PASSAGE OF THE DAY: ".Later that night, police picked up Sanford again and brought him back to the police station. Sanford would later say that when he asked for a lawyer, he was told he was a “dumb ass” and that no lawyer was around at that time of night. The detectives said they knew he was involved because he had blood on his shoes, which was not true. Sanford said the questioning became confrontational and when he was told he could go home if he gave the officers “something,” he began making up details or picking up details based on questions and statements the officers made."
Maurice Possley: National Registry of Exonerations;
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"The state of Michigan has agreed
to pay $408,000 to a young Detroit man who spent eight years in prison
for four murders before prosecutors agreed to drop the conviction. Records show Davontae Sanford is the latest person to qualify for compensation in a wrongful conviction. Sanford was 14 years old when he walked up to a homicide scene in his
neighborhood in 2007, became a suspect and was arrested. He was 15 when
he pleaded guilty to second degree murder in 2008. Sanford said he felt
desperate and poorly represented by his lawyer, who was not present
when he says he was (pressured) by authorities to confess under interrogation. A Detroit hit man, Vincent “Vito” Smothers, later signed an affidavit saying he had committed the four killings, not Sanford. “I only want to tell the truth in order to prevent an innocent kid
from serving time for crimes that I committed,” said Smothers, who is
serving 52 years in prison for killing eight other people. In 2016, Wayne
County Prosecutor Kym Worthy said Sanford’s guilty plea was spoiled
after state police found misconduct by Detroit police. Sanford’s
conviction was thrown out, and he was released from prison in June of
that year. Under a 2016 law, someone who is wrongly convicted can qualify for
$50,000 for every year spent in prison. Separately, Sanford has a
lawsuit pending in federal court against Detroit police.
Read National Register of Exonerations entry by Maurice Possley at the link below:
https://www.law.umich.edu/special/exoneration/Pages/casedetail.aspx?caseid=4913
"On September 17, 2007, two gunmen forced their way into a home at
19741 Runyon Street in Detroit, Michigan and fatally shot three men and a
woman. Another woman was shot five times, but survived. A
seven-year-old boy sleeping in bed survived unscathed. Killed were reputed drug dealer Michael Robinson, 33; Deangelo
McNoriell, 31; Nicole Chapman, 29; and Brian Dixon, 31. Valerie Glover,
30, survived by managing to escape to a rear bedroom where she hid under
a bed.
Jesse King, a Detroit Police chaplain who lived nearby, heard
the gunshots and came outside to see two men running down the street. He
fired his own gun at them and the gunmen fired back, but no one was
struck. King and Glover gave descriptions of the gunmen to police. King
said one man carried a rifle and was 5’11” or 6 feet tall and the
second man, who carried a handgun, was slightly shorter. Glover
described only one gunman and said he was 30 to 35 years old, slim and
about 6 feet tall. A police dog was brought to the location of shell casings left
from the shots fired at Jesse King. The dog followed a scent, police
said, for about two blocks, through a vacant lot and finally stopping
after losing the scent on Beland Street. Police concluded the men had
escaped by car from there. At about that same time, 14-year-old Davontae Sanford, clad in
his pajamas, left his nearby home on Beland Street to find out what was
going on. Sanford was blind in one eye, 5’5” tall and weighed 150
pounds. Sgt. Michael Russell would later testify that he tried to talk
to Sanford, but the youth refused to answer questions. At that point,
another officer approached and Sanford said his “uncle” was Detroit
police homicide commander William Rice. The other officer would later
testify that he told Sanford he knew Rice and that Sanford should help
them out in solving the case. Russell then went to Sanford’s home where the boy’s
grandmother, Taminka, signed a hand-written conveyance form allowing the
police to take the boy to the police station. They took him back to the
scene of the crime where evidence technicians swabbed him for gunshot
residue, which turned out to be negative. After 3 a.m., they took Sanford to the station and began
questioning him without the grandmother’s consent. This was in violation
of Michigan state law, which requires the presence of a parent or
guardian during questioning of a juvenile or a signed waiver of their
presence. At 4 a.m., Sanford signed statement saying he and four other
youths had met at a Coney Island restaurant and planned to rob “Milk
