be scripted by Hollywood or the state propagandists.
Ajamu Baraka, Black Alliance for Peace
Ajamu Baraka is the national organizer of the Black Alliance for Peace and was the 2016 candidate for vice president on the Green Party ticket. Baraka serves on the Executive Committee of the U.S. Peace Council and leadership body of the United National Anti-War Coalition (UNAC). He is an editor and contributing columnist for the Black Agenda Report and contributing columnist for Counterpunch.
Interviewed on his release from prison Feb. 4, 2021, Larry Smith gave full statement (at top) listing many others still locked up who should be freed
Larry Smith, Ramon Ward and Bernard Howard were featured in an investigative interview (bottom), by Channel 7’s Ross Jones April 14, 2021
Ricardo Ferrell, VOD Field Editor
Many who viewed Channel 7’s broadcast April 14 may not have seen Larry Smith’s complete statement on his release, featured in a Facebook live video by Kimberly Craig. VOD downloaded a clip from that video as shown at top.
One of the people Smith listed is Ricardo Ferrell, VOD Field Editor, who is incarcerated at Gus Harrison Correctional Facility, where Smith and Ferrell formed a firm friendship. Ferrell is currently facing unconstitutional limitations of his access to communication outlets including JPay.
Many recent JPay’s sent to him from various journalists have been rejected “due to content.” VOD referred his case to the Michigan ACLU, which earlier won a lawsuit for Sharee Miller, a woman at MDOC’s Huron Valley Women’s Correctional Facility, as included in Ferrell’s last story on Voice of Detroit. See:
VOD has covered the wrongful convictions of (l to r) Thelonious Searcy, Darrell Ewing, Derrico Searcy, Ricky Rimmer-Bey, Carl Hubbard, David Shelton, and Temujin Kensu
Also read VOD’s stories on the wrongful convictions of the individuals shown above, which have exposed police officers and assistant prosecutors by name, responsible for many other wrongful convictions: Thelonious Searcy, Darrell Ewing, Derrico Searcy, Ricky Rimmer-Bey, Carl Hubbard, David Shelton, and Temujin Kensu.
Judge Thomas Hathaway at Searcy appeal bond hearing March 1, 2021.
Thelonious “Shawn” Searcy should have been released to home confinement on bond April 5, pending any appeals of a victorious Feb. 11 order by the Michigan Court of Appeals. Wayne Co. Circuit Court Judge Thomas Hathaway ordered the bond March 1, but his release has been inexplicably delayed.
Ewing and Searcy are awaiting a court hearing May 19, 2021 at 9 a.m. in the courtroom of Judge Darnella Williams-Clayborne. The hearing will determine whether they will be retried after a victorious COA ruling which the Michigan Supreme Court declined to upset on appeal by the prosecutor. Their original date of April 13 was postponed due to COVID-19 quarantine restrictions.
See stories related to still-incarcerated individuals:
Attorney Lillian Diallo (center) celebrates with families of Darrell Ewing and Derrico Searcy after the two won a new trial in front of Judge Michael Hathaway Oct. 24, 2019. Darrell Ewing’s mother LaSonya Dodson is at top, center. Judge Darnella Williams-Claybourne appointed Diallo to represent Searcy beginning April 13, 2021. VOD photo
UPDATE: HEARING POSTPONED to MAY 19 @9AM
Atty: Court says that’s the next available date due to necessity for COVID-19 quarantine.
Darrell Ewing, Derrico Searcy finally scheduled to appear for new trial Tues. April 13, @1:30pm, after orders by 8 state, federal judges in 4 courts
Families hope prosecutor will move to dismiss charges due to trial jury misconduct, and because another man confessed to murder of J.B. Watson
During trial, AP Kam Towns would not take confession affidavit
Hearing in front of WCCC Judge Darnella Williams-Clayborne, appointed to bench last year by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, later elected
DETROIT–Eight judges in four courts have ordered a new trial for Detroiters Darrell Ewing and Derrico Searcy since their murder convictions in 2009, citing jury misconduct and a lack of “overwhelming” evidence of guilt.
In the wake of a Michigan Supreme Court ruling March 2 denying the prosecution’s last appeal, they will finally appear by Zoom in front of Wayne Co. Circuit Court Judge Darnella Williams-Claybourne Tues. April 13 at 1:30 P.M.
If Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy does not move to dismiss the charges, a date for the new trial should be set.
