RELATED:
Derrico Searcy, Darrell Ewing were co-defendants in case involving 2009 murder of J.B. Watson; convictions vacated by Fed, State Courts in 2019
Wayne Co. Pros. Kym Worthy is retrying them despite Mirandized confession by Tyree Washington, violations of Brady v. Maryland, alibi witnesses
Ewing representing himself; Searcy, Attorney Blase Kearney have joined multiple Ewing pro-se motions, one to dismiss due to 7 Brady violations
Next hearing on Ewing’s motion to disqualify WCCC Judge Kiefer Cox from case set for Friday, February 9 at 9 AM, Cox Courtroom
“Daubert” hearing on Searcy’s identification motion Feb. 21, 22, 23; trial set for March 25
Ewing wins ruling from U.S. District Court Judge Sean Cox Jan. 17, granting in part motion for preliminary injunction v. Wayne Co. Jail conditions
By Diane Bukowski
January 31, 2024
Judge Kiefer Cox at Derrico Searcy hearing Jan. 5, 2024
As Darrell Ewing’s motion to disqualify Wayne 3rd Circuit Court Judge Kiefer Cox was pending a Feb. 9 hearing, his co-defendant Derrico Searcy appeared at a pre-trial hearing Jan. 5 on motions filed by his attorney Blase Kearney.
They included an “Omnibus Pleading Joining Motions of Darrell Ewing.” The pleadings include Ewing’s motion to dismiss the charges due to Brady violations. In addition to joining the motions, Kearney expanded on several with additional legal arguments.
See full pleading at http://voiceofdetroit.net/wp-content/uploads/Derrico-Searcy-Omnibus-Pleading-Joining-Motions-of-Darrell-Ewing.pdf
Ewing and Searcy are being re-tried for the murder of J.B. Watson in 2009, after multiple courts overturned their convictions, despite repeated confessions by Tyree Washington to the murder and other issues.
Chief U.S. District Court Judge Sean Cox
Meanwhile, motions filed by Ewing and other Wayne County Jail detainees in front of U.S. District Court Chief Judge Sean Cox, challenging conditions at the Wayne County Jail, where Ewing and Searcy have been held over two years pending their re-trial, have resulted in a partial victory.
On Jan. 21, Judge Cox (an uncle of Judge Kiefer Cox) entered an injunction requiring jail administrators to “allow Ewing to engage in outdoor recreation for a two-hour session at least once per month, and if resources allow . . . . Ewing to attend two two-hour sessions per month,” partially granting motions filed by Ewing and six others in the sweeping federal lawsuit. Cox upheld the following finding by Magistrate Judge Patricia Morris at: http://voiceofdetroit.net/wp-content/uploads/Darrell-Ewing_et_al_v_Wayne_County_Sheriff__miedce-22-11453__0146.0-1-17-18-Grant-of-WCJ-motion-2.pdf
The 41-page finding in Judge Sean Cox’s court investigates the jail detainees’ claims seriously and in depth.
Attorneys who have knowledge in this area of law, after reviewing Searcy’s omnibus motion and the federal injunction issued in Ewing v. Wayne Co. Jail, have noted that Ewing’s pleadings are on all fours with case law, court rules, statutes and constitution.
During Searcy’s Jan. 5 hearing, Judge Kiefer Cox denied his “Omnibus Pleading Joining Motions of Darrell Ewing” as untimely, saying it should have been filed by Aug. 14, 2023, the general filing deadline for motions from both sides.
Kearney objected.
“It would be prejudice to Mr. Searcy’s constitutional rights to deny those constitutional motions as being untimely,” he said.
“In this case, there have been substantial complications by holding [Ewing and Searcy’s] hearings separately. The court is severing the pre-trial proceedings but will join this case for trial. I did not receive service of Mr. Ewing’s motions. When I was made aware of them, I filed the omnibus joinder.”
With regard to the two defendants’ motion to sever their trials, Judge Cox said he would rule on them in limine as the trial began. He said if “outbursts” at the trial occurred that were prejudicial to Searcy, he would deal with them himself, and referred to some of Ewing’s filings as “self-serving.”
Ewing’s standby Atty. Christopher Sinclair (r) as Ewing leaves hearing with 3 boxes of his legal files.
At Ewing’s hearing Dec. 1, his stand-by attorney Christopher Sinclair strongly objected to Judge Cox’s warning about “outbursts” in the courtroom, which referred to the audience, not Ewing. He noted he had heard NO such outbursts behind him.
“Mr. Ewing feels strongly that he is being railroaded and that he has been wrongfully convicted. . .” Atty. Kearney responded. “When the court says its not going to permit any outbursts of any kind, I could see it turning into a circus. If it’s case that Mr. Ewing is being restrained throughout the course of the trial, or something is happening, there is significant case law that specifically addresses this particular issue. I don’t’ want to be midway through a trial that we’ve been waiting a number of years for, for it to end in a mistrial. I don’t think Mr. Ewing’s statements . . . are self-serving. I don’t think there’s evidence of that.”
SEARCY JOINS EWING MOTION TO DISMISS CHARGES DUE TO BRADY
In his Omnibus motion, at no.9, Kearney said, “Regarding Mr. Ewing’s Motions to Compel and for In Camera Review; Motion to Dismiss Due to Brady, and Motion to Dismiss under MCR 6.201(J), Mr. Searcy joins these motions. . .Mr. Searcy believes the prior judge was incorrect in denying discovery of Brady information, denying an evidentiary hearing, and denying a hearing to evaluate discovery sanctions under MCR 6.201. . .The prosecution has never been required to answer any of the questions proposed by the defense in those pleadings.” See summary of Brady violations cited below in Ewing’s motion.
Summary of Darrell Ewing’s motion to dismiss charges due to Brady violations.
Joins Ewing’s Motion to Prohibit Shackling in the Courtroom.
Judge Cox granted Ewing’s motion to stop his shackling because he was representing himself and needed to access paperwork and other matters during hearings. But Searcy is still shackled. Ewing’s motion asks for an end to shackles in court for all detainees.
“People are entitled to the presumption of innocence, and treating them indistinguishably from convicted persons blurs the already fuzzy practical line between pre-trial detainee and convicted person,” Kearney wrote. “While the Supreme Court of the United States reversed the 9th Circuit en banc opinion in U.S. v Sanchez-Gomez . . .it did so on mootness and other procedural grounds. Sanchez-Gomez, cited by Mr. Ewing, is still strong persuasive authority.” See http://voiceofdetroit.net/wp-content/uploads/United-States-v.-Sanchez-Gomez-No.-13-50561-9th-Cir.-2017-__-Justia.pdf.
DPD Theopolis Williams testifies in 2012, at pre- exam of Chauncey Owens, uncle of Aiyana Jones.
Motion to disclose records of DPD’s Theopolis Williams, Andrew Guntsviller.
Kearney also joined Ewing’s motion to disclose the previous disciplinary records of two Detroit police officers in the case, the Theopolis Williams (Officer in Charge) and Andrew Guntzviller. He said the legal authority cited by the prosecution (as well as Judge Cox when he denied the motion) referred to “privileged employment records” in civil cases.
“It is inapposite to a criminal case where the prosecution has a constitutional obligation to produce information in the police department’s possession that could impeach a police officer witness . . .U.S. v Gaskin states that it is an abuse of discretion for the court to deny discovery of a personnel file without conducting an in camera review.”
SEARCY MOTION TO EXCLUDE I.D.
Introduction to Forensic Science, 9/E. By Richard Saferstein. PRENTICE HALL. ©2007
Kearney and AP Sawyer discussed arrangements for experts to testify at the upcoming Daubert hearings Feb. 21, 22, and 23, which Kearney has requested. Searcy’s motion to exclude identification testimony from the Love eyewitnesses is at: http://voiceofdetroit.net/wp-content/uploads/Derrico-Searcy-motion-to-exclude-id.pdf
(In Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals Inc., 509 U.S. 579 (1993), the U.S. Supreme Court required judges to assess the methodology and reasoning behind an expert’s opinions, rather than simply relying on the expert’s credentials or reputation, to curtail the admission of pseudoscientific or unreliable expert testimony. Daubert Standard | Wex | US Law | LII / Legal Information Institute (cornell.edu))
TYREE WASHINGTON CONFESSION
Regarding the prosecution’s review of Tyree Washington’s 2017 Mirandized confession to the murder of J.B. Watson, Kearney says in the Omnibus motion, “The versions of Tyree Washington’s confession during the 2010 trial w[ere] starkly different than the 2017 confession in ways that made it powerfully exculpatory and make PO Guntsviller’s statements claiming otherwise misleading at best, and mendacious at worst. . . The Court should reject this argument.”
Scott Lewis
Kearney and Sawyer also addressed how confessions of Tyree Washington to the murder of J.B. Watson, including a 2017 Mirandized and recorded statement given to the Michigan State Police would be addressed at trial, and whether Washington himself would be expected to testify.
