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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

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Click on “view streaming” at time of hearing Wed. May 19, 2021 9 A.M.

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By Diane Bukowski   

April 10, 2021

Darrell Ewing (l), Derrico Searcy (r)

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.

The cases of Ewing and Searcy have been featured on various national wrongful conviction websites, including:

Darrell Ewing | Actual Innocent Prisoners

Rico Searcy | Actual Innocent Prisoners

Episode 8: Darrell Ewing (unjustandunsolved.com)

Related documents:

Michigan Supreme Court ruling People v. Hammock 7/31/2020 http://voiceofdetroit.net/wp-content/uploads/MSC-People-v-Hammock-7-31-2020.pdf” 

Michigan Court of Appeals ruling affirming order for new trial in Darrell Ewing, Derrico Searcy cases: http://voiceofdetroit.net/wp-content/uploads/2-Darrell-Ewing-COA-opinion-10-13-20.pdf

U.S. District Court Judge Denise Page Hood’s order for new trial:  http://voiceofdetroit.net/wp-content/uploads/Darrell-Ewing-habeas-corpus-grant-1.pdf

6th Circuit ruling on Michigan AG’s appeal of District Court ruling:  http://voiceofdetroit.net/wp-content/uploads/Ewing-6th-CC-2-5-19-compressed.pdf

Judge Denise Page Hood’s opinion on remand from 6th Circuit Court: http://voiceofdetroit.net/wp-content/uploads/Opinion-on-remand-Ewing_v_Woods__miedce-15-10523__0016.0.pdf

Transcript of Judge Michael Hathaway’s order for a new trial: http://voiceofdetroit.net/wp-content/uploads/Darrell-Ewing-Derrico-Searcy-Remmer-Hearing-Transcripts.pdf

Related stories:

https://voiceofdetroit.net/2020/09/29/fighting-for-his-life-darrell-ewing-in-court-again-despite-3-orders-in-3-yrs-granting-a-new-trial/

https://voiceofdetroit.net/2020/07/12/free-darrell-ewing-two-judges-have-ordered-new-trials-in-innocence-case-kym-worthy-still-appeals/

https://voiceofdetroit.net/2019/10/27/darrell-ewing-derrico-searcy-win-new-trial-in-murder-case-after-nearly-two-decades/

https://voiceofdetroit.net/2019/09/17/ewing-searcy-hearing-on-jury-use-of-internet-research-on-gangs-in-2010-trial-to-continue-oct-4/

https://voiceofdetroit.net/2019/08/27/juror-in-2010-ewingsearcy-murder-trial-verdict-tainted-by-jurys-gang-related-internet-research/

https://voiceofdetroit.net/2019/02/14/sixth-circuit-orders-evidentiary-hearing-instead-of-new-trial-in-darrell-ewings-2010-murder-conviction/ 

https://voiceofdetroit.net/2017/11/27/fed-judge-strikes-down-darrell-ewing-conviction-due-to-jury-discussion-of-gang-social-media

“Incarcerated and Infected_ How the Virus Tore Through the U.S. Prison System” New York Times April 10, 2021 http://voiceofdetroit.net/wp-content/uploads/Incarcerated-and-Infected_-How-the-Virus-Tore-Through-the-U.S.-Prison-System-The-New-York-Times-pages-deleted-compressed.pdf

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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.

Please DONATE TO VOD at:

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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.

http://voiceofdetroit.net/wp-content/uploads/Wayne-County-Prosecutor-GIGLIO-BRADY-LIST-12-7-2020-2.pdf

Key excerpts of Muscat’s memo are  below, with full memo linked below excerpts.

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http://voiceofdetroit.net/wp-content/uploads/Kenneth-Nixon-case-Exhibit-2-Muscat-Memo.pdf

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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.”

http://voiceofdetroit.net/wp-content/uploads/COA-Thelonious-Searcy-20210211.pdf

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.

Over 20,000 supporters have signed Searcy’s Change.Org petition: https://www.change.org/p/michigan-attorney-general-free-wrongfully-convicted-thelonious-searcy.

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. 

 https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/90-convictions-cleared-by-brooklyn-da/2986934/

NBC New York reported April 7, (excerpt):

Brooklyn DA Eric Gonzalez

“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 trying to 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.

