Jeff Titus: Michigan: (Part 2): Having served more than 21 years in prison for a wrongful conviction in a double murder, he is suing a pair of cold case detectives, Wood TV (Reporter Ken Kolker) reports…"The federal lawsuit was filed Tuesday, just weeks after the state of Michigan paid Titus $1 million out of its wrongful incarceration fund…A jury in 2002 convicted Titus of the 1990 murders of hunters Doug Estes and Jim Bennett in Kalamazoo County without hearing anything about an alternate suspect: serial killer Thomas Dillon, who was identified by two witnesses. Dillon later died in prison. That was the reason the attorney general’s office worked with the University of Michigan Innocence Clinic to set him free. A Target 8 investigation in 2017 also revealed that cold case detectives who investigated the deaths ignored alibi witnesses that put Titus miles away at the time of the murders."

PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "In a press release, Titus’s attorney said that Werkema and Brown failed to tell the prosecutor about the possible Dillon connection. A woman and her son had picked Dillon out of a lineup as the man whose car was stuck in a ditch about the time of the murders and not far away. “Jeff Titus is suing the two cold case detectives, Michael Werkema and Michael Brown, for intentionally hiding evidence that would have shown that Thomas Dillon, who had been picked out of a lineup by two witnesses and pled guilty to killing five outdoorsmen by shooting them with a long gun, was the most likely suspect in the murders,” Mueller wrote. “Given the lack of any substantive evidence against Titus, an acquittal would have been the likely outcome."

---------------------------------------------------------------

STORY: "Exonerated man sues detectives after 21 years in prison," by Reporter Ken Kolker, published by Wood TV, on September 19, 2023. (Ken Kolker recently was inducted into the Michigan Journalism Hall of Fame after more than 35 years as a newspaper and television reporter. Since joining News 8 in January 2009, his stories have helped lead to change and have won numerous awards, including Michigan Emmys.)

GIST: "Jeff Titus, who served more than 21 years in prison for a wrongful conviction in a double murder, is suing a pair of cold case detectives for $100 million.

The federal lawsuit was filed Tuesday, just weeks after the state of Michigan paid Titus $1 million out of its wrongful incarceration fund.

The lawsuit, filed by attorney Wolf Mueller, is against retired cold case detectives Michael Werkema and Mike Brown.

Brown and Werkema both have told Target 8 they still believe Titus is the killer.

A jury in 2002 convicted Titus of the 1990 murders of hunters Doug Estes and Jim Bennett in Kalamazoo County without hearing anything about an alternate suspect: serial killer Thomas Dillon, who was identified by two witnesses. Dillon later died in prison.

That was the reason the attorney general’s office worked with the University of Michigan Innocence Clinic to set him free.

A Target 8 investigation in 2017 also revealed that cold case detectives who investigated the deaths ignored alibi witnesses that put Titus miles away at the time of the murders.

In a press release, Titus’s attorney said that Werkema and Brown failed to tell the prosecutor about the possible Dillon connection.

A woman and her son had picked Dillon out of a lineup as the man whose car was stuck in a ditch about the time of the murders and not far away.

“Jeff Titus is suing the two cold case detectives, Michael Werkema and Michael Brown, for intentionally hiding evidence that would have shown that Thomas Dillon, who had been picked out of a lineup by two witnesses and pled guilty to killing five outdoorsmen by shooting them with a long gun, was the most likely suspect in the murders,” Mueller wrote. “Given the lack of any substantive evidence against Titus, an acquittal would have been the likely outcome.""

The entire story can be read at:

https://www.woodtv.com/news/target-8/exonerated-man-sues-detectives-after-21-years-in-prison/

PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue/resource. 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/charlessmith. Information on "The Charles Smith Blog Award"- and its nomination process - can be found at: http://smithforensic.blogspot.com/2011/05/charles-smith-blog-award-nominations.html Please send any comments or information on other cases and issues of interest to the readers of this blog to: hlevy15@gmail.com. Harold Levy: Publisher: The Charles Smith Blog;

SEE BREAKDOWN OF SOME OF THE ON-GOING INTERNATIONAL CASES (OUTSIDE OF THE CONTINENTAL USA) THAT I AM FOLLOWING ON THIS BLOG, AT THE LINK BELOW: HL

https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/120008354894645705/47049136857587929

FINAL WORD: (Applicable to all of our wrongful conviction cases): "Whenever there is a wrongful conviction, it exposes errors in our criminal legal system, and we hope that this case — and lessons from it — can prevent future injustices.

Lawyer Radha Natarajan;

Executive Director: New England Innocence Project;

—————————————————————————————————

FINAL, FINAL WORD: "Since its inception, the Innocence Project has pushed the criminal legal system to confront and correct the laws and policies that cause and contribute to wrongful convictions. They never shied away from the hard cases — the ones involving eyewitness identifications, confessions, and bite marks. Instead, in the course of presenting scientific evidence of innocence, they've exposed the unreliability of evidence that was, for centuries, deemed untouchable." So true!

Christina Swarns: Executive Director: The Innocence Project;

------------------------------------------------------------------

YET ANOTHER FINAL WORD:

David Hammond, one of Broadwater’s attorneys who sought his exoneration, told the Syracuse Post-Standard, “Sprinkle some junk science onto a faulty identification, and it’s the perfect recipe for a wrongful conviction.”

https://deadline.com/2021/11/alice-sebold-lucky-rape-conviction-overturned-anthony-broadwater-1234880143/

-------------------------------------------------