AP Sawyer alleged that a detective met with Washington in the federal prison where he is housed in Aug. 2022 and has a three-minute transcript from the meeting with new findings. But a prosecutor’s reply to one of Ewing’s motions indicated such a meeting took place in Sept. 2022 and nothing new was obtained. Kearney said any such statement could not be offered for the truth of the matter against the Mirandized, recorded statement “against penal interest” from 2017. Washington also recorded an interview admitting to the crime with private investigator Scott Lewis in 2017.
RELATED STORIES:
DID PROS. KYM WORTHY AND DPD SUPPRESS KILLER’S CONFESSION IN EWING/SEARCY CASE? HEARING DEC. 1 | VOICE OF DETROIT: The city’s independent newspaper, unbossed and unbought
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Voice of Detroit is a pro bono newspaper, now devoting itself entirely to stories related to our PRISON NATION and POLICE STATE. Funds are needed regularly to pay quarterly web hosting fee of $460.00 and other expenses. VOD will disappear from the web if fee not paid.
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 $460.00, P.O. box fee of $180/yr. and other costs including utility and internet bills, costs for research including court records and internet fees, office supplies, gas, etc.
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Defense argued passionately and persuasively during Jan. 23 preliminary exam; mainstream media limited that coverage
Go to 8:16:00 on video above to hear Atty. Brian Brown’s presentation followed by 36th District Court Chief Judge Kenneth King’s ruling
Defense points:
Michael Jackson-Bolanos with atty. during Pre/Exam Jan. 23, 2024/Photo: DFP
VOD Editorial
On Jan. 23, VOD watched the second half of the Michael Jackson-Bolanos preliminary exam on felony murder and other charges in the death of Detroit synagogue leader Samantha Woll last October. While the mainstream media touched on various issues, it did not reflect the full extent of defense Attorney Brian Brown’s detailed and persuasive presentation. We are publishing the entire video here.
Below, VOD has summarized the most salient points in the defense presentation, which was interrupted several times by 36th District Court Judge Kenneth King.
Samantha Woll, Pres. Isaac Agree Synagogue
In the earlier parts of the hearing, AP Elsey presented multiple videos from building and street cameras showing an individual alleged to be Jackson-Bolanos leaving his place of residence at 494 W. Alexandrine at 12:25 a.m, walking downtown on Woodward and then over to general area of the victim’s home (not inside the complex or home), then onward down E. Jefferson by the Robinson Furniture Store and Pizza Papalis, then traveling back to the parking lot of the Chrysler Elementary School parking lot at 1445 E. Lafayette (4:20 a.m) then to the I-375 service drive walkover (4:23 a.m.).
Note: Judge Kenneth King interrupted Brown repeatedly and impatiently.
BRIAN BROWN: The Officer in Charge stated she used records to indicate that Woll came home and there was motion around 12:32 a.m. at the front door. But the prosecutor failed to illustrate that at 12:35 am and 12:38 am the back door was opened. Also there was motion . . .
(Judge Kenneth King interrupts—”why is that significant?”)
Atty. Brian Brown/DN photo
She came through the front door, then opened the back door later, maybe she let somebody in.
(Judge King again: Maybe she was putting something out the back door who knows?)
DID THE MURDER OCCUR AT 1:30 AM, NOT 4:20 AM as prosecution says?
BRIAN BROWN: There was living room motion detected at 1:24 a.m. The last time Woll used her phone was at 1:30 a.m. We also know from the OIC that at 1:38 am a neighbor heard a scream. We also have photos from inside the house that would seem to indicate that she may have been stationary in the same place by closet door for a long time. There is a high concentration of blood there and streaks on the wall. A detective testified that there were footprints in the blood leading to the back of the apt. The OIC said that movement likely triggered the threshold of alarm system. So it’s very possible this murder could have happened much sooner than the prosecutor contends [at 4:20 pm.]
A PROLONGED STRUGGLE DURING BEATING, STABBING OF SAMANTHA WOLL, PRODUCING COPIOUS BLOOD SPILLS, NOT POSSIBLE IN 3 MINS.
Samantha Woll’s Lafayette Park apt.
BRIAN BROWN: Based on their opinion, it shows a struggle. There was fruit that was knocked down inside the kitchen, also blood in the living room and in the hallway. The prosecution’s timeline is that all of this happened in a matter of one minute. They claim my client entered the home at 4:20 am, beat her up—because there were bruises. The prosecutor omitted the bruises shown in the medical examiner’s report. They didn’t want the court to know that Samantha Woll had bruises on an eye, bruises on her head, bruises on her elbow, bruises on her knees.
Whoever did this crime had sufficient time, more than a 60-second window, in order to fight and tussle with her. There was blood in the living room, over by the laptop, and material that hadn’t been tampered with—such as her credit cards. There was no sign of a home invasion or a burglary. Whoever did this was not concerned with stealing any items. Her phone was on the floor. The FBI Special Agent testified that . . .
(Judge King interrupts again–how do you explain Ms. Woll’s DNA on the defendant’s jacket.)
It could be the wrong place at the wrong time. It’s possible he could have come across body, maybe touched the body, had blood just on two spots on the sleeve. (Brown noted neighbor who found the body may have touched it, but was never screened for blood traces.)
36th District Court Chief Judge Kenneth King binds Michael Jackson-Bolanos over to Third Circuit Court Jan. 23, 2024; next hearing there January 30, 2024.
(Judge King: Tell me why that wouldn’t be a question for trier of fact?)
BRIAN BROWN: I don’t even believe they have enough evidence to fit into thejr time frame. They saw my client walking in front of the casino at 4:23 am a quarter mile away from the home, where there was motion at 4:20 a.m. They want you to think my client went inside this apartment, struggled with her, beat her up, and stabbed her 7 to 8 times, and went from room to room to room and then was able to make it a quarter mile away by 4:23 a.m. They can’t show us where my client actually entered this location.
Based upon all the blood and the nature of this crime, had my client stabbed her 8 different times on at numerous points in her body—she got stabbed in the back, in the bottom of her neck, he would have a lot more blood on his jacket.
Why don’t they have the longitude and latitude [on my client’s I-phone, for where my client was at that particular time. On Woll’s phone, they got longitude and latitude. Nothing pinpoints my client walking into that particular location. He was in that area but there was no evidence that my client was ever inside the location.
Brian Brown: “I know this is the preliminary exam, but they have to show specific and articulable facts here. They want the fact-finder to fill in the blanks. They left out specific things because it does not fit their narrative. It looks like she was there for an amount of time—she got up, got her bearings, tried to walk to the neighbor’s house. There is no evidence whatsoever that my client was involved. People purposely left out particular information. Would ask that you not bind this case over.”
Samantha Woll with Michigan State Attorney General Dana Nessel.
VOD notes that stringent scrutiny of this case by the public is necessary in light of it’s high-profile nature. We extend our sincere condolences to the family of Samantha Woll in the wake of her horrific murder, which “should never have taken place” as Judge King noted.
But it comes at a time when there is massive bias in U.S. mainstream media and the stance of the ruling Democratic Party here, regarding the slaughter of over 25,000 Palestinians in Gaza after the Hamas incursion into Israel Oct. 7.
THIS SHOULD NOT TRANSMOGRIFY INTO THE RAILROAD OF A YOUNG AND POOR BLACK MAN IN A RUSH TO JUDGMENT ON A REPREHENSIBLE MURDER OF A PROMINENT JEWISH LEADER IN DETROIT. TO OBTAIN JUSTICE FOR SAMANTHA WOLL AND HER FAMILY, IT IS IMPERATIVE THAT THE ACTUAL MURDERER BE FOUND, CHARGED AND TRIED. VOD IS NOT SATISFIED THAT OTHER SUSPECTS, INCLUDING ACTUAL ANTI-SEMITES, HAVE BEEN SUFFICIENTLY INVESTIGATED.
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Voice of Detroit is a pro bono newspaper, now devoting itself entirely to stories related to our PRISON NATION and POLICE STATE. Funds are needed regularly to pay quarterly web hosting fee of $460.00 and other expenses. VOD will disappear from the web if fee not paid.
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 $460.00, P.O. box fee of $180/yr. and other costs including utility and internet bills, costs for research including court records and internet fees, office supplies, gas, etc.
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DPD OFFICER MONICA CHILDS TESTIFIED IN LARRY SMITH, JR. DEPOSITION (watch in link below).
Under oath, ex-DPD detective says cops rewarded unreliable jailhouse informants (wxyz.com)
U.S. District Ct. Senior Judge David Lawson says multiple counts against DPD officer Monica Childs likely valid, Larry Smith civil suit can proceed
Lifer Gary Brayboy, who has spent 30 years in prison, still fights conviction, citing Childs’ coercion of chief prosecution witness against him, her record in cases of exonerees Larry Smith, Bernard Howard, Ramon Ward
By Diane Bukowski
January 1, 2024
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DETROIT — Detroit Police Detective Monica Childs (now retired) has been cited in multiple wrongful convictions in Wayne County, and to date has not faced criminal or civil penalties.