Mubarez Ahmed – National Registry of Exonerations (umich.edu).

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.

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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.

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Related stories (links below include links to previous stories on cases.)

THELONIOUS ‘SHAWN’ SEARCY WINS NEW TRIAL; MICH. APPEALS COURT CITES HITMAN’S CONFESSION, BALLISTICS | VOICE OF DETROIT: The city’s independent newspaper, unbossed and unbought

MSP: WAYNE CO. PROS. KYM WORTHY KNEW DAVONTAE SANFORD WAS INNOCENT FOR 8 YEARS, NOT 8 MOS. | VOICE OF DETROIT: The city’s independent newspaper, unbossed and unbought

DOES KYM WORTHY WANT 54 MICH. JUVENILE LIFERS TO DIE IN PRISON, VIOLATING U.S. SUPREME COURT ORDERS? | VOICE OF DETROIT: The city’s independent newspaper, unbossed and unbought

WAYNE CO. PROSECUTOR KYM WORTHY MUST GO! VOTE FOR VICTORIA BURTON-HARRIS AUG. 4 IN DEM. PRIMARY | VOICE OF DETROIT: The city’s independent newspaper, unbossed and unbought

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/01/innocence-deniers-prosecutors-who-have-refused-to-admit-wrongful-convictions.html

A Detective Was Accused of Lying. Now 90 Convictions May Be Erased.

http://voiceofdetroit.net/wp-content/uploads/A-Detective-Was-Accused-of-Lying.-Now-90-Convictions-May-Be-Erased.-The-New-York-Times.pdf

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/06/nyregion/brooklyn-criminal-convictions.html

What’s Really Driving This Rise in Suicides?

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.

Sharee Miller reported strip-beating and torture of one woman prisoner, and denial of water to another who ended in a vegetative state. ACLU sued, won POA job back   https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/2019/07/26/sharee-miller-prison-abuse-lawsuit-michigan/1775745001/

https://people.com/human-interest/janika-edmond-suicide-michigan-prison-guards-bet/

From https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4165526/Family-sue-Michigan-prison-inmate-suicide.html

Related Stories:

A MENTAL HEALTH NIGHTMARE BEHIND BARS AT MDOC; SEPTEMBER IS SUICIDE PREVENTION MONTH | VOICE OF DETROIT: The city’s independent newspaper, unbossed and unbought  By Ricardo Ferrell

Family Awarded $860K After Guards Bet on Woman’s Suicide in Prison | PEOPLE.com

Family sue Michigan prison over inmate suicide | Daily Mail Online

Michigan inmate wins right to report prison abuse to outside agencies (freep.com)

Recent Voice of Detroit articles by Ricardo Ferrell, among over 40 VOD has published:

LARRY SMITH FREED, JOINING OTHERS FRAMED BY DETROIT POLICE, PROSECUTORS USING ‘RING OF SNITCHES’ | VOICE OF DETROIT: The city’s independent newspaper, unbossed and unbought

150 MICHIGAN JUVENILE LIFERS FACE POSSIBLE DEATH FROM COVID-19 AS THEY SERVE OUTLAWED SENTENCES | VOICE OF DETROIT: The city’s independent newspaper, unbossed and unbought

DO PRISONERS LIVES MATTER? 125 NOW DEAD, HALF IN MICH. DEPT. OF CORRECTIONS INFECTED WITH COVID-19 | VOICE OF DETROIT: The city’s independent newspaper, unbossed and unbought

COPING WITH COVID-19 IN MICHIGAN PRISONS: RALLY BY ‘SILENT CRY’ FRI. DEC. 11 AT GUS HARRISON CF IN ADRIAN | VOICE OF DETROIT: The city’s independent newspaper, unbossed and unbought

Billboard in Havana, Cuba addresses coronavirus outbreak there.

According to a widely-circulated brochure, Nation of Islam Minister Louis Farrakhan has advised his followers NOT to be vaccinated against COVID-19 for  various reasons.  He notes at the close of the brochure that Cuba and other countries will have better means to combat the coronavirus.