At trial, prosecutors ignored Tyree Washingon’s confession in a sworn affidavit to the 2009 drive-by murder of J.B. Watson, for which Ewing and Searcy were convicted. In the affidavit given to AP Kam Towns, Washington said he retaliated because Watson earlier shot at his child and her mother. A documented FBI confidential informant also testified on the stand that his cousin and Washington were responsible for Watson’s murder.
Tyree Washington (l), AP Kam Towns (r)
“At the time I took responsibility for Mr. Watson’s murder, I signed a sworn affidavit and it was given to Kam Towns, the prosecutor handling Mr. Ewing’s case during Mr. Ewing’s trial,” Washington said in his affidavit. “My attorney delivered the affidavit to Ms. Towns and told her I wanted to testify. Ms. Towns’ response was that she already had the perpetrators she was looking for and did not need me to testify.”
The prosecutor’s theory of the case was that Washington had confessed due to a “gang hierarchy,” which was not actually testified to at trial. But several jury members picked up the ball, introducing research on urban gangs from the internet and social media into their deliberations to discount Washington’s confession. U.S. District Judge Denise Page Hood first ordered a new trial in 2017 because of that unlawful introduction of “extraneous information.”
The Michigan Supreme Court ruled July 31, 2020, in the case of Robin Emanuel Hammock that witness affidavits like Washington’s must be submitted to the trier of fact, the jury, not rejected because the life experiences of court officers differ from those of the affiant. http://voiceofdetroit.net/wp-content/uploads/MSC-People-v-Hammock-7-31-2020.pdf
Michigan Supreme Court Justice Megan Cavanagh.
Justice Megan Cavanagh, supported by Justice Richard Bernstein, said that a witness account of the murders involved in the case should have been submitted at trial.
“And yet, it is true that people in prison run into past acquaintances, that some people serving long prison sentences spend long hours in the law library falling down legal rabbit holes, and that some of those people were selling marijuana at 2 a.m. when they were 13 years old,” Justice Cavanagh wrote. “These experiences are unlike my own, and though I cannot speak for him, they may also be unlike Justice MARKMAN’s. But maybe for exactly that reason the judicial function in this matter is not to pass on the credibility of [affiant] Carter’s story, but only to ask ‘whether a reasonable juror could find the testimony credible on retrial,’ Johnson, 502 Mich at 567 (emphasis altered).”
“My son is innocent,” Ewing’s mother LaSonya Dodson told VOD after Wayne Co. Circuit Court Judge Michael Hathaway ordered a new trial Oct. 24, 2019. “He has lost over 10 years of his life, 10 years of his family’s life. This affects the whole family, my daughters, my sisters, everyone.”
The families of both men say they have agonized because the two contracted the coronavirus while in prison. Michigan prisons nationally have the highest COVID-19 infection rate, 76 in 100 as compared to 8 in 100 in the general population, according to an April 10, 2021 article in the New York Times.
From the New York Times, April 10, 2021
Twenty-four men serving time at Lakeland Correctional Facility (LCF), where Ewing is serving a life without parole sentence, have died from the coronavirus, the highest number of deaths in individual Michigan Department of Corrections (MDOC) facilities. Searcy is serving his 40-60 year sentence at Bellamy Creek Correctional Facility (BCF). There, 90 new cases of the likely more contagious United Kingdom (UK) coronavirus variant were identified in February, half of the cases in Michigan’s entire population at the time. Searcy contracted that variant.
Judges on Darrell Ewing/Derrico Searcy case. Judge Wms.-Clayborne (top r) to hear case 4/13/21
After the Oct. 24, 2019 evidentiary hearing, ordered by U.S. District Court Chief Judge Denise Page Hood, Hathaway ruled that jury deliberations at the 2009 trial were contaminated by “extraneous information” about urban gangs from social media and the internet, introduced by jurors into deliberations.
The prosecution had posited that the murder resulted from a gang war, but no one testified to that effect at trial.
Judge Hathaway also said that evidence of guilt at the trial was not “overwhelming.” His ruling was strongly upheld by a state Court of Appeals panel October 13, 2020.
The COA panel said in part, “Juror [Kathleen] Byrnes testified that she was unsure whether Searcy and Ewing were guilty and that she was the holdout juror that caused the jury to report a deadlock. Byrnes found particularly troubling the testimony that Washington had confessed to the crime Ewing was accused of. According to Byrnes, another juror, Karen James, researched information about gangs and gang hierarchies on the Internet and reported her findings to Byrnes during deliberation.”