But on Dec. 19, U.S. District Court for the Eastern Michigan Senior Judge David Lawson allowed multiple counts against her in a civil lawsuit brought by exoneree Larry Smith., Jr. to survive a motion for summary judgement brought by the defendants.
U.S, District Court Senior Judge David Lawson
Lawson dismissed claims against Wayne County and various other police officers and prosecutors, but said the claims against Childs can proceed to trial. Smith told VOD that he is still pursuing action on the other claims in higher courts.
“There is abundant evidence in the record, which, if believed, easily shows that Childs fabricated critical incriminating evidence offered at trial against Smith and conspired with [AP Robert]Donaldson to do so,” Lawson wrote.
“Moreover, Edward Allen testified that Childs visited him while he was ‘in residence’ as an informant for the Detroit Police Department, and that defendants Childs and Donaldson solicited Allen to testify falsely that Smith had confessed his involvement in the Hayes murder.
“. . . .Allen further testified that Childs supplied the discovery package from Smith’s case so that he would be able to testify accurately about details of the case, despite the fact that he never had met Smith and did not know anything about the Hayes murder.”
Judge Lawson includes further testimony from Edward Allen which says the “Ring of Snitches,” at the behest of police officers and prosecutors, victimized multiple defendants, from the 1980’s through the 1990’s.
Gary Brayboy MDOC photo
Childs was also cited as a key player in the convictions of exonerees Bernard Howard (shown in photo at top) and Ramon Ward.
Meanwhile, Gary Brayboy, a Michigan lifer who has spent 30 years in prison, and says Childs coerced the chief witness to testify against him in 1992, is waiting for a hearing in the Michigan Court of Appeals. Wayne Co. 3rd Circuit Judge Nicholas Hathaway denied his Motion for Relief from Judgment May 12.
“The Court finds that the articles and evidence of other exonerees do not relate directly to Mr. Brayboy’s case,” Hathaway said. “There is nothing to show that any wrongdoing by Ms. [Monica] Childs actually occurred here beyond mere speculation.”
VOD covered Brayboy’s case two years ago, when he had a hearing pending before Judge THOMAS Hathaway. See: LIFER GARY BRAYBOY, FRAMED BY DETROIT SQUAD 7 COPS INVOLVED IN EXONEREE CASES, IN COURT MON. JAN. 24 | VOICE OF DETROIT: The city’s independent newspaper, unbossed and unbought
Judge Nicholas Hathaway changed his legal last name from Brobak to Hathaway when he married Judge Dana Hathaway. Judge Thomas Hathaway retired shortly after his groundbreaking rulings in the case of exoneree Thelonious Searcy, including the dismissal of all charges against Searcy with prejudice. He cited the prosecution’s repeated and blatant violations of Brady v. Maryland, in withholding exculpatory evidence.
Judge Nicholas [Brobak] Hathaway with wife Judge Dana Hathaway.
In the Craighead case, the Court of Appeals agreed with the defendant that Simon’s role in other cases was legally germane to his case, and that it would have resulted in a different verdict.
“The trial court did not abuse its discretion when it held that the newly discovered evidence proffered by defendant was admissible as evidence of a scheme, plan, or system under MRE 404(b), a panel of Judges Cynthia Diane Stephens, David H. Sawyer, and
Deborah A. Servitto.
Mark Craighead/Photo Detroit Metro Times
“MRE 404(b)(1) provides as follows: Evidence of other crimes, wrongs, or acts is not admissible to prove the character of a person in order to show action in conformity therewith. It may, however, be admissible for other purposes, such as proof of motive, opportunity, intent, preparation, scheme, plan, or system in doing an act, knowledge, identity, or absence of mistake or accident when the same is material, whether such other crimes, wrongs, or acts are contemporaneous with, or prior or subsequent to the conduct at issue in the case.”
The Craighead court also found, The new evidence would make a different result probable on retrial. “[T]he evidence that must be taken into consideration when assessing a claim of newly discovered evidence is not simply the evidence presented at the original trial, but also the evidence that would be presented at a new trial.” People v Johnson, 502 Mich 541, 571; 918 NW2d 676 (2018) (citation omitted).”
Below is an excerpt of Edward Allen’s deposition in the case of Larry Smith.
WC Pros. Kym Worthy endorsed Judge Nicholas Hathaway (NH website).
In the deposition of Jonathan Hewitt-El, he repeatedly cites the role of Wayne 3rd Judicial Circuit Court Judge Kym Worthy (now Wayne Co. Prosecutor), as he tried to back out of testifying falsely as the only prosecution witness in a murder case.
He was supposed to falsely testify at trial, known to both the Prosecutor and his attorney, but changed his mind. He swears Judge Worthy tried to force him to reverse his decision not to.
From 1994 until January 2004, Worthy was a judge on the Wayne County Circuit Court. In 2004, Worthy was appointed Wayne County Prosecutor by the judges of the Wayne Count County Circuit Court bench to replace now Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan, who resigned to become the head of the Detroit Medical Center.
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Voice of Detroit is a pro bono newspaper, now devoting itself entirely to stories related to our PRISON NATION and POLICE STATE. Funds are needed regularly to pay quarterly web hosting fee of $460.00 and other expenses. VOD will disappear from the web if fee not paid.
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 $460.00, P.O. box fee of $180/yr. and other costs including utility and internet bills, costs for research including court records and internet fees, office supplies, gas, etc.
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DPD Cops Michael Parish and Michael Osman, known as the “Booty Boys,” allegedly subjected Black men to dozens of public anal cavity searches on the southwest side
Multiple victims documented their claims in testimony before Detroit City Council, civil lawsuits, media interviews; City of Detroit paid out over $700,000.00.
“These allegations are completely and utterly false, as supported by every member of the investigative process.” — DPD Dec. 22, 2023
“Because such acts flagrantly violate not only the Constitution, but also accepted law enforcement practices, these acts must figure prominently in personnel decisions about the careers of the officers who commit them.” (excerpt, full quote below) — ACLU Racial Justice Project Atty. Mark Fancher; the ACLU filed suit vs. ‘Booty Boys.’
Forced cavity searches have become rampant across the U.S., including recent incidents in Allen Park, Ferndale, Warren
By Diane Bukowski
December 24, 2023
VOD’s coverage of police and prisons rises above the mainstream media, which excuses abuses like those reported in this story. KEEP US GOING! Please DONATE TO VOD at: https://www.gofundme.com/donate-to-vod Cash App at (313) 825-6126
Michael Parish, one of two cops known as “The Booty Boys” on Detroit’s southwest side, for allegedly conducting public anal cavity searches on Black men in the 2000’s, has been identified by Detroit Police Chief James White as his Chief of Staff, in addition to his role as Commander.
White and Parrish appeared together at a National Action Network forum Sept. 24, 2022 to tout the controversial ShotSpotter technology used by DPD.
White said he first met Parish about 14 years ago, and hired him to write policy for the Department.
“He’s been with me for many, many years now.” Chief White said. “Michael Parish is my chief of staff. In his spare time, he has become a lawyer. I put him over the towing unit. He says, ‘Chief, we gotta hire some returning citizens. . . .Set the tone now.’ He brings in a young man who went to jail for murder. . . as a tow truck driver. He became one of our best employees. But Mike wasn’t done. He says, ‘Now that I’m a lawyer, if you let me, I think we’ve got a lot of people that need fresh starts. I’m going to volunteer to do expungements every Wednesday.”
The complete Facebook video from the NAN forum is included below in this story.
The article excerpted in the box above was published 14 years ago in 2009 as part of a series in The Michigan Citizen, the same year White says he met and hired Parish.
Marcon Green and Melvin Aikins filed suit against Osman and Parish, among 9 others
The article recounts allegations made by dozens of Black men on the southwest side. The men first spoke with Michigan Citizen photographer Wyoman Mitchell and this reporter, then testified at the Detroit City Council. Later, they spoke to and hired multiple attorneys at a neighborhood rally, organized by Mitchell.
See full Michigan Citizen story at: http://voiceofdetroit.net/wp-content/uploads/Cops-Rape-Blck-Men-Lawsuits-Seek-Millions-from-City-Michigan-Citizen-8-9-2009-3.pdf
Atty. Mark Fancher
In the case of Elvis Ware, the Michigan ACLU settled for $20,000 and an agreement that Detroit officers would be told to obtain a warrant for cavity searches and have them performed by medical personnel at a hospital, as Michigan state law requires. Attorney Mark Fancher was among the ACLU personnel handling the case. His comments for this story are included farther down.