The Hon. Minister Louis Farrakhan Nation of Islam

The articles below show that Cuba IS vaccinating its people with their own experimental vaccines. However, the articles also note that Cuba HAD to turn to its own resources because the U.S. and other countries will not provide vaccines produced in the U.S. for distribution to the Cuban people.

Michigan now has the second worst record of new coronavirus cases in the country. States across the U.S. are reporting similar new waves. There is not time for people in the U.S. to wait for U.S.-Cuba relations to improve before being vaccinated. More deaths and grave illnesses are in store immediately if people here refuse available vaccines.

After reading numerous research articles on the vaccines, VOD’s editor and staff have all received COVID-19 vaccines here in Detroit. We suggest that our readers weigh their options very seriously.

The Final Call’s most recent article on the matter is at Reports of deaths after Covid vaccines up by 259 in one week, CDC data show – Final Call News. VOD notes that the CDC has repeatedly stated that the three vaccines in the U.S. are safe and effective. It has reported that deaths after receiving the vaccines have been due to a variety of reasons, including the health of the individuals, not necessarily due to vaccine reactions.

Also go to today’s New York Times article stating that “far-right” groups including QAnon are trying to undermine the vaccine roll-out in the U.S. citing the same report from the CDC.  “Far-Right Extremists Move From ‘Stop the Steal’ to Stop the Vaccine” at http://voiceofdetroit.net/wp-content/uploads/Far-Right-Extremists-Move-From-‘Stop-the-Steal’-to-Stop-the-Vaccine-The-New-York-Times.pdf

QAnon protests COVID-19 and flu vaccines.

CUBA TO ADMINISTER COVID-19 EXPERIMENTAL VACCINES TO NEARLY ALL HAVANA RESIDENTS

March 24, 2021, 10:40 AM EDT / Updated March 24, 2021, 11:52 AM EDT

By Reuters

This month Cuba began late phase trials of two of their five experimental shots, Soberana 2 and Abdala. If successful, they’d be Latin America’s first homegrown vaccines.

Dr, Ileana Morales Suarez, Cuban Health Ministry

HAVANA — Cuba will administer experimental Covid-19 shots to nearly the entire population of the capital Havana by May as health authorities carry out massive interventional studies and late stage trials, officials said on Tuesday.

Cuba, which has a long history of developing and exporting vaccines, this month began late phase trials of two of its five experimental shots, Soberana 2 and Abdala, which will be Latin America’s first homegrown COVID-19 vaccines if they prove successful.

Ileana Morales, the health ministry’s director of science and technological innovation, said on a roundtable broadcast on state television that authorities would conduct an intervention study in 1.7 million people in Havana by May.

That comes on top of one it has already started for 150,000 frontline workers in the city, which is estimated to have 2.1 million inhabitants.

Cuba’s capital is at the centre of its worst coronavirus outbreak since the start of the pandemic, registering 292 cases per 100,000 inhabitants compared with a nationwide average of 103.5, Deputy Health Minister Carilda Peña said.

Authorities could seek approval for emergency use of Abdala and Soberana 2, which both target the spike protein of the novel coronavirus, in June, Morales said.

“With the approval of emergency use… we would be on track to a more massive vaccination of the population,” said Morales.

That mass vaccination would start with the most at-risk groups including the over-60 and health care workers. By August, six million people should have received a vaccine, with all Cuba’s 11 million inhabitants vaccinated by year-end, Morales said.

Cuba is registering 600 to 1,000 new cases a day, well above the scores or a handful per day for most of last year. Since the pandemic started, the country has reported 68,250 cases and 401 deaths, one of the lowest rates in the world per capita.

Government critics have said Cuba should have purchased approved vaccines from abroad to kick off its immunization campaign while it completed trials on its homegrown vaccines.

The country developed a large biotech sector partly in order to become self sufficient in the face of a crippling U.S. trade embargo. Venezuela and Iran, which also face U.S. sanctions, say they will also trial the Cuban Covid-19 vaccines, which have attracted the interest of other countries like Mexico and Jamaica.