Former TV News reporter Scott Lewis interviewed Tyree Washington about the murder of J.B. Watson in 2009.
Voice of Detroit is a pro bono newspaper. VOD’s editors and reporters, most of whom live on fixed incomes or are incarcerated, are not paid for their work. Ongoing costs include quarterly web charges of $380, P.O. box fee of $150/yr. and costs for research including court records, and internet fees, as well as office supplies, gas, etc.
Wayne Co. APA Patrick Muscat, at right, prosecuted (l to r) Kenneth Nixon and Davontae Sanford, now considered wrongfully convicted, and Thelonious ‘Shawn” Searcy, who won definitive Feb. 11 COA ruling granting a new trial.
Nixon freed Feb. 18, 2021 after 15 years in MDOC; “questionable trial testimony” from jail-house informant Stanley January, Jr. cited
Memos show Kym Worthy’s APA Patrick Muscat, Deputy Chief of Special Operations, pressed DPD to interview Nixon’s “cellmates”
APA Muscat prosecuted Davontae Sanford, Thelonious “Shawn” Searcy high-profile cases; Sanford freed 2015, COA ordered new trial for Searcy Feb. 11, 2021
Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office has brought no charges against other AP’s, police who participated in concocting cases against its 28 exonerees
Three strikes and you’re out? PA District Attorney Larry Krasner fired 31 Asst. DA’s in 2018 citing their involvement in wrongful convictions
By Diane Bukowski
April 5, 2021
Updated April 8, 2021
DETROIT— Did Wayne County Asst. Prosecutor Patrick Muscat, Kym Worthy’s Deputy Chief of Special Prosecutions, suborn perjury from jail-house “snitch” Stanley January, Jr. during the 2005 trial of Kenneth Nixon, then 19? Nixon was convicted and given life without parole for the widely-publicized fire-bombing murders of two young children.
“As of today, I’m a 32-year-old man that has spent all of my 20’s incarcerated for a crime that I didn’t commit,” Nixon, who maintained his innocence from the outset, told the Detroit Free Press in 2018. “I was robbed of my youth at an age where I was really learning to discover what being a man was, being a father was, being an adult was.”
Wayne Third Judicial Circuit Court Judge Bruce Morrow vacated Nixon’s conviction and life LWOP sentence Feb. 18 after Nixon spent over 15 years in prison. Worthy’s Conviction Integrity Unit cited questionable trial testimony from jail-house informant Stanley January, Jr., and a 13-year-old eyewitness, the brother of the children who died.
They were Raylond McCulley, 10, and and his 18-month-old sister, Tamyah Vaughn.
Nixon is now free, re-building his life, and awaiting the outcome of further legal action on his case, including a civil lawsuit. No one else has been charged in the fire-bombing.
The 2018 Free Press article cited a memo from Muscat requesting that DPD officers “interview both defendants’ cellmates” after they termed the 13-year-old’s testimony contradictory and unreliable. The 13-year-old was the brother of the victims. Nixon’s co-defendant was his girl friend LaToya Caulford, who was acquitted by a separate jury after their trial.
Kenneth Nixon on his release Feb. 18, 2021/Facebook
VOD obtained a copy of the original memo, dated Aug. 5, 2005, from Muscat to Lt. James Tolbert, then homicide division chief. He has since been placed on the Wayne County Prosecutor’s “Brady-Giglio” list of untrustworthy police officers due to his role in the 2008 wrongful conviction of 14-year-old Davontae Sanford. He resigned afterwards.
Alexandre Ansari
DPD Sgt. Moises Jimenez was the Chief Investigating Officer (CIO) in Nixon’s case as well as the case of another wrongfully convicted Detroiter, Alexandre Ansari, released in 2019. In that case, he identified Ansari based on a tip using a common nickname for the killer which applied to others as well.
Jimenez interviewed January in May 2005, but did not report the interview until Aug. 30, 2005, after Muscat requested it Aug. 3 in the memo below. January testified on the last day of Nixon’s trial in September, 2005.
Jimenez is still with DPD, although federal lawsuits citing him as defendant are pending in both Nixon and Ansari’s cases. He is not on the prosecutor’s “Giglio-Brady” list.