“If I feel something that I believe to be a weapon and/or contraband within somebody’s pants, I will reach in and recover it,” Parish, unapologetic, said in a deposition in the case of Marcon Green. Osman denied having committed such searches in a media interview.
“Police officers Michael Parish and Michael Osman are both white and engaged in inappropriate conduct against African Americans because of their personal racial animus.” attorney Lawrence Radden said in a complaint for Terence Hopkins.
City Council members Alberta Tinsley-Talabi and Kwame Kenyatta listen as Byron Ogletree testifies about Booty Boys’ assault on him May 31, 2006.
But a barrage of media coverage favoring of the police, citing out-of-court settlements through an internal procedure where the City paid over $700,000 in the cases of Byron Ogletree and Marjjo Clyburn, led to a jury vote nixing the Hopkins lawsuit.
It was Ogletree’s assault and arrest by Parish and Osman on May 31, 2006 which triggered a community uprising on S. Schaefer at Annabelle and brought the cops’ actions to public attention.
Ogletree and Marcon Green, Devon Windom, and Melvin Shields, Jr. testified in front of the Detroit City Council at Councilwoman JoAnn Watson’s request a few days later. This reporter broke the story in the Michigan Citizen after the hearing and separate interviews with the men. Watson continued to press for action against the officers at subsequent council meetings.
Detroit City Councilwoman JoAnn Watson 2013.
“Was any discipline sanctioned by the police department, internal affairs division?” she asked. “Was any report filed by Ms. [Sheryl] Robinson [federal monitor] relative to the consent decree? This is not a small issue. It has grave impact on the moral and fiscal liability of the city.”
According to court records, DPD Internal Affairs Sgt. Joseph Tiseo, FBI agent Michael Fitzgerald, and Asst. U.S. Attorney Pamela Thompson jointly investigated the cases. Thompson eventually told lawyers for the plaintiffs that the U.S. Attorney had cleared the cops in 2007.
Detroit Police Chief Ella Bully-Cummings, through her spokesperson Deputy Chief James Tate, not only cleared the officers, but promoted Osman to sergeant. Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick ducked the issue, saying through his spokesman Matt Allen that the federal government had taken over the case. Tate later reported there was no basis for the allegations.
WC Pros. Kym Worthy used this photo in her re-election campaign/2022
In most of those cases, Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy filed criminal charges against the victims, based on allegations in the pre-textual stops (no turn signal, odor of marijuana, etc.), including charges against Ogletree which had him facing up to 37 years in prison.
The late WCCC Judge Carole Youngblood dismissed Ogletree’s criminal case after a police technician testified that he had not been contacted to preserve the videotape of Ogletree’s arrest, despite his attorney’s request to do so a day after the event. Officers at the Southwestern District had allowed the machine to rewind and tape over the event five days afterwards.
Three other WCCC judges, Deborah Thomas, Rudy Serra, and Cynthia Hathaway threw out charges against Melvin Shields, Marjjo Clyburn, and Mario Smith after testimony about actions by Parish and Osman. Prosecutor Worthy appealed in two of the cases.
DPD, ACLU respond to VOD requests for comment
VOD emailed the Detroit Police Department for their response to its Nov. 22, 2023 article on the matter, asking “1. How has Commander Parish been promoted to this level after his “alleged” forced body cavity searches (rapes) of Black men on the southwest side in and around 2006? 2. What is the Detroit Police Department’s current policy on such practices? 3. Does DPD DENY Officers Michael Parish and Michael Osman committed such acts despite dozens of witnesses and lawsuits filed? 4. Did DPD conduct its own investigations of these matters?”
Recent DPD graduating class.
DPD Media Relations answered only #3 of the request. “These allegations are completely and utterly false, as supported by every member of the investigative process,” an anonymous representative said. “In addition to his years of service with the Detroit Police Dept., Commander Michael Parish is a licensed attorney who works in his free time to have the criminal records of defendants expunged. Many of these defendants are African Americans in the city of Detroit, and Commander Parish’s work enables them to gain employment and improve their lives.
DPD continued, “In his time with the Detroit Police Department, Commander Parish has passed promotional examinations and successfully served in supervisory capacities, allowing him to be selected by management and approved by the Board of Police Commissioners for further advancement in the Department. Commander Parish has served this city and Department diligently.”
Attorney Mark Fancher, of the Michigan ACLU’s Racial Justice project, was among the attorneys who spoke with men raising complaints against the “Booty Boys” at a “Picnic for Justice” event July 12, 2006.
He told VOD, “We offer no specific comment about Michael Parish, but we have a continuing concern about all law enforcement officers who engage in unauthorized searches of private areas of the body and any other acts that violate the constitutional rights and dignity of members of the community. Because such acts flagrantly violate not only the Constitution, but also accepted law enforcement practices, these acts must figure prominently in personnel decisions about the careers of the officers who commit them.”
Below is the complete Facebook Live video of the National Action Network forum featuring Chief James White and his chief of staff, Cdr. Michael Parish.
DETROIT POLICE DEPARTMENT CONTINUING POLICY–NONE
The DPD did not respond to VOD’s question about the current practice of its officers related to cavity searches, although the ACLU says it obtained “an agreement that Detroit officers would be told to obtain a warrant for cavity searches and have them performed by medical personnel at a hospital, as Michigan state law requires.” A search of DPD’s policies and procedures published on its website found no such language. Its Search and Seizure policy is below.
POLICE BODY CAVITY SEARCHES LOCALLY AND NATION-WIDE
Since the “Booty Boys” cases, police locally and nationally have continued assaulting men and women illegally with forced body cavity searches, with little accountability. Recent media coverage of such cases in Warren, Ferndale, and Allen Park is included below, followed by several cases nationally.
Apparently, such continued violations of individuals’ constitutional rights result from the failure of entities like the Detroit Police Dept. and the Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office to hold officers accountable for what amounts to rape of Black men and women, in this case promoting DPD’s Michael Parish to “Chief of Staff” for Chief James White.
Warren police graduation
WARREN POLICE
Excerpt Detroit News article: “The lawsuit accuses Warren Police Officers C. Wells, R. McNeil and L. Johnson, along with a “John Doe” officer, of excessive force and of violating the Fourth Amendment rights of Kirk Knopek during the March 13, 2022 incident. The lawsuit that seeks more than $75,000 claims Wells conducted the body cavity search while the other officers failed to intervene.”
“According to the lawsuit, an officer put on blue gloves and ordered Knopek to spread his legs and “just be quiet.” Knopek was further ordered to “assume a standing position to initiate an illegal roadside body cavity search,” the suit alleges.
“Wells proceeded to pull down and reach into (Knopek’s) sweatpants, pull down and reach into (his) underwear, reached in grabbing (his) buttocks, and then forcefully inserted his finger(s) into plaintiff’s anus,” the suit alleges.”
EXCERPT OF KIRK KNOPEK LAWSUIT FILED BY FIEGER AND FIEGER
FERNDALE POLICE
ALLEN PARK POLICE
Excerpts: “The ghastly chain of events in Campbell v. Mack were set off when Kevin Campbell, a black man, drove past Daniel Mack, a white police officer in Allen Park, Michigan.”
“Mack then pulled down Campbell’s pants and underwear, bent down, and examined Campbell’s genitals. Campbell repeatedly asked the officer to stop and told him, “Nah, you can’t do that, man,” but Mack responded, “Yes, I can, yes, I can,” and escalated the search. Mack allegedly felt underneath Campbell’s genitals, telling another officer he had drugs “tucked underneath his balls” or “tucked in his fucking ass crack.” Campbell claims that Mack also “grabbed” and “pulled” his testicles and “stuck his finger inside of my anus.” Eventually, the officer gave up and told Campbell: “You can keep it,” referring to these putative drugs. No narcotics were ever found.”
“But in an opinion by Judge Eric Clay, the 6th Circuit refused to grant Mack qualified immunity. It is clearly established, Clay wrote, that an officer “needs either probable cause or reasonable suspicion to conduct a traffic stop.” Mack had neither. It is also clearly established that an officer may not retaliate when a suspect contests “his or her allegedly unlawful treatment.” The First Amendment protects a suspect’s right to complain. Yet Mack did just that, allegedly tightening Campbell’s handcuffs and performing the body cavity search in an increasingly “aggressive, intimidating, and hostile manner” because Campbell protested. Under well-established 6th Circuit precedent, Mack’s actions, as recounted by Campbell, were obviously unlawful, so Mack must fight them at trial, and cannot hide behind qualified immunity.” See http://voiceofdetroit.net/wp-content/uploads/Campbell-v-Mack-18-2156.pdf.