Cuba will administer Covid-19 experimental vaccines to nearly all Havana residents (nbcnews.com)

Vials of Cuba’s Abdala Covid-19 vaccine candidate during a press conference of the Biotechnological and Pharmaceutical Industries of Cuba in Havana on March 19, 2021.Katell Abiven / AFP – Getty Images

PRESIDENT OF CUBA PRAISES PROGRESS IN IMMUNIZATION AGAINST COVID-19 

The president of Cuba, Miguel Diaz-Canel, praised the country’s progress in immunizing the population against Covid-19 with the use of vaccine candidates produced by the national biotechnology industry.

Radio Reloj

Cuban President Miguel  Diaz-Canel (r) succeeded (l and center) Fidel Castro and Raul Castro.

Havana, Cuba.- The president of Cuba, Miguel Diaz-Canel, praised the country’s progress in immunizing the population against Covid-19 with the use of vaccine candidates produced by the national biotechnology industry.

The president tweeted highlighting that, between clinical trials and controlled intervention studies, thousands of Cubans are receiving the doses of Soberana-02 and Abdala, which opens the way to mass vaccination.

‘Dreaming and continuing a country: This year we will advance in immunization with our vaccines!’, he stated.

The head of state also tweeted thanking those who created the vaccines and those who produce them, ‘because they not only inject our body,’ but also sow ‘security and hope in the national soul.’

Cuban health authorities announced yesterday that 70 percent of the Cuban population will be immunized against SARS-CoV-2 between July and August of this year, thanks to a staggered vaccination strategy, which involves different population groups between 19 and 80 years.

Cuban women walk past wall with Cuban flag.

As part of the phase III clinical trials currently being conducted, 44,010 people will be inoculated with Soberana-02 in Havana, and 48 thousand with Abdala in the eastern part of the country.

The purpose is to gradually immunize the population, so that 1.7 million people will be protected against the virus between April and May. Later, the research will be extended to other population groups, in a larger trial with both vaccine candidates.

President of Cuba praises progress in immunization against Covid-19 – Radio Reloj, emisora cubana de la hora y las noticias

“While we cannot state that this is an exoneration, we are very certain that the trial process was not just.” Wayne Co. Prosecutor Kym Worthy

Fundraiser for Larry Smith by Dayale Grays : HELP LARRY (BUTTER) SMITH START OVER (gofundme.com).

Larry Smith among dozens of victims of Detroit’s notorious “Ring of Snitches” on 9th floor of Detroit Police HQ at 1300 Beaubien

County prosecutors, Detroit police suborned perjury by jail-house informant Edward Allen, who said “100’s” of other prisoners fell victim

By Ricardo Ferrell, VOD Field Editor, with Diane Bukowski, Editor

March 22, 2021

UPDATE March 25, 2021: VOD spoke with Larry Smith today, who says he is already working to get other wrongfully convicted Michigan prisoners free. He said he has not received any compensation from the state yet, because the state fund has run out of  money. But he is hopeful that he will qualify for state compensation when the fund is replenished.

Larry Smith hugs his mother Debra as he leaves prison Feb. 2. (Photo: WDIV Channel 4.)

DETROIT — Larry Smith, a victim of Detroit’s notorious “Ring of Snitches,” walked out of Michigan’s Gus Harrison Correctional Facility (GHCF) Feb. 2 after serving 26 years for a murder he did not commit. He had maintained his innocence and fought for freedom since his conviction at the age of 18.

“While I’m very excited, there’s no words that can explain how I’m feeling right now, but it’s a good feeling,” his mother Debra Smith told reporters.

She was joined by his sister and his daughter (a little girl when he went to prison), along with dozens of others outside the prison, including exonerees Darryl Siggers and Ramon Ward.

Smith read excerpts from journals he kept while incarcerated, detailing what he said was the Michigan Department of Corrections’ horrible treatment of those he left behind. Last year, he tested positive for the potentially fatal coronavirus, along with 75 percent of prisoners at GHCF (1,467 out of 1,956). That delayed an expected interview with Wayne County’s Conviction Integrity Unit in June.  At least seven prisoners at GHCF have died from COVID-19, among 139 others in the MDOC.

Wayne Co. Pros. Kym Worthy endorses Karen McDonald for Oakland County Prosecutor last year. McDonald withdrew 19 juvenile life without parole recommendations in Jan. 2021, but Worthy did not follow suit, maintaining 51 on record.