Detroit Police Officer Kurtiss Staples had warned Tolbert that the case “was in jeopardy” because of contradictory statements from the 13-year-old child. Prosecutor Muscat nevertheless called him to the stand at Nixon’s trial, and used Stanley January Jr.’s testimony on the last day of the trial. See: http://voiceofdetroit.net/wp-content/uploads/Staples-memo-Kenneth-Nixon2-pdf.pdf
Former DPD Cdr. James Tolbert, current Det. Moises Jimenez
The National Registry of Exonerations reported that, “On August 3, 2005—with trial looming in about six weeks, assistant prosecutor Muscat wrote a memo to Tolbert noting that “to be blunt, the case has problems.” On August 30, 2005—27 days later—Detective Jimenez said January revealed for the first time the conversation he claimed to have had with Nixon back in May during which Nixon confessed to the crime.”
The NRE noted further that a statement from another prisoner, filed with Nixon’s federal habeas appeal, cast more doubt on the validity of January’s testimony.
“The inmate, Paul Crump, provided a statement saying that January admitted he learned about the case from a television news report. Crump said that January said he decided to “make up a lie…to try and make a deal with the prosecutor to get his case dropped or try and get the minimum amount of time in exchange for testifying” against Nixon. Crump said January told him that he wanted to get out of custody to attend his daughter’s high school graduation and “that his ex-wife and daughter would be disappointed and furious at him if he missed this hallmark occasion.” In November 2012, U.S. District Judge Avern Cohn denied the petition.” Kenneth Nixon – National Registry of Exonerations (umich.edu)
Thelonious Searcy (r foreground) listens as his atty. Michael Dezsi plays Vincent Smothers’ recorded confession March 19, 2018. Smothers, on witness stand with head bowed, then testified in detail about his killing of Jamal Segars. AP Timothy Chambers is at right.
THELONIOUS SEARCY CASE
Muscat was also the APA in the 2005 trial and conviction of Thelonious ‘Shawn’ Searcy for the murder of Jamal Segars outside Detroit’s City Airport in Sept. 2004, which resulted in a life without parole sentence.
A Michigan Court of Appeals panel unanimously granted Searcy a new trial Feb. 11 in a 13-page ruling that was highly critical of the role Wayne Third Judicial Circuit Court Chief Judge Timothy Kenny (trial judge at the time) and APA Muscat played in hiding ballistics evidence from Searcy’s jury.
After consulting with Muscat during the trial, Kenny falsely told jurors the bullets in the victim’s body were “too deformed” to identify their caliber, although an evidence technician reported before trial that they were .40 caliber. Muscat presented a .45 caliber gun at trial and identified it as the murder weapon. He repeated his allegations at Searcy’s evidentiary hearing.
The appeals court said Kenny’s dismissal of self-professed hitman Vincent Smothers’ detailed confession to the murder during a 2018 evidentiary hearing was an “abuse of discretion.” Legal scholars say such a ruling against a judge is highly unusual.
Judge Timothy Kenny, AP Patrick Muscat at 2018 evidentiary hearing.
“Importantly, the jury was informed that ‘the gun that is in evidence is a .45 caliber semiautomatic handgun’ and was then informed that the bullet that was removed from the murder victim could not be tested because it was ‘too deformed,'” the appeals court said. “However . . . .the type of bullet was able to be discerned and had been accurately described as a .40-caliber bullet before trial. Without this important evidence, the jury was left to decide whether, based on the location of the .45-caliber casings and other record evidence, Searcy committed the crimes.”. . .
“In sum, when considering the trial evidence in light of the other evidence that would be presented at retrial, we conclude that Searcy has a reasonably likely chance of acquittal. . . Therefore, the trial court abused its discretion by denying Searcy’s motion for relief from judgment with respect to Searcy’s claim of new evidence relating to Smothers.”
Judge Thomas Hathaway at Searcy appeal bond hearing March 1, 2021.
Wayne Co. Third Judicial Circuit Court Judge Thomas Hathaway granted Searcy an appeal bond at a hearing March 1, specifying home confinement while prosecutors decide whether to retry him.
He ordered Searcy’s release either on the day the Wayne County Prosecutor appealed the COA ruling again to the Michigan Supreme Court (which earlier remanded it to the Appeals Court), or by April 4, the last day the prosecution could appeal.
The prosecution did not appeal by the deadline. Searcy expected to be released to home confinement April 5, but AP Thomas Chambers has contested the language in the proposed order for release, according to Atty. Michael Dezsi. Dezsi said he is awaiting a hearing on the order in front of Hathaway, which had not been scheduled at press time.