NATIONALLY
GEORGIA
TENNESSEE
THE HORROR OF POLICE SEXUAL ASSAULTS AND ABUSE OF BLACK MEN–FINAL CALL
https://new.finalcall.com/2022/12/13/the-horror-of-police-sexual-assaults-and-abuse-of-black-men/
In 2021, the U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a District Court dismissal of Deaundra Billingsley’s complaint in the above case, and remanded it to the District Court to correct its errorsSee: 22a0365n-06.pdf (uscourts.gov)
TEXAS
MISSISSIPPI
RELATED:
Previous VOD Article on Michael Parish:
Final Call article on Booty Boys:
Detroit cops sued for allegedly violating men (finalcall.com)
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Voice of Detroit is a pro bono newspaper, now devoting itself entirely to stories related to our PRISON NATION and POLICE STATE. Funds are needed regularly to pay quarterly web hosting fee of $460.00 and other expenses. VOD will disappear from the web if fee not paid.
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 $460.00, P.O. box fee of $180/yr. and other costs including utility and internet bills, costs for research including court records and internet fees, office supplies, gas, etc.
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Aftermath of Israel bombing of Khan Younis in Gaza
Western Media Ignores Palestinian Fight for Freedom and Israeli Killing to Continue Its Murderous Illegal Occupation & Colonization.
Global corporate capitalism led by the hegemonic state, the United States, is a fundamentally immoral and irrational system. In capitalism, both states and corporations are designed to maximize short-term power and profits for the super-wealthy corporate elite. [1]
The Israeli military has finally conceded that it had killed its own civilians on October 7 “in immense and complex quantity”.
By Jay Janson
December 22, 2023
VOD has added photos and graphics to this article from open-source media.
Please DONATE TO VOD at: https://www.gofundme.com/donate-to-vod Cash App at (313) 825-6126
Palestinian children after bombing of hospital.
For two and a half months, Israeli military forces, with the full backing of the US government, have dropped more than 40,000 tons of explosives—the equivalent of more than two nuclear bombs—on Gaza destroying residential buildings, hospitals, schools and refugee camps and deliberately targeting hundreds of medical workers, journalists, teachers and other civilians for assassination. [2]
At least 20,000 Palestinians have been killed and 54,000 wounded, the majority women and children. Many more face death in the coming weeks, as Israel lays siege in the south and deprives Gaza’s 2.2 million people of food, water and medical care. Hunger and disease are rapidly spreading through their makeshift shelters.
“Hundreds of people were killed — horrifically — in a massive strike at Al Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza City, including patients, healthcare workers and families that had been seeking refuge in and around the hospital.”
US vetoes have blocked international calls for a ceasefire. The US government is fully supporting Israel politically, financially and militarily.
U.S.-provided bunker busters
A recently leaked Pentagon document stated that US “security assistance” has been arriving in Israel on a near-daily basis. The US has delivered 36,000 rounds of 30mm artillery shells, 1,800 M141 Bunker-buster bombs and other munitions to Israel in late October alone, according to the document. [2]
Under the rubble, alongside the buried bodies of children, Palestinian rescue workers have found bomb fragments with the manufacturing codes of Boeing and other US defense companies. There is unchallengeable evidence that the Biden administration and both corporate-backed U.S. political parties are just as guilty as the Netanyahu government for perpetuating the greatest war crime of the 21st century.
UN Partition Plan 1947 awarded Jewish State 51% of land; Jews owned 6%, made up only 33% of population.
Why all this death and destruction? Because corporate war investors ruling the U.S. want to ensure that its powerful Israeli military outpost in the midst of the oil rich nations of the Middle East continues to exist.
Something America established in 1946, when American power over an incipient United Nations of only 56 nations, produced the genocidal stratagem of torching the Holy Land with a phony, never expected nor intended to be implemented resolution for a crazy quilt partition of Palestine into six noncontiguous areas:
Western Media Never Questions Why U.S. Well-Armed Israel Could Not Just Defend Itself Instead of Claiming It Must Destroy Hamas and Murder Tens of Thousands of Women and Children.
Palestine originally encompassed all the land from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea.
The destruction of Gaza’s homes and buildings makes the 2.3 million citizens of Israeli prison-enclosed Gaza homeless. Without food, water, fuel electricity and sanitation infrastructure, the survivors will be forced to leave. (Neighboring Egypt and Jordan are well aware of the increasing threat of having to care for more than two million impoverished Gaza refugees seeking asylum.)
Once Gaza is obliterated and has become a desolate and de-populated land, while the Palestinian land on the West bank is further colonized by Israeli settlers, adding to the half million settler enclaves already making life difficult for Palestinians, Israel will be close to its goal of eventually having complete control and ownership of all the land that once was the British Mandate of Palestine. Then Israel could expel the Arabs from their last enclave in East Jerusalem.
Rabbi at Israeli Military Training Base Says ‘Whole Country’ Is ‘Ours,’ Including Gaza and Lebanon – Israel News – Haaretz.com Haaretz, Israel News, Nov. 5, 2023
https://twitter.com/i/status/1721126302390911221
The Israel-Hezbollah conflict is intensifying! Could Netanyahu decide to settle old scores with Hezbollah and even Iran while U.S. aircraft carriers are committed to defend Israel?
Israel in its supporting CIA-overseen Western media[3] have concocted grotesque fables to present Palestinians as bloodthirsty savages in order to justify its horrific genocide in Gaza.
U.S. President Joe Biden gives Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu a “bear hug,” falsely depicted by Western media as a warning of restraint. If Biden wants to “restrain” Israel all he has to do is cut off billions in U.S. military aid.
Barely a day has passed since the 7 October attack by Hamas when the western media has not revisited those events, often to reveal what it claims are new details of astonishing atrocities carried out by the Palestinian group.
These disclosures have served to sustain public indignation in the West, and kept Palestinian solidarity activists on the back foot.
In turn, the outrage has smoothed Israel’s path as it has leveled vast swaths of Gaza; killed more than 20,000 Palestinians, most of them women and children; and denied the enclave’s population of 2.3 million access to food, water and fuel.
Critically, it has also made it far easier for western governments to throw their weight behind Israel – and arm it – even as Israeli leaders have repeatedly engaged in genocidal talk and carried out ethnic cleansing operations.
Many of the claims about 7 October have been shocking beyond belief, such as stories that Hamas beheaded 40 babies, baked another in an oven, carried out mass, systematic rapes, and cut a foetus from its mother’s womb.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken even described in graphic detail – and wholly falsely – a Hamas attack on an Israeli family: “The father’s eye gouged out in front of his kids. The mother’s breast cut off, the girl’s foot amputated, the boy’s fingers cut off before they were executed.”
As to Israel’s using the Israelis killed in the Hamas Oct 7th attack to justify the Israeli response of murdering at the time already 12, 500 Palestinian civilians, recent investigations find that a large fraction of the bodies recovered had been charred beyond all recognition, making it very difficult to distinguish between Israelis and Hamas attackers.
Since the Hamas fighters had only been carrying rifles, Kalashnikov rifles and other small arms, all those victims must have been killed by explosive tank shells and Hellfire missiles. Indeed, newly released video footage revealed that hundreds of Israeli cars had been incinerated by such munitions, suggesting that many or most of the Israelis killed fleeing the dance festival had probably died at the hands of trigger-happy Apache pilots, who reported that they had blasted anything that moved.
Israel admits Apache helicopters fired on their own civilians running from the Supernova music festival.
“The pilots realized that there was tremendous difficulty in distinguishing within the occupied outposts and settlements who was a terrorist and who was a soldier or civilian… The rate of fire against the thousands of terrorists was tremendous at first, and only at a certain point did the pilots begin to slow down the attacks and carefully select the targets.”[4]
Last week the BBC and others led again with stories of systematic Hamas mass rapes on 7 October. Efforts by the United Nations to investigate these claims are being obstructed by Israel.
The media’s amplification of Israel’s version of 7 October continues to breathe life into the Israeli case that wrecking Gaza to eliminate Hamas is morally justified.
Media readiness to re-examine 7 October long after those events took place
Only claims that support Israel’s narrative about what happened that day are being aired.
Unknown to most western audiences, there has been a steady trickle of evidence from Israeli sources over the past two months implicating Israel’s own military in at least some of the killings attributed to Hamas.
The Israeli military has finally conceded that it had killed its own civilians on October 7 “in immense and complex quantity”.
Regev told MSNBC host Mehdi Hasan:
“There were actually bodies that were so badly burned we thought they were ours. In the end, apparently, they were Hamas terrorists.”
How did so many Hamas fighters end up burned – and in exactly the same locations as Israelis, meaning their remains could not be identified separately for many weeks?</
Shelled by Israel
Kibbutz Be-eri after attack Oct. 7/The TImes of Israel
Yasmin Porat, who fled the Nova festival and ended up hiding in Be’eri, was one of the few to survive that day. Her partner, Tal Katz, was killed.
She has repeatedly explained to the Israeli media what happened.
According to Porat’s account to Kan radio on 15 November, the Hamas fighters in Be’eri barricaded themselves into a house with a group of a dozen or so Israeli hostages – either planning to use them as human shields or as bargaining chips for an exit.