After Smith’s release, the Michigan Occupational Safety and Health Administration (MIOSHA) on Feb. 26 fined the Department of Corrections $6,300 for violations of pandemic safety protocols at the Gus Harrison CF. These  included lack of an adequate infectious disease preparedness and response plan, lack of mask-wearing, social distancing, and contact identification among employees, and insufficient cleaning and disinfecting of the facility.

Smith said he planned to advocate for other wrongfully convicted prisoners, raise money for the Wayne County Conviction Integrity Unit, and work to fix the broken criminal justice system.

Smith’s attorney Mary A. Owens, out of Grand Rapids, worked for decades to free him. Later she was assisted by Claudia Whitman, working with the National Capital Crime Assistance Network, and now with the Wayne County CIU.

“After a thorough review of the investigation and evidence in this case, we have determined that Mr. Smith certainly is entitled to a new trial,” Wayne Co. Prosecutor Kym Worthy said in a statement. “We found that the Detroit Police Department’s informant was unreliable as well as the testimony of a key witness. . . .While we cannot state that this is an exoneration, we are very certain that the trial process was not just.”

Worthy’s office said Smith will not be re-tried because of the ‘passage of time’ since his trial in 1995. It is unclear if he will be compensated under Michigan’s Wrongful Imprisonment Compensation Act. That act allots $50,000 for year served in prison for a crime they did not commit.  See http://legislature.mi.gov/doc.aspx?mcl-Act-343-of-2016.

Meanwhile, Smith’s supporters have set up a GoFundMe page for him at  Fundraiser for Larry Smith by Dayale Grays : HELP LARRY (BUTTER) SMITH START OVER (gofundme.com).

Smith was convicted for the murder of Kenneth Hayes, 20, on March 24, 1994. Hayes, an alleged drug dealer, was fatally shot on Annabelle Street on Detroit’s southwest side.

At trial, a medical examiner testified that he took the sole fatal bullet, a .32 caliber, from the victim’s chest. The victim had been shot twice, with the second bullet exiting his arm and not recovered.

But in the face of that testimony, Asst. Pros. Robert Donaldson and police tied Smith to the murder with one .40 caliber bullet allegedly found in a laundry hamper at Smith’s home. Crime lab technician David Pauch testified that the .40 caliber bullet and seven other .40 caliber bullets found near the crime scene came from the same gun. Donaldson posited that Smith could have been firing with a gun in each hand.

The chief factor in Smith’s conviction was the coerced, concocted testimony of  jailhouse snitch Edward Allen, who claimed Smith had confessed the crime to him. Allen had been housed at Detroit Police Headquarters, then at 1300 Beaubien, on the notorious 9th floor. There, inmates formulated wild concoctions claiming countless defendants suddenly confessed their guilt to them. In exchange, they had charges against them dropped or reduced, and allegedly received special privileges including extra food, time outside the jail, and sex.

Allen later recanted his testimony against Smith and others, estimating that over 100 murder convictions were obtained through the use of perjured testimony solicited by police and prosecutors on the 9th floor.

Paralegal Travis Herndon (l) and Ramon Ward (r) welcomed Lacino Hamilton (center) home from prison last year.

VOD identified Smith, Lacino Hamilton, and Marvin Cotton as victims of the “Ring of Snitches” in its article on the exoneration of another “snitch” victim, Ramon Ward, published in Feb. 2020. At the time Smith, Hamilton,  and Cotton were still incarcerated,  despite media exposures of “Ring of Snitches” frame-ups including the seminal 2015 article by Miguel Aaron Cantu.  Smith, Hamilton and Cotton have since been released,  (See links to both articles at bottom of this one.)

In his story, Cantu included links to the following letters from Allen.

“I’m one of the guys that wrote the UCLA about Detroit Homicide getting Joe Twilley and 7 0ther guys police reports and making up false statements,” Allen wrote Smith on Sept. 15, 2002.

“They got to overturn over 100 cases, newly-discovered evidence. Homicide had guys put next door to guys on the 9^th floor to get info. After they show[ed] them photos of the defendants and high-tech shit. . . It’s over 100 guys with cases from Detroit that homicide set up flat out. Some of them are under investigation.”

In a letter to Judge Warfield Moore, Jr., Allen alleged that he had been “helping” the prosecution convict others for the last 16 years.