T. “Shawn” Searcy with his young daughter LaShyra before his conviction in 2005
VOD emailed the Prosecutor’s Office April 5 as follows, “Does the prosecutor’s office plan to re-try Thelonious Searcy, since the Feb. 11 COA ruling in his case has not been appealed to the Michigan Supreme Court? The deadline for that was April 4, 2021. Does Prosecutor Worthy have any comment on the continuing status of APA Patrick Muscat, who was the prosecutor in the cases of Kenneth Nixon, Davontae Sanford, and Searcy? Specifically with regard to his role in recruiting the jail-house informant Stanley January, Jr. whose testimony was key to Nixon’s conviction?”
APA Maria Miller of the Prosecutor’s Office replied that they had filed an application for leave to appeal the Searcy ruling to the Michigan Supreme Court on April 5. She replied regarding Muscat’s current role, “Pat Muscat remains on staff with WCPO.”
Members of Searcy’s family told VOD that they were eagerly awaiting his release April 5, including making .provisions for him to stay at the court-designated address on home confinement.
“We are highly distressed that 17 years after Shawn was taken to prison by Detroit police who raided the home he and his wife and daughters were visiting, we still do not have him here with us,” one family member remarked. “We know Shawn is innocent and always has been.”
Searcy now has grandchildren, after missing his daughters’ formative years.
Davontae Sanford (center) after he was released in 2015. His mother Taminko Sanford-Tilmon and his late stepfather Jeremaine Tilmon, who fought for their son’s freedom for nine years, were at his side.
DAVONTAE SANFORD CASE
In 2008, Smothers also confessed to the notorious “Runyon Street” murders of four people, shortly after 14-year-old Davontae Sanford was sentenced to 60 to 90 years in prison for the murders. Sanford’s wrongful conviction became a cause celebre globally when it was vacated in 2015 and Sanford was freed.
Muscat prosecuted Sanford at trial, relying on a coerced confession from the child, obtained without a lawyer or parent present.
Muscat and Prosecutor Worthy pursued Sanford’s conviction relentlessly for nine years despite Smothers’ confession to DPD Detective Ira Todd in 2008 shortly after Sanford’s sentencing.
It was only after Michigan State Police weighed in with a 151-pp. review of the case that Worthy agreed to a dismissal without prejudice, but continued to insist that Sanford was not innocent, earning her the title of “Innocence Denier” in a national publication.
The MSP reported that Detroit Police filed reports on the day the murders happened showing that Sanford could not have been the killer in the case. That included eyewitness testimony from a victim who survived the killings, and from a neighbor who saw the killers leaving the house, that the killers were older and taller than Sanford. Those reports were ignored by Muscat and Worthy. See VOD stories on Sanford’s case linked below this article.
PROS. KYM WORTHY’S STATEMENTS ON KENNETH NIXON CASE
Wayne Co Pros. Kym Worthy
“The main issue at Mr. Nixon’s trial was the identification of the person who threw the Molotov cocktail,” Prosecutor Worthy said in a statement. “The identification of Nixon was based upon the statements and trial testimony of the 13-year-old boy. The only other person that testified that Nixon was responsible was a jailhouse informant. The informant told a homicide detective that while he and Nixon were in jail Nixon admitted to the firebombing of the Charleston street house. . . In exchange for a guilty plea in an unrelated case the informant received a one year to three-and-a-half-year sentence.”
VOD earlier asked Worthy’s press representative Maria Miler about the 2018 Free Press article, which cited two professors’ opposing evaluations of a purported Brady violation by the prosecution, consisting of its failure to give defense attorneys copies of the memos cited above. Those attorneys also said the prosecution had not turned over a report from an earlier suspicious fire at the house where the two children died.
VOD reported April 5 that Miller had not responded to the email, but evidently missed Miller’s response.
Miller said, “One professor opined upon that. Another professor said it was not a Brady violation. Our position is that there was no Brady violation. The prosecutor turned over the inconsistent statements to the defense and they had the ability to use them to cross-examine the prosecution witness in the case.”
Philly DA Larry Krasner Fires 31 Asst. DA’s 4 Days after taking office in 2019
In 2019, Philadephia District Attorney Larry Krasner fired 31 assistant DA’s, immediately after assuming office on a reform platform which included creating a Conviction Integrity Unit. He later cited their role in obtaining wrongful convictions as a key factor.