The Israeli military, however, was in no mood for bargaining. Porat escaped only because one of the Hamas fighters vacated the house early on, using her as a human shield, before giving himself up.
Porat describes Israeli soldiers engaging in a four-hour firefight with the Hamas gunmen, despite the presence of Israeli civilians. But not all of the hostages were killed in the crossfire. Israel ended the clash with an Israeli tank firing two shells into the house.
In Porat’s account, when she asked why this had been done, “they explained to me that it was to break the walls, in order to help purify the house”.
The only other survivor, Hadas Dagan, who was lying face down on the lawn in front of the house during the firefight, reported to Porat what happened after the two shells hit the house. Dagan saw both of their partners lying near her, killed by shrapnel from the explosions.
Survivor of Kibbutz Be’eri incident reveals harrowing details of Israeli forces’ assault
Survivor of Kibbutz Be-eri attack Hadas Dagan, with photo of husband killed by Israelis Oct. 7 in background.
Hadas Dagan, the only survivor of the Kibbutz Be’eri incident on 7 October, has broken her silence, recounting the horrific events. During the Israeli forces’ arrival, a fierce exchange of gunfire ensued, followed by missile strikes. Amidst this chaos, Dagan recalls the children’s desperate screams for help. Her testimony brings to light the targeted assault on civilians by the Israeli army, including her partner Adi, who was killed in the attack. Dagan vividly describes the terrifying moments,
A 12-year-old girl, Liel Hatsroni, who had been screaming inside the house throughout the firefight, also fell silent.
Hatsroni and her aunt, Ayalan, were both incinerated. It took weeks to identify their bodies.[5]
Confused pilots
Porat’s testimony is far from the only source showing that Israel is likely to have been responsible for a significant proportion of the civilian deaths that day – and for the burned bodies.
The security coordinator at Be’eri, Tuval Escapa, effectively confirmed Porat’s account to the Haaretz newspaper. He said: “Commanders in the field made difficult decisions – including shelling houses on their occupants in order to eliminate the terrorists along with the hostages.”
Cars after Nova music festival bombing Oct. 7
The burnt-out cars at the Nova festival and their occupants appear to have suffered a similar fate. Worried that Hamas gunmen were fleeing the area with hostages in cars, it seems, helicopter pilots were told to open fire, incinerating the cars and all the occupants.
The Ynet news website cited an Israeli air force assessment of its two dozen attack helicopters in the skies above the Nova festival: “It was very difficult to distinguish between terrorists and [Israeli] soldiers or civilians.” Nonetheless, pilots were instructed “to shoot at everything they see in the area of the fence” with Gaza.
Pilots emptied the ‘belly of the helicopter’ in minutes, flew to re-arm and returned to the air, again and again.
Challenge to official story
Palestinian children in Israeli jail./Photo: Human Rights Watch
Although they are rarely given a voice, Palestinians have their own, alternative narrative of what happened that day – and parts of it are being bolstered by accounts from Israeli sources.
In this telling, Hamas long trained for its breakout, and with a strategic aim in mind. The goal was to launch a commando-style assault on four military bases surrounding Gaza to kill or take hostage as many Israeli soldiers as possible, and a similar assault on local Israeli communities to seize civilian hostages.
The aim, according to this narrative, was to trade the hostages for Palestinian prisoners, thousands of whom are in Israeli jails, including women and children, often held without a military trial or even charges.
To the Palestinian public, these prisoners are no less hostages than the Israelis held in Gaza.[6]
Your 92 year old writer, is unable to stop thinking of the mass of fellow civilian human beings and their children being murdered, maimed and starved in Gaza with the weapons and munitions supplied by my government.
Seems like minded people, especially fellow Americans, should make this a topic of conversation among family, friends and co-workers, for none of us are safe from future crimes of our government.
“Nothing strengthens authority so much as silence.” Leonardo da Vinci
“To ignore evil is to become an accomplice to it.” –Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
“If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.” Archbishop of South Africa Desmond Tutu
GLOBAL SOUTH
America will not be ruled by corporate investors in war dis-informing and shaming its citizens by U.S. genocidal military crimes in other peoples countries forever. The whole world is getting fed up with it.
The vast majority of Humankind in the Global South cannot but be aware of having suffered genocide and military occupation by U.S./NATO similar to that being suffered by Palestinians today.
Ih our space age of instant world wide communication the five centuries of White race rule of planet Earth will come to an end.
There are more Chinese than the total population of U.S., Europe, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Israel. There are also now more Indians than Chinese and more Africans than Indians. Imagine how this human majority feels about this continuing American hegemony.
End Notes
1. https://www.commondreams.org/views/2022/07/16/us-corporate-elite-killing-democracy-and-planet
2. World Socialist Web Site
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2023/12/21/cdxa-d21.html
3.Worldwide Propaganda Network Built by the C.I.A. – The New York Times (nytimes.com) December 26, 1977, New York Times
6. ‘Why is the media ignoring evidence of Israel’s own actions on 7 October?’ By Jonathan Cook Israel-Palestine war: Why is the media ignoring evidence of Israel’s own actions on 7 October? | Middle East Eye
Jonathan Cook is the author of three books on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and a winner of the Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism. His website and blog can be found at http://www.jonathan-cook.net . Via Middle East Eye
Jay Janson is an archival research peoples historian activist, musician and writer; has lived and worked on all continents; articles on media published in China, Italy, UK, India and in the US by Dissident Voice, Global Research; Information Clearing House; Counter Currents and others; now resides in NYC; First effort was a series of articles on deadly cultural pollution endangering seven areas of life emanating from Western corporate owned commercial media published in Hong Kong’s Window Magazine 1993; Howard Zinn lent his name to various projects of his; Weekly column, South China Morning Post, 1986-87; reviews for Ta Kung Bao; article China Daily, 1989. Is coordinator of the Howard Zinn co-founded King Condemned US Wars International Awareness Campaign, and website historian of the Ramsey Clark co-founded Prosecute US Crimes Against Humanity Now Campaign, which contains a history of US crimes in 9 countries up to 2006 9 countries up to 2006
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Voice of Detroit is a pro bono newspaper, now devoting itself entirely to stories related to our PRISON NATION and POLICE STATE. Funds are needed regularly to pay quarterly web hosting fee of $460.00 and other expenses. VOD will disappear from the web if fee not paid.
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 $460.00, P.O. box fee of $180/yr. and other costs including utility and internet bills, costs for research including court records and internet fees, office supplies, gas, etc.
Cash App at (313) 825-6126
Cox denied “substantive” defense motions, citing 2010 “run-away jury” verdict that led higher courts to overturn Ewing/Searcy murder convictions
Ewing to Cox: ” Where is justice at, your honor? When are you going to switch your hat from prosecutor to judge?”
Ewing files motion to disqualify Cox, citing: appearance of impropriety, due process denials, actual bias/prejudice, MCR 2.003(e) re: previous employment with WCPO in last year
Cox was WCPO Asst. Prosecutor from 2018-22, worked under APs Kam Towns, Jon Wojtala, architects of the 2010 Ewing/Searcy conviction in 2010. Cox took bench Jan. 1, 2023.
Cox family dynasty, led by former Republican Mich. AG Mike Cox, who sponsored campaign at his offices, donated most campaign funds
“Undisclosed” Podcast series analyzed evidence in Ewing/Searcy case at https://undisclosed-podcast.com//episodes/state-v-darrell-ewing/ Episodes included in story.
Next: TRIAL BEGINS MARCH 25, 2024; Cox refused motion to separate defendants, but is holding separate hearings anyway; no opportunity for each defendant, atty. to hear other’s case
By Diane Bukowski
December 12, 2023
FAMILY, SUPPORTERS OF APPLE AND REEK: PLZ DONATE TO VOD https://www.gofundme.com/donate-to-vod Cash App at (313) 825-6126 (any amount welcome, still raising funds for $46o.oo December web host fee, final deadline Dec. 19, 2023
#FreeDarrell,#FreeApple,#FreeReek,#FreeDemBoys,#mrbeattheodds
“Where is the justice, your honor? When are you going to switch your hat from prosecutor to Judge? How are you even sitting on my case?” Ewing asked 3rd Circuit Court Judge Kiefer Cox during his pre-trial hearing Dec. 1. Cox had just issued a blanket denial of “substantive” defense motions, including those alleging pre-trial Brady v. Maryland 1963 violations (failure to disclose evidence).
“I just learned that you came out of the prosecutor’s office a couple of months ago and you are friends with Kym Worthy and Jon Wojtala,” Ewing said. “That’s actual bias!. . . Everything you said, your honor, was in line with something the prosecutor said.”
Ewing and his co-defendant Derrico Searcy are being re-tried after 3rd Circuit Court Judge Michael Hathaway and U.S. District Court Judge Denise Page-Hood overturned their convictions for the 2009 murder of J.B. Watson in rulings in 2017 and 2019. They cited rampant misconduct by a run-away jury that researched “gangs” and other matters on the Internet and Facebook. AP’s Kam Towns and Jon Wojtala were the chief architects of the duo’s convictions, with their theory of the case alleging the Watson killing was part of a gang war.