Jail-house snitch Edward Allen’s letter to Judge Warfield Moore, Jr. It is not known if Judge Moore submitted this letter for further investigation of the cases Allen cited.

“Now here is my complaint to the prosecution,” Allen wrote. “For me helping them out for the past 16 years on the following cases, the Hart Street murders, the Monica Childs Larry Smith murder case 1994 conviction, the Edward Knolton Robbery Murder Conviction, and the help I put into the 1995 Anthony Gates murder trial, I want a 3 to 5 year plea.”

At retirement party for AP Augustus Hutting (2nd from left): Judge Richard Hathaway (l to r) Wayne Co. Prosecutor Kym Worthy, Chief Judge Timothy Kenny.

Covering the trial on the 1984 Hart Street murders of Charles and Pamela Hampton, Charlie Grace and 12-year-old Herman Robinson, Detroit Free Press writer Joe Swickard wrote that Edward  Allen testified against his four co-defendants in the case. They were all convicted.

“Edward Allen, testifying with immunity from prosecution, said he, Wiley, Wilson and Goodman planned to rob ‘Rusty’s weed house’ of drugs and money,” Swickard wrote.

“Allen said he pulled out of the robbery — which netted about $200 and a pound of marijuana — while it was happening when he realized people were going to be hurt. Assistant Prosecutor Augustus Hutting told the jurors they did not have to ‘love Allen, but listen to him with an open mind . . . Sometimes, you have to cut deals. It may be better for one person to go free than five.'”

Ricardo Ferrell, VOD Field Editor who also writes for “My Life Matters Too,” also incarcerated at Gus Harrison CF:

Ricardo Ferrell, VOD Field Editor

“What kind of system of justice allows for innocent citizens to be railroad by way of lies and fabrications purposely told by a jailhouse informant looking to curry favor from police and prosecutors? The absurdity of such an unimaginable injustice pulls at the fiber of any common person’s conscience.

I am looking for the Statewide CIU, to announce its first case where an innocent person is exonerated and immediately released, and the hundreds of cases out of Wayne County currently being reviewed by its CIU. I believe when a conviction’s integrity is questionable, it must be reviewed. That includes the integrity of my own 1982 murder conviction for a killing outside the new Renaissance Center.

“No prosecutor wants to be party to knowingly convicting or keeping someone in prison that is either factually not guilty, or a case we can’t sustain,” Worthy said in 2017.

REVIEW ALL OF OUR WRONGFUL CONVICTIONS NOW!

***********************************************************************************Voice of  Detroit thanks the many people who contributed to keep VOD online for this quarter. Without you, we couldn’t have done it!  VOD 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, travel,  internet fees, as well as office supplies,  etc. Please, if you can:

DONATE TO VOD at  https://www.gofundme.com/donate-to-vod

***********************************************************************************Related:

Larry Smith, Jr. – National Registry of Exonerations (umich.edu)

RAMON WARD, FAMILY CELEBRATE RELEASE AFTER 27 YRS. ON FALSE CONVICTION; WHEN WILL 100’S MORE BE FREED? | VOICE OF DETROIT: The city’s independent newspaper, unbossed and unbought

‘RING OF SNITCHES’ VICTIMS: LACINO HAMILTON CLEARED, FREED AFTER 26 YRS; CONVICTIONS TOSSED ON 2 MORE | VOICE OF DETROIT: The city’s independent newspaper, unbossed and unbought

Michigan prison cited for violating COVID-19 safety rules (lansingstatejournal.com) 

Ring of Snitches: How Detroit Police Slapped False Murder Convictions on Young Black Men (truthout.org)

Stories related to COVID-19 in the prisons:

Continue reading →

One-time survival checks are not enough. Even before the pandemic, most U.S. residents were living paycheck to paycheck and struggling to pay bills each month. As the economic crisis worsens, ongoing relief is absolutely critical for people’s survival and human dignity.

That’s why I co-introduced the Automatic Boost to Communities (ABC) Act, which would deliver monthly $2,000 payments to everyone in the U.S.—regardless of immigration status. We’re building a coalition of progressive groups in order to show massive public support for this effort. Can you join us?