“I did not enjoy it, but it was necessary to do,” he told a reporter later. “Especially as I see these exonerations happen, and guess whose names just keep coming up for having been involved in convictions of innocent people?”
“The people you let go?” the reporter asked. Krasner responded, “Yep. That story will be developing. Stay tuned.”
Prosecutors across the country, including Baltimore and New York City, are also tossing out criminal convictions tied to cops who have been charged and/or convicted in the frame-ups of defendants. See:
Brooklyn DA Moves to Vacate 90 Convictions Tied to Cop Facing Perjury Charges
Former New York City Police Detective Joseph Franco (center) is led to trial on perjury charges related to his handling of drug cases.
“The Brooklyn district attorney’s office will ask a court to vacate 90 convictions based on the work of a former NYPD detective now facing perjury and other charges.
DA Eric Gonzalez’s office said Wednesday it did not find any misconduct in the 27 felony and 63 misdemeanor convictions, nor did it find that any of the defendants were innocent. Regardless, the office said it had lost confidence in cases where Det. Joseph Franco was considered an essential witness.
‘I cannot in good faith stand by convictions that principally relied on his testimony,’ he added. . . ‘We have to make sure the things we do as prosecutors don’t cause additional harm in the community.”
Tina Luongo, attorney-in-charge of the Legal Aid Society’s criminal defense practice said Franco ‘touched thousands of cases throughout New York City, and we may never know the full extent of the damage he caused and lives he upended.'”
Pros. Worthy has filed no charges against cops or AP’s responsible for CIU’s 28 wrongful convictions
To date, no charges for perjury, which could have resulted in life sentences, or other wrongdoings have been brought against assistant prosecutors and police officers who concocted the cases against the 28 people exonerated by the Wayne County Conviction Integrity Unit. The Michigan State Police even recommended that charges be brought against DPD officers Michael Russell and James Tolbert in the case of Davontae Sanford. Testimony from another police officer, Dale Collins, was key to the convictions of Sanford and Searcy. His role in other cases has been cited repeatedly, but he has faced no charges.
DPD Sgt. Dale Collins
DPD Sgt. Ernest Wilson
Prosecutor Worthy claimed the deadline for filing charges against Tolbert had expired, but cases of perjury carry penalties of up to life in prison if that is the sentence accorded to a defendant.
In an April 4 article in the Detroit Free Press, reporter Elisha Anderson wrote that Atty. Valerie Newman, head of Worthy’s Conviction Integrity Unit, told her that “her unit is not tryingto blame or shame people, rather figure out what happened, how to rectify it and make changes so it doesn’t happen again.” Prisoners in Michigan claiming innocence could receive new reviews (freep.com).
Atty. Valerie Newman
Regarding APA Muscat’s role in the wrongful convictions of Kenneth Nixon, Davontae Sanford and Thelonious Searcy, one VOD reader commented, “He is ruining the lives of innocent people with no consequence. If we don’t bring awareness and hopefully some pressure, he’ll eventually retire with full lifetime benefits paid for by tax-payers dollars. Where’s the justice in that?”
One exoneree, Mubarez Ahmed, has protested the fact that no charges have been brought against DPD officer Ernest Wilson, who solicited illegal witness identifications of Ahmed that led to his wrongful conviction in 2002. He was freed in 2019.
A federal complaint says the entire case hinged on a live line-up identification of Ahmed by Izora Clark. It alleges, “Immediately before the live lineup, [Ernest WILSON] showed Ms. Clark a photograph of Plaintiff and told her this was the man they believed committed the murder and was in the lineup. WILSON also [falsely] told Ms. Clark that another witness had identified Plaintiff.” See complaint at: http://voiceofdetroit.net/wp-content/uploads/Ahmed_v_Detroit_Ernest-Wilson_et_al__miedce-18-13849__0001.0.pdf.
Worthy’s office has claimed that she has not used the testimony of jail-house snitches since she took office in 2004. However, a jail-house informant was used to convict Kenneth Nixon in 2005.
Charles Jones with oldest child, only daughter Aiyana Jones.
Later, in 2011, AP Robert Moran, currently Worthy’s Chief of Special Investigations, recruited two jail-house informants to convict Charles Jones and Chauncey Owens.
They were the father and uncle-in-law of Aiyana Jones, killed in 2010 during a brutal military-style police raid on her grandmother’s home.
