PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "The CIU also learned that Jennings had received a $5,000 reward after the trial, in December 2013, for his testimony from the Michigan Arson Protection Award. In addition, the CIU also interviewed Tyler, who dated Jennings at the time of the fire. Tyler said that within a week of the fire, family members of the victims were blaming Williams. Tyler said she passed this information to Jennings, whom she described as untrustworthy. Wilson, the medical examiner, told the CIU that given the information now available, the manner of death for Simms and Cross should be “undetermined.” ----------------------------------------------------- DUANE WILLIAMS: MICHIGAN: NATIONAL REGISTRY OF EXONERATIONS: RECENT ENTRY: By Ken Otterbourg: Entered on November 1, 2024. Contributing Factors: "False or Misleading Forensic Evidence, Perjury or False Accusation, Official Misconduct." RECENT ENTRY: "At about 5 a.m. on August 20, 2012, a fire destroyed a house in northwest Detroit, Michigan, killing 67-year-old Bobby Cross and his stepson, 42-year-old Darryl Simms. Simms was a smoker and often slept on the couch. A fire investigator who examined the property said that the fire started on the couch, which had been almost completely consumed by the fire. He classified the fire’s cause as undetermined. A medical examiner initially reported that the two deaths were accidents. Three months later, police in Detroit arrested Gary Jennings and charged him with unlawful copying of audio/video recordings, possession of marijuana, and driving without a license. At the time, Jennings was on probation. Jennings met with Sergeant Michael Russell of the Detroit Police Department. In an unrecorded statement, Jennings said that 42-year-old Duane Williams had confessed to starting the fire. Williams was the son of Janet Smith, Cross’s partner, and he had been staying at the house at the time of the fire. In January 2013, based on Jennings’s statement and the police department’s decision to pursue the case as arson, the medical examiner changed the cause of death for Cross and Simms from accident to homicide. Williams was arrested on March 5, 2013, and charged with two counts of felony murder and one count of arson. Williams’s trial in Wayne County Circuit Court started on August 12, 2013, but it was adjourned after Jennings did not show up. Jennings was arrested and brought to court when the trial resumed in late September 2013. Jennings testified that he had contacted Williams after Deshon Seabrooks, whom he called a mutual friend, told Jennings that Williams had “fucked up.” Jennings testified he called Williams, who said he had “screwed up real bad” but did not explain what he meant. A few days later, Jennings testified, he picked Williams up at the bus station in Detroit, and Williams confessed to starting the fire. The state did not introduce any evidence, such as telephone records, to corroborate Jennings’s testimony about these conversations, which he said took place in September 2012. Jennings also testified that a friend named Shana Tyler, who was related to the victims, told him about the fire after Williams made his purported confession. Jacqueline Cross, Bobby’s daughter, lived next door to her father. She testified that she visited his home at around 11 p.m. on August 19 and witnessed an argument between Cross and Williams over a request by Cross for Williams to pay rent. Lawrence Ingram, a friend of Bobby Cross’s, testified that Williams once threatened to “burn this b---h out,” referring to Cross’s house. Deborah Simms, Darryl’s sister, testified that she had heard Williams make a similar threat. Deborah Simms and Jacqueline Cross each testified that they had received information about the fire, including Williams’s involvement, from a man named Ron Rogers. Rogers, like Seabrooks, was on the prosecution’s witness list but did not testify. According to a narrative in a police report introduced at trial, Smith had told officers at the scene, “I can’t believe this. I think my son set the house on fire.” At trial, Smith testified that she did not remember speaking to an officer on the day of the fire. Dr. Allecia Wilson, the medical examiner who performed the autopsies, testified that both men died of smoke and soot inhalation. She said she changed the causes of death after the police told her that the fire had been intentionally set. Another medical examiner signed the death certificates. “In our field, our standard is in terms of fires caused by arson,” Wilson testified. “If the investigation deems that arson was the cause of the fire, and that fire resulted in the death of a person, then the manner of death is corrected to homicide.” Captain Patrick McNulty, with the Detroit Fire Department’s arson squad, testified that he found no smoking materials or evidence of smoking near the living-room couch where the fire originated. (He testified that he found evidence of smoking in a bedroom.) McNulty testified that an open flame was more likely to cause a fire than a lit cigarette. “It’s extremely hard to get a couch to burn with a cigarette,” he said. Williams did not testify. His attorney did not present any evidence but argued that the fire was not arson but rather an accident based on careless smoking. The prosecutor said in his closing argument that the investigator had eliminated careless smoking and “ruled out every possible potential cause … except arson.” On September 10, 2013, the jury convicted Williams of second-degree murder, felony murder, and first-degree arson. He was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. In 2021, Michigan’s State Appellate Defender Office (SADO) began representing Williams. Through a public-records request, attorney Maya Menlo obtained a version of McNulty’s report that differed from the document introduced at trial. This version, which had not been given to Williams’s trial attorney, contained three sentences stating that a Zippo-style lighter was found in debris near the sofa where the fire started. The sentences were whited out in the version given to the attorney. Williams also received 58 undisclosed photos of the fire scene; the lighter near the couch was visible in two of the photos. In 2022, Williams asked the Conviction Integrity Unit (CIU) of the Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office to review his case. The CIU reviewed the trial prosecutor’s files and found several other pieces of undisclosed evidence favorable to Williams. Jennings had testified he learned about Williams’s potential involvement in the fire from Seabrooks, but Seabrooks told an investigator prior to trial that he did not know Jennings and only learned about the fire from law enforcement. Rogers had told an investigator prior to trial that he did not know anything about who started the fire. This appeared to undermine the testimony of Deborah Simms and Jacqueline Cross. The CIU also learned that Jennings had received a $5,000 reward after the trial, in December 2013, for his testimony from the Michigan Arson Protection Award. In addition, the CIU also interviewed Tyler, who dated Jennings at the time of the fire. Tyler said that within a week of the fire, family members of the victims were blaming Williams. Tyler said she passed this information to Jennings, whom she described as untrustworthy