Please add your name now as a grassroots co-signer to the ABC Act if you’re in favor of recurring payments during the pandemic.

U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) represents 13th District including Detroit.

Our government’s failure to provide assistance in this pandemic has forced 10 million more people into poverty. At least half of all U.S. residents are struggling to afford essentials like groceries, rent, and water and utility bills. Many parents are going without food in order to feed their children, and many families are on the brink of homelessness.

This is unacceptable. It’s past time for bold action that includes everyone.

There are a few ways the ABC Act would ensure that no one gets left behind:

• Every single person in the U.S. would get $2,000 per month for the duration of the pandemic and $1,000 per month for a year afterward—including undocumented people, children and other dependents, and people in U.S. protectorates and territories.
• Everyone would be able to get prepaid debit cards that would automatically reload each month, to cover the 25% of Americans who are underbanked or unbanked and can only cash checks through predatory lenders.
• An Emergency Responder Corps would conduct wellness checks and targeted outreach to vulnerable groups such as elders, homeless people, and people without phone or internet access, to ensure they receive and understand how to use the debit cards.
• The bill would also chip away at inequities that have widened during the pandemic, including the racial wealth gap. One example of how Black and brown communities are disproportionately affected by this crisis: More than 2.5x as many Black U.S. households are going hungry than white households.

It’s past time for bold action that includes everyone. Public opinion is on our side: 60% of voters support recurring payments, along with a growing coalition of Congress members and advocates. But we need to show huge public support for this legislation in order for it to pass. We need you.

Please sign on now to be a grassroots co-signer of the ABC Act.

Together, we can make the change we need.

Thank you, Rashida Tlaib       DONATE NOW

                    Above: Interview with Temujin Kensu on Dec. 28, 2020

Michigan Gov. Whitmer denied clemency for Kensu Jan. 2, 2021 despite extensive evidence of innocence, prominent supporters

Multiple witnesses saw Kensu (Freeman) in Escanaba, MI at time of murder for which he is serving a life sentence, which took place in Port Huron, MI

AP Robert Cleland, now a U.S. District Court Judge, told jury Kensu could have chartered a plane to commit the murder, used jail-house informant

U.S. District Court Judge Denise Page Hood granted new trial in 2007 in 51-pp. ruling which said Cleland guilty of prosecutorial misconduct

By Diane Bukowski with

B. David Sanders of Proving Innocence

DONATE TO VOD at https://www.gofundme.com/donate-to-vod

(L to R) Temujin Kensu (a/k/a Fred Freeman) in 1986 at age of 23 and today at age 57

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer denied clemency in January to a Michigan man Detroit News editor Nolan Finley called “the poster child for unresolved wrongful convictions,” Temujin Kensu (a.k.a. Fredrick Freeman).

Kensu has now served 35 years of a life term in prison for the 1986 shotgun slaying of Scott Macklem in a Port Huron Community College parking lot. Multiple eyewitnesses  testified at trial, and since, that he could not have committed the crime because he was in Escanaba, Mich. 400 miles away at the time.

“For years Michigan’s judicial system has time and again failed this wholly innocent man and now the fail-safe option, Executive Clemency, has failed him as well,” said David Sanders of Proving Innocence. “This is in no small part due to the Governor accepting the Parole Board’s recommendation, a body totally unqualified to examine cases of actual innocence.”

Bill Proctor, retired Ch. 7 News reporter

Proving Innocence was founded by former Channel 7 news reporter Bill Proctor, who did numerous investigative stories on Kensu’s case over the years, beginning in 1995.

At trial, Asst. Prosecutor Robert Cleland, now a U.S. District Court Judge, presented what some have called the “flying carpet” theory that Kensu, penniless at the time, could have chartered a private plane to Port Huron to commit the crime. U.S. District Court Judge Denise Page Hood, sitting in the same district as Cleland, granted Kensu’s habeas appeal of his conviction in a scathing 51 page opinion in 2010.

She said Cleland had indeed committed “prosecutorial misconduct,” among other factors. Judge Page Hood is now Chief Judge for the Eastern District of Michigan.

“We know of no case in the country where a Chief Judge has condemned a judicial colleague serving on her very bench,” Sanders said.  “Unfortunately, her ruling was overturned on purely procedural grounds of late filing, having nothing to do with Temujin’s actual innocence.”