Jones was sentenced to 40-60 years in prison and Owens to life for the killing of teenager Je’Rean Blake two days before the raid. VOD covered their trials extensively, finding that no forensic evidence was presented.
Jones later pled guilty to reduced charges and sentences to obtain his freedom after the Jones family had been extensively vilified in local media.
“Snitch” Jay Schlenkerman testifies at Chauncey Owens’ 2011 preliminary exam; defense atty. Leon Weiss (at top) berated AP Robert Moran (bottom) for using snitch testimony during hearing. (VOD photos)
Jay Schlenkerman, a serial woman-beater, drunk driver, and self-admitted perjurer, who was housed with Owens in the Wayne Co. Jail Division 3, claimed Owens told him Jones gave him the gun used in the killing, which was never introduced into evidence.
But Owens named another man as the person who gave him the gun during a police interview the day of Aiyana’s death, which was shown only to Owens’ jury. VOD found no other such report in court records despite extensive research including a page-by-page review of three volumes of Jones’ court file.
The other “snitch” was Qasim Raqib, who signed a written pledge to give evidence against Jones and two other prisoners in exchange for lesser charges in the 2011 murder and dismemberment of a transgender teen.
Voice of Detroit is a pro bono newspaper. VOD’s editors and reporters, most of whom live on fixed incomes or are incarcerated, are not paid for their work. Ongoing costs include quarterly web charges of $380, P.O. box fee of $150/yr. and costs for research including court records, and internet fees, as well as office supplies, gas, etc.
I witnessed CO’s, even a psychologist, taunt residents in treatment program into committing suicide
An independent investigation into MDOC suicides is overdue
Janika Edmond hung herself at Huron Valley Women’s Facility after guards bet each other lunch on whether she would do it
Jeremy Garza killed himself at Marquette Prison in 2014 half-hour after guards told him, “Go ahead.”
VOD Field Editor Ricardo Ferrell, a Prisoner Observation Aide (POA) who spends hours with prisoners on suicide watch, shows extreme courage in reporting their abuse by correctional officers and a psychologist who urged them to commit suicide. This is a system-wide problem as shown by the stories of Janika Edmond, Jeremy Garza below. Michigan’s ACLU won a lawsuit for POA Sharee Miller in 2019 in which the MDOC agreed to allow POA’s to report mistreatment to an outside governmental agency or protection and advocacy organizations. VOD will be monitoring this situation on Ricardo Ferrell’s behalf.
Ricardo Ferrell, VOD Field Editor
(Editorial)
March 27, 2021
In 2008, the department repurposed the Huron Valley Men’s Facility in Pittsfield Twp., and converted it into a women’s facility. Some of the housing units at HVMF that held many of the most severe mentally ill prisoners who often engaged in self-mutilation and suicidal tendencies, were transferred to the Gus Harrison Correctional Facility in Madison Twp., and housed in the only two Level IV units.
In the last two years, there have been five or six patients housed in the Resident Treatment Program (RTP units) who committed suicide.
The Mental Health Services Department at Gus Harrison has several highly paid under-qualified personnel overseeing the RTP units and those housed there. It is this writer’s firm belief that some of the driving factors in the uptick in suicides at this particular facility come from the continuous mistreatment by custody staff who have on many occasions suggested, urged, and dared prisoners who suffer from acute mental illness to kill themselves.
Some may wonder and ask how do I know this to be true? Well, prior to 2012, the MDOC utilized corrections officers to observe prisoners who demonstrated harmful behavior by self-inflicted injuries, and suicide attempts. However, due to the enormous cost associated with having officers observe this particular group of prisoners (costing millions of dollars), and the reluctance of these prisoners to share with staff the reasons behind their behavior, former MDOC director Daniel Heyns decided to adopt a program from the Federal Bureau of Prisons. There, carefully selected prisoners received specialized and extensive training to participate in the Prisoner Observation Aide (POA) Program, which enabled the trained prisoners to observe those engaging in self-injurious and suicidal behavior and further handle it.
Advocates with “Silent Cry” traveled all the way from New York CIty to the Gus Harrison Correctional Facility Dec. 11, 2020 to protest huge flare-ups of active COVID-19 cases throughout MDOC.