Dud.” He said they had four guns, but that he changed his mind about
participating and went home before the gunshots occurred. He said one of
the guns was a .38 caliber pistol. Sanford was taken home some time
later. During the day, police determined that the Coney Island was
closed and there was no evidence that any .38 caliber weapon was used. Later that night, police picked up Sanford again and brought
him back to the police station. Sanford would later say that when he
asked for a lawyer, he was told he was a “dumb ass” and that no lawyer
was around at that time of night. The detectives said they knew he was
involved because he had blood on his shoes, which was not true. Sanford
said the questioning became confrontational and when he was told he
could go home if he gave the officers “something,” he began making up
details or picking up details based on questions and statements the
officers made. Sgt. Russell began typing up a second statement that was far
more incriminating than his first. After doing so, he gave Sanford a set
of Miranda warnings for the first time. In this statement, Sanford said
that he and three others fired weapons into the house and then went
inside and stole drugs and money. He said that the guns used were a
.45-caliber pistol, an AK-47 assault rifle and a “mini-14,” which was
similar to, but smaller than, an AK-47. However, all the bullets and casings recovered at the shooting
were from a .45 caliber weapon or an AK-47. And this statement included
the same accomplices mentioned in the first statement, even though they
had solid alibis. The detectives reported that Sanford drew a map of the
house that accurately depicted the interior and the location of the
bodies. Sanford was arrested and charged with four counts of
first-degree murder, one count of attempted murder, and one count of
illegal use of a firearm. Almost immediately, during an interview with a psychologist,
Sanford, who had been classified in school as learning disabled,
recanted the confession and said it was false. On March 17, 2008, Sanford went to trial in Wayne County
Circuit Court. His defense attorney, Robert Slameka—who had amassed more
than a dozen reprimands and admonishments for substandard defense
work—did not challenge the confession even though Sanford was not given
Miranda warnings until late in the second interrogation session. Sgt. Russell testified about the confession and described how
Sanford had drawn a sketch that accurately depicted the interior of the
house and the location of the bodies. The prosecution also called
Glover, the woman who survived the shooting, as a witness. She testified
that the gunman had a high-pitched voice similar to Sanford’s—testimony
that was inadmissible under Michigan law, but also went unchallenged by
Slameka as did the fact that Glover’s initial description of a slim, 6
foot tall man was far different from Sanford, who was 5’5” tall and
weighed 150 pounds. After that evidence was presented, Slameka—who did not even
cross-examine Russell—told Sanford and his family that the case was
hopeless and that Sanford’s only choice, if he ever wanted to be free,
was to plead guilty. So, on March 18, 2008, the second day of the trial,
Sanford pled guilty to four counts of second-degree murder and one
count of illegal use of a weapon. He was sentenced to 37 to 90 years in
prison on the murder charges, as well as a consecutive two-year term for
the gun charge. About one month later, in April 2008, Detroit police arrested
Vincent Smothers and began interrogating him about the murder of the
wife of a Detroit police officer in the summer of 2007. To the surprise
of detectives, Smothers not only confessed that he had been hired by the
police officer to kill his wife, but he admitted that he had committed
11 other murders—all for hire—including the four murders that Sanford
had pled guilty to committing. Smothers said that he and Ernest “Nemo” Davis committed the
Runyon Street shootings and that Sanford was not involved. Smothers said
that his wife had hidden an AK-47 rifle and a 45-caliber pistol in a
house where Davis’s cousin lived. Police recovered a .45-caliber handgun
at the house and ballistics tests linked it to the Runyon Street
shooting. Detectives refused to believe Smothers was responsible for the
murders on Runyon Street because they already had Sanford’s confession
and guilty plea, even though Smothers led police to one of the guns used
in the shooting. Smothers would later say—and his attorney would confirm—that he
was presented with a deal to plead guilty to eight counts of
second-degree murder—instead of first-degree murder—if he would remain
silent about the murders on Runyon Street. Smothers rejected that deal.