Richard Phillips
Ewing said WCCC Judge Kevin Cox, Judge Kiefer Cox’s father, “had the balls” to exonerate Richard Phillips in 2018, after 45 years in prison, and asked Cox to follow suit. Phillips was the longest-serving exoneree in the U.S. at the time.
Kam Towns now works in Mich. AG office.
Cox also denied Ewing’s motions for Wade and Franks evidentiary hearings, including one on the key testimony of Raymond and Jendayi Love, both white, who identified Ewing and Searcy at trial as the killers. (Their testimony is analyzed by experts in Undisclosed Podcast #3 below.)
He denied a motion to produce the internal disciplinary records of Chief Investigative Officer Theophilus Williams and another officer involved in the case who had been sued for federal civil rights violations, saying those documents are privileged and “lawsuits are filed everyday.” Regarding Ewing’s allegations that trial AP Kam Towns had not turned over exculpatory documents in 2010, he repeatedly ruled that Towns said in a letter that it “would have been her practice” to turn them over, therefore she had turned them over.
Ewing’s supporters applaud and cheer Dec. 1, 2023.
Cox impugned Ewing’s credibility, claiming his motions contained falsehoods. Ewing challenged Cox’s rulings at length, and has since filed a motion to disqualify him with detailed, documented rebuttals.
At the close of the hearing, dozens of Ewing’s supporters in the courtroom applauded loudly as they filed out. Larry Smith, Jr, exonerated in 2021 of false murder charges for which he had spent 26 years in prison, told VOD he is now organizing support for Ewing among exonerees nationally.
Larry Smith, Jr. Dec. 1
“Darrell Ewing did a very great job,” Smith said. “Having himself in the courtroom, he considered that the evidence the prosecutor presented was clearly false. I’m very disappointed in the court making very poor rulings multiple rulings that Darrell dispelled, and he didn’t even take into reconsideration his actions. Judge (thumbs down). Darrell keep holding on.”
Ewing’s motion to disqualify Cox cites, “the appearance of impropriety, due process infringements, and actual bias/prejudice.”
He cites MCR 2.003(e) (a judge can be disqualified, if “[he/she was partner of a party, atty. for a party, or member of a law firm representing the party within the preceding two years.”
In the motion. Ewing rebuts Cox’s claims in documented detail, including Cox’s denial that eyewitness Raymond Love said at trial that his first pick in a photo line-up was wrong, and that after he picked Ewing, the officer told him that was the right one. Ewing cites the trial transcripts showing Cox’ error.
http://voiceofdetroit.net/wp-content/uploads/Darrell-Ewing-motion-to-recuse-Judge-Cox.pdf
Judge Cox, with not even one year on the bench, cited the runaway jury’s verdict in denying Ewing’s motions, including one objecting to the prosecution’s suppression of information about the driver of the green Aurora which brought the real killer, Tyrone Washington to the scene, as Washington testified in a Mirandized confession given to the Michigan State Police in 2017.
“The jury obviously didn’t buy that defense or argument, in that they found a verdict of guilty,” Cox said.
Juror misconduct
He evidently ignored the detailed rulings made by WCCC Judge Michael Hathaway and U.S. District Court Judge Denise Page Hood, who each have decades of experience on the bench. Both excoriated the jury conduct in the 2010 trial, which included extraneous research they conducted on the Internet and Facebook about “gangs.”
“That’s textbook law,” VOD legal analyst Travis Herndon, who attended the hearing, said. “When a conviction has been overturned due to jury misconduct, then that jury finding as a whole is invalid. It has no force of law. When a judge during the pre-trial stages of a retrial, denies a motion based on the fact-findings of a run-away jury, it is clear the court lacks an understanding of the law.”
Multiple courts have held that a jury verdict that has been overturned by higher courts is no longer of effect.
“In Peterson, the Western District cited Sixth Circuit case law broadly holding that a “judgment that has been vacated, reversed, or set aside on appeal is thereby deprived of all conclusive effect, both as res judicata and as collateral estoppel.” Peterson v. Heymes, 277 F. Supp. 3d 913 https://casetext.com/case/peterson-v-heymes.
Driver’s side distortion
Testimony of Raymond Love
Judge Hathaway specifically said Love’s testimony was “virtually impossible to imagine.” (See Hathaway’s comments below, followed by one of four original podcasts on the case done by “Undisclosed” which exposes the Love’s ID as undependable. “Undisclosed features a panel of experts in law, forensics. and other criminal justice areas.
The Ewing/Searcy jury based its guilty verdict on their illegal internet research on “gangs.” They discounted testimony that the actual killer, Tyree Washington, confessed to the murder. They even convinced the lone juror hold-out the day of the verdict that Washington was part of a “gang hierarchy” and sacrificed himself for Ewing. That was never testified to at trial, although AP Kam Towns’ theory of the case was that Watson’s murder was part of a gang feud. Washington denied this in his Mirandized confession to the Michigan State Police in 2017.
Eyewitnesses? Multiple Ewing family members testified at trial that he was at a memorial repast for his grandmother’s friend during the time of the J.B. Watson murder.
Darrell Ewing’s mother LaSonya Dodson Dec.1
Such testimony from family members is frequently discounted as biased by police and prosecutors, with no specific findings of fact. In Michigan, however, its Supreme Court overturned this long-time practice in the case of People v. Hammock, 946 N.W.2d 546 (Mich. 2020). Justice Megan Cavanagh, who wrote the ruling, countered conservative Justice Stephen Markman’s opinion that an affidavit by a witness who was 12 at the time of the crime, and was incarcerated with the defendant years later was not believable.
“Justice MARKMAN expresses disbelief that Carter was selling marijuana at 2 a.m. when he was 13 years old, that Carter and defendant happened to be incarcerated together eight years later, and that Carter happened upon the Court of Appeals opinion affirming defendant’s conviction. In Justice MARKMAN’S view, this version of events “lacks an air of credibility ….” 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. These experiences are unlike my own, and though I cannot speak for him, they may also be unlike Justice MARKMAN ’s. ”
THE ORIGINS OF YOUNG JUDGE KIEFER JOSEPH COX, AGE 35
Judge Kiefer J. Cox was elected in November, 2022, after a campaign chiefly financed by himself and his family members. Campaign finance documents show that former Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox, a Republican, hosted the campaign out of his law offices in Livonia, as well as sponsoring a fund-raiser there. He and his wife Laura Cox. a former GOP state chair, contributed a total of $14, 300 to the campaign. The family’s total was $56,475, out of overall contributions of $97, 000. Cox had only a write-in opponent who got one percent of the vote.
The Cox family agenda is questionable. Among other concerns, Mike Cox initiated a virulent campaign targeting so-called “deadbeat dads” in Michigan in 2003.
This reporter covered that campaign as a reporter for the Michigan Citizen, pointing out that it unfairly targeted poor men, and Black men in particular, who already comprise at least 53 percent of the state’s prison population as compared to 14 percent of the general population. Most child support payments go to the state to repay it if the custodial parent received support for the children from the “Family Independence Agency,” as it was called at the time.
“We’ve talked before on this show about the anti-father campaign going on in Michigan over the past year,” radio host Glenn Sacks said at the time.
“Attorney General Mike Cox is politically savvy and he’s found a good way to ride into a higher office—beat up on so-called deadbeat dads. Cox has had billboards boasting of jail time for fathers struggling with child support obligations all over Michigan and the legislature has upped the penalties for non-payment of support. Yet at the same time a recent Michigan Family Independence Agency study admits that “87 percent of all child support arrearages are owed by those earning less than $10,000 a year.”
CHANNEL 4 DETROIT COVERAGE DEC. 1
VOD VIDEOS OF JUDGE KIEFER COX’S RULINGS AT HEARING DEC. 1
RELATED DOCUMENTS AND STORIES:
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
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
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 Excerpt below:
WCCC Judge Kevin Cox ruling: http://voiceofdetroit.net/wp-content/uploads/Richard-Phillips-opinion_and_order_granting_motion_for_relief_from_judgment-2017.pdf
DID PROS. KYM WORTHY AND DPD SUPPRESS KILLER’S CONFESSION IN EWING/SEARCY CASE? HEARING DEC. 1 | VOICE OF DETROIT: The city’s independent newspaper, unbossed and unbought
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Voice of Detroit is a pro bono newspaper, now devoting itself entirely to stories related to our PRISON NATION and POLICE STATE. Funds are needed regularly to pay quarterly web hosting fee of $460.00 and other expenses. VOD will disappear from the web if fee not paid.
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 $460.00, P.O. box fee of $180/yr. and other costs including utility and internet bills, costs for research including court records and internet fees, office supplies, gas, etc.