Among the benefits from the MDOC’s adoption of this unique program is the cost effectiveness. Prisoners are paid $3.34 for working between 3-6 hours in a 24-hour period, compared to the cost of paying a corrections officer his/her normal $20 – $25 per hour, plus overtime, etc. This had been costing millions of dollars out of the $2.2 billion annual MDOC budget. The other benefit is the prisoner-to-prisoner connection, where those having a mental breakdown and demonstrating harmful behaviors become more willing to share their issues with fellow prisoners, far more quickly than they would with corrections officers, and/or qualified mental health professionals.
On May 6th, 11 prisoners including myself received the required training to work as POA’s here at the Gus Harrison facility. After receiving certification from one of the psychologists and the classification department, I then was assigned to work in both RTP units and the segregation unit. Between May 12, 2020 – November 15, 2020, I consistently worked sometimes far beyond the normal 3-hour shifts. There were times when we were short POA’s (ONLY 5 of us) and I would work 3 or 4 times in a 24-hour period, oftentimes 4 to 5 hours on each shift. By my best estimate, I probably was called to work approximately 200 times in the six month time frame. My main point is that I was present on many occasions when corrections officers egged prisoners on to harm themselves or commit suicide. In another instance, I witnessed a psychologist tell the prisoner, “I don’t believe you will kill yourself, so go ahead do it.”
Prisoners at Gus Harrison CF are shown making donations to local groups three years ago.
This writer is willing to submit to a polygraph examination about the occurrences. This is providing that the corrections officers and the psychologist I observed performing this unprofessional and unlawful behavior are equally willing to do so as well.
This is in the interest of fundamental fairness and justice for the many mentally ill prisoners directly impacted by the despicable behavior of employees within the Michigan Department of Corrections, who indulge in the taunting the most vulnerable prisoners by encouraging, enticing, promoting and daring them to take their own lives. It is suggested that a full scale independent investigation be conducted by an entity outside of the MDOC’s scope of authority based on the fact there have been suicides committed on the grounds of a state correctional facility.
While prisoners have limited rights as convicted felons, they do enjoy the right to be treated humanely with dignity and respect, and the right to be free of mistreatment, humiliation, discrimination, and degradation. Among the constitutionally protected rights of any U.S. citizen, including prisoners. is the right to exercise their religious freedom, properly address their grievances/complaints, and to have unfettered access to the Courts & the Press.
In summation, it should be noted the following: An incarcerated individual should be free from reprisal, repercussion, and/or retaliation for exercising their right to file a complaint/lawsuit.
TODAY AT 3 PM EDT
This is dedicated to all the beautiful women around the globe, you’ve stood by us no matter what with patience like Job.
We also occasionally wrote letters to each other before the practice of allowing people incarcerated in Michigan prisons to correspond with one another ended in 2009.
“Human beings cannot grow or improve when they are tethered permanently and irrevocably to the past, when things that cannot be changed become the sum total of a person’s existence and their potential to be anything else in the future.”
In his 2017 Harvard Law Review article titled, “The President’s Role in Advancing Criminal Justice Reform,” President Barack Obama wrote:
Voice of Detroit is a pro bono newspaper. VOD’s editors and reporters, most of whom live on fixed incomes or are incarcerated, are not paid for their work. Ongoing costs include quarterly web charges of $380, P.O. box fee of $150/yr. and costs for research including court records, and internet fees, as well as office supplies, gas, etc.
Protest against police murder of Daunte Wright in suburban Minneapolis April 16, 2021
“After a thorough investigation of the case by the Michigan State Police (MSP), the Detroit Police Department (DPD) Homicide Task Force, and an independent review of the case by the WCPO Public Integrity Unit (PIU), it has been determined that no charges will be issued against the three officers involved in the fatal shooting of Hakim Littleton,” Worthy said. “The police were acting in lawful self-defense and defense of others.”
And how do we shift that power? Malcolm X gave us a direction from the radical Black human rights tradition. He said you must be ready to pay the price required to experience full dignity as a person and as members of a self-determinant people.
The cases of Ewing and Searcy have been featured on various national wrongful conviction websites, including:
VOD reported April 5 that Miller had not responded to the email, but evidently missed Miller’s response.
In 2008, the department repurposed the Huron Valley Men’s Facility in Pittsfield Twp., and converted it into a women’s facility. Some of the housing units at HVMF that held many of the most severe mentally ill prisoners who often engaged in self-mutilation and suicidal tendencies, were transferred to the Gus Harrison Correctional Facility in Madison Twp., and housed in the only two Level IV units.