U.S. District Court Judges Robert Cleland (l) and Denise Page Hood (r) now Chief Judge of the Eastern District of Michigan.

No forensic evidence connected Kensu to the murder, only two vague witness statements, one of them elicited from a jail-house informant recruited by Cleland. The other witness was Kensu’s ex-girl friend, who was engaged to Macklem at the time and reportedly was angry about her break-up with Kensu.

No follow-up was done to locate a shotgun shell box found at the scene that has a fingerprint that is not Temujin’s.

The University of Michigan Law School’s Michigan Innocence Clinic submitted a clemency application on Temujin’s behalf based upon his innocence as well as his serious health conditions that put him at high risk of re-infection by COVID-19, which is raging through the prison system.

“It is incomprehensible that this innocent man could be considered guilty when every independent examination (outside the prosecution’s) has concluded otherwise,” Sanders said.

“It is mystifying that the Governor denied Temujin’s clemency based upon the Parole Board’s recommendation when that body does not include innocence as a consideration and they are on record saying so. How can anyone have faith in Michigan’s justice system with such a truly irrational and dysfunctional approach to reviewing clemency applications?”

State law requires that the Governor consider (though not adopt) the recommendation of Michigan’s Parole Board. In its deliberations for parole, the board considers such matters as whether the prisoner has expressed remorse for the crime, has reformed, and has a place to live and work. MDOC prisoners applying for parole who claim innocence are almost always denied.

“It is apparent that the Governor’s office simply rubberstamped the Parole Board’s recommendation and did not review actual innocence at all,” Sanders said. “If innocence was examined, what is the evidence of Temujin’s guilt?  If such evidence exists, it should not be kept under veil as the Parole Board does but should be publicly revealed.  What good public Purpose is served by not revealing a solid rationale for keeping this man in prison?”

Sanders said the parole board falsely claimed in their recommendation to Whitmer on Kensu’s clemency application that Kensu had 17 Class I misconduct tickets during his time  in prison, although he now has an excellent record, at -33 points, the lowest possible.

Temujin and Paula Kensu today.

He told the Port Huron Times-Herald that Kensu’s case still is being reviewed by Atty. General Dana Nessel’s office. Nessel  established a state-level Conviction Integrity Unit that operates out of her office in 2019. Later that year, partnering with the Western Michigan University Cooley Law School Innocence Clinic, it received more than $1 million in federal grants to freview 600 post-conviction claims of innocence. To date, however, that office has yet to announce final results in any case.

“Michigan’s process for reviewing clemency is broken, irrational, and dysfunctional,” Sanders added. “It requires immediate reformation or more wholly innocent people will be denied their rightful freedom.  Michigan cannot claim to have a system that delivers true justice with a process that ignores innocence and condemns innocent men and women to a lonely death behind bars.”

Whitmer spokeswoman Chelsea Parisio told VOD, “The clemency request for Temujin Kensu was denied, but we don’t have anything to add, as we do not comment on clemency applications.” She failed to address VOD’s request for a copy of the parole board’s recommendation on his application.

Send letters to: Temujin Kensu #189355, Macomb Correctional Facility, 34625 26 Mile Road, Lenox Twp., MI 48048

Letters of support can be sent to:  governorsoffice@michigan.gov  for Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer and NESSELD@michigan.gov for Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel.

U.S. District Court Judge Denise Page Hood’s ruling granting new trial:

http://voiceofdetroit.net/wp-content/uploads/Temujin-Kensu-Judge-Hood-USCOURTS2-mied-2_07-cv-10350-2.pdf

Related stories:

Innocence website stories on Kensu:

• http://www.m2solids.com/kensu/temujin.html
• https://actualinnocentprisoners.com/temujin-kensu
• https://www.provinginnocence.org/temujin-kensu
• Episode 14: Temujin Kensu (unjustandunsolved.com)

Deadline Detroit | Detroit Federal Judge Compared Illegal Immigrants to Insects and Japanese Beetles

Judge defends 1987 case handling | State News | record-eagle.com (record-eagle.com)

Macklem Blog #6 – An Open Letter to Judge Cleland (provinginnocence.org)