He ultimately pled guilty to eight counts of second-degree murder
without that condition and was sentenced to 50 to 100 years in prison. Sanford’s appellate lawyer, Kim McGinniss, of the Michigan
State Appellate Defender Officer, did not learn of Smothers’ confession
to the Runyon Street shootings until nearly a year later, in early 2009. McGinnis filed a motion seeking to withdraw Sanford’s guilty
plea based on a claim of actual innocence, citing Smothers’ admission
that he and Davis—and not Sanford—were responsible for the Runyon Street
shootings. That motion was denied, but the Michigan Court of Appeals
ordered that an evidentiary hearing be held. At that hearing, the trial
court judge denied defense motions to present testimony from an expert
on false confessions and also denied a defense motion to produce
Smothers as a witness or to admit his hearsay admissions to a defense
investigator that he and Davis committed the shooting. Among witnesses at the hearing was William Rice, former Detroit
Police homicide commander, who testified that Sanford was with him at
the time of the murders. Also testifying was James Tolbert, deputy
police chief, who said that Sanford had drawn the map of the interior of
the house. At the conclusion of the hearing, the judge again denied the
motion to withdraw the guilty plea. In 2014, Rice and Sanford’s great-aunt, Cheryl Sanford, pled
guilty to mortgage fraud charges. Rice also pled guilty to perjury
charges after his testimony about Sanford’s alibi was proven false by
cell phone records. The defense appealed the denial of the motion, supported by an
amicus brief prepared by a team led by Megan Crane, co-director of
Northwestern University Law School’s Center on Wrongful Convictions of
Youth, and filed by attorney David Moran, co-founder of the Michigan
Innocence Clinic at the University of Michigan Law School. In September 2013, the Michigan Court of Appeals remanded the
case back to the trial court to allow the defense to present expert
testimony on false confessions as well as testimony from Smothers’
attorney about his confession to the Runyon Street shooting. The appeals
court said that the defense should be allowed to call Smothers as a
witness if he chose to testify. Before that occurred, however, the prosecution appealed and in
April 2014, the Michigan Supreme Court reinstated the trial court ruling
that denied Sanford’s motion to withdraw his guilty plea. The court
held that actual innocence was not a legal basis to withdraw a guilty
plea—that a plea could be withdrawn “only if the trial court determines
that there was an error in the plea proceeding that would entitle the
defendant to have the plea set aside.” At that point, the Michigan State Appellate Defender Office
stepped aside as Sanford’s attorney and the Michigan Innocence Clinic
and Northwestern University’s Center on Wrongful Convictions of Youth
took over his case. The legal team contacted former Washington, D.C.
police detective James Trainum, an expert on false confessions. Trainum
analyzed Sanford’s confession and determined that the correct facts in
it were based on information police knew at the time of the crime and
the incorrect facts were information that police did not know at the
time—suggesting that Sanford was fed information by the detectives.
Trainum also analyzed Smothers’ confession and concluded Smothers was
truthful. A motion for relief from judgment was filed on Sanford’s behalf
and the Michigan State Police became interested in the case. On May 4,
2015, Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy formally requested a
reinvestigation by the state police. A year later, in May 2016, the state police concluded their
investigation and reported to Worthy that the evidence indicated that
Smothers and Davis committed the Runyon Street shooting—not Sanford. The state police reported that during their investigation,
deputy police chief Tolbert, who had testified that Sanford drew the
diagram of the interior of the house, said for the first time that
he—not Sanford—drew the diagram. On June 7, 2016, Worthy and lawyers for Sanford presented a
motion to Wayne County Circuit Court Judge Brian Sullivan requesting
that Sanford’s convictions and sentences be vacated. The motion said,
“Tolbert’s recorded statement directly contradicts his prior sworn
testimony about the drawing of the diagram and seriously undermines (a)
the confession obtained from Davontae Sanford and (b) his subsequent
guilty plea.” The motion also stated, “The interests of justice require the setting aside of Davontae Sanford’s convictions and sentences.” Judge Sullivan vacated Sanford’s convictions and ordered him
released from prison. Sanford was released on June 8, 2016 and on July
19, 2016, the charges were dismissed. In September 2017, Sanford's
lawyers filed a federal civil rights lawsuit seeking damages from
Russell, Tolbert, and the city of Detroit. Sanford's lawyers filed a claim with the state of Michigan
seeking compensation. In November, the Michigan Attorney General's
Office agreed that Sanford qualified for compensation, noting at the
same time that Worthy opposed granting Sanford compensation. In December
2017, Sanford was awarded $400,000 in compensation from the state of
Michigan."
PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog for reports on developments. The Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. The Star has a "topic" section which focuses on recent stories related to Dr. Charles Smith. It can be found at: http://www.thestar.com/topic/c