Cash App at $MDianeBukowski (313) 825-6126
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Voice of Detroit’s editor Diane Bukowski and legal analyst Travis Herndon just returned from covering the case of Darrell Ewing and Derrico Searcy, wrongfully convicted in 2010. Above is the coverage Channel 4 posted Dec. 1, with reporter Rod Meloni. Bukowski can be seen videoing the proceedings. We will have a much more detailed and heavily researched story out in several days to follow up on the dozens of no-holds-barred stories we have posted over the last seven years on this case. (See our most recent story which includes links to many of those stories at FREE DARRELL EWING NOW! HEAR HIM SPEAK AT COURT HEARING FRI. DECEMBER 1 @ 1PM JUDGE KIEFER COX | VOICE OF DETROIT: The city’s independent newspaper, unbossed and unbought.)
Meanwhile, we urgently need help paying our quarterly web fee of $460.00 due this Monday, Dec. 4 to keep VOD alive and publishing. ANY AMOUNT IS HELPFUL AND WILL BE MUCH APPRECIATED. VOD is a pro bono newspaper established in 2010. We have posted over 2,000 news stories going back nearly 14 years now, covering a broad range of issues important not only to Detroiters, but people of color and poor people across the country and even the globe. Our stories, such as those on the Detroit bankruptcy 10 years ago, and the horrific Detroit police murder of Aiyana Jones, have great historical and research value and we need help keeping them on-line. Our staff lives on very limited incomes; many of them are incarcerated.
President Nelson Mandela, South Africa
Note our recent posts on the genocide Israel has unleashed against the people of the Palestinian State, during which over 15, 000 Palestinians, 70 percent of them women and children have been bombed to death in the Gaza Strip since October 7. Hundreds more Palestinians are being killed in the West Bank every day, while thousands more languish in Israeli prisons. Go to MUSLIM LEADERS FROM MICHIGAN AND ACROSS THE U.S. #ABANDONBIDEN AS GAZA DEATH TOLL PASSES 11,000 | VOICE OF DETROIT: The city’s independent newspaper, unbossed and unbought and FREE PALESTINE! CEASE FIRE NOW! MASSIVE RALLY IN WASHINGTON, D.C. NOT SEEN ON MAINSTREAM MEDIA | VOICE OF DETROIT: The city’s independent newspaper, unbossed and unbought.
Our chief f0cus for the last several years has been narrowed to coverage of mass incarceration, including individual cases of wrongful convictions rampant in particular throughout Wayne County, and of crimes committed by police, including the cases of Detroiters killed by police since 1992. VOD editor Bukowski was known for her coverage of these cases first in the Michigan Citizen, and following up with the Voice of Detroit.
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URGENT: Voice of Detroit is a pro bono newspaper, now devoting itself entirely to stories related to our PRISON NATION and POLICE STATE. Funds are needed NOW to pay our quarterly web hosting fee of $460.00 by Dec. 4. VOD will disappear from the web if fee not paid.
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 $460.00, P.O. box fee of $180/yr. and other costs including utility and internet bills, costs for research including court records and internet fees, office supplies, gas, etc.
Cash App at $MDianeBukowski (313) 825-6126
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By Bill Branham, Proving Innocence
Proving Innocence <newsletter@provinginnocence.org>
December 2, 2023
We are so sad to learn about the death of Carl Bruner, 39. He died of a heart attack on November 21st. He was found in his apartment unresponsive when his sister arrived to pick him up for the trip from Kentucky back to Detroit for Thanksgiving. Carl was released from prison three and a half years ago.
Carl Bruner, March 2020
Carl had a difficult time adjusting to life outside prison. In addition to that, the police officer that he was suing for his wrongful conviction was suing him in response. The pressure on him was significant. It weighed on him. In one sense, Carl was never free from his wrongful conviction and imprisonment.
A lot of people were involved in getting him out of prison and supporting him afterward. He was a recipient of Proving Innocence’s Walking Free Fund. But sometimes all the support in the world can’t penetrate and heal the damage that has been done to one’s soul. We try. Many times we succeed. But not always. We grieve. And now we move on and help the next person. Carl is posted on our site at Carl Bruner. For those interested in his case, you may go to Carl Bruner II – National Registry of Exonerations (umich.edu),
The viewing will be held this Wednesday, Dec 6, 2023, at Stinson Funeral Home, 16540 Meyers Rd, Detroit, MI 48235 from 3 pm to 6 pm. The Funeral will be Thursday, Dec 7, 2023, at Triumph Church, 2760 E. Grand Blvd., Detroit, MI 48211, beginning at 1 p.m.
The family is in need of $2,700 for the funeral expenses. If anyone would like to help, you may send funds to Carl’s mother, Vernell Vass through Zelle, ID 313-645-0959, or Cash App: $VernellVass.
Urgent: Supporters of Davontae Sanford and Derrico Searcy: Please note that VOD’s quarterly web fee of $460 is due Dec. 4. VOD has published dozens of stories on this case since 2017. It will disappear from the web if this is not paid. Our funds are completely depleted at this point.
DONATE TO VOD at: https://www.gofundme.com/donate-to-vod Cash App at (313) 825-6126
By Diane Bukowski
November 26, 2023
(L to R) Darrell Ewing, Derrico Searcy nod to families at June 6 hearing.
DETROIT. MI — Darrell Rashard Ewing, fondly known to many as APPLE, spent his 35th birthday in the Wayne Co. Jail, where he has been for nearly three years.
He will appear in the courtroom of Third CC Judge Kiefer Cox this Friday, Dec. 1, 2023 at 1 pm, as part of hearings leading up to a second trial, after his conviction and that of his co-defendant Derrico Searcy were overturned in 2019. Ewing is representing himself pro se. He will argue, among others, a key motion to Dismiss all Charges due to the prosecution’s failure to disclose key exculpatory evidence under Brady v. Maryland and its progeny rulings.
Ewing says the Brady violations began even before the 2010 trial that sent him to prison for life. He says AP Kam Towns deliberately engineered the convictions despite testimony from a witness at trial, provided by the federal government, that he had direct knowledge that Tyree Washington was the actual killer, and that neither Ewing nor Searcy were involved. With Towns and OIC Theophilus Williams sitting in front of him at trial, he reminded them that he had met with them twice to exonerate Ewing and Searcy.
At trial, Towns built a case around allegations the drive-by killing was gang-related, poisoning the jurors’ minds to the extent that several decided to conduct research about Black “gangs” on-line. They convinced other jurors that Washington was at at the bottom of a gang “hierarchy” and sacrificed himself to save Ewing. One juror, who had planned to vote “not guilty,” came forward at an evidentiary hearing in front of 3rd CC Judge Michael Hathaway, to expose the juror misconduct.
The hearing was called after U.S. District Court Judge Denise Page Hood overturned the pair’s convictions because of the misconduct. Judge Hathaway likewise granted a new trial in October, 2019, saying he had no choice due to the evident juror misconduct, and also noting that the evidence at trial was sparse.
So far, in the current set of hearings, both Ewing and Searcy have won motions to bar the witness Hathaway mentioned from testifying again. Ewing also won his motion to remove his handcuffs during court hearings because of his need to have his hands free to represent himself, and motions to have investigators and ID experts assigned to the defense at court cost, among others.
Davontae Sanford (l) and Kym Worthy.
The family, friends of supporters of Ewing and Searcy are calling on Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy to dismiss the case because there is no real evidence to take it to trial.
As in the case of exoneree Davontae Sanford, who she still does not concede is innocent, she remains an “Innocence Denier,” as she was called in Slate, a national magazine. When he was 14, Sanford was falsely charged with the murder of four adults in an alleged drug house, although her prosecutors should have known he was not guilty from day one. Detroit police who came to the scene in 2007 interviewed eyewitnesses who saw the killers and said they were taller and older than this child. Vincent Smothers confessed to the crime to DPD only two weeks after Sanford went to prison. He was finally exonerated and released in 2016.
Below, VOD Editor Diane Bukowski appeared on the Jay Love show Nov. 24 for 2 hours to bring awareness to the Ewing/Searcy case and upcoming hearing.
DID PROS. KYM WORTHY AND DPD SUPPRESS KILLER’S CONFESSION IN EWING/SEARCY CASE? HEARING DEC. 1 | VOICE OF DETROIT: The city’s independent newspaper, unbossed and unbought
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URGENT: Voice of Detroit is a pro bono newspaper, now devoting itself entirely to stories related to our PRISON NATION and POLICE STATE. Funds are needed NOW to pay our quarterly web hosting fee of $460.00 by Dec. 4. VOD will disappear from the web if fee not paid.
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 $460.00, P.O. box fee of $180/yr. and other costs including utility and internet bills, costs for research including court records and internet fees, office supplies, gas, etc.
Cash App at $MDianeBukowski (313) 825-6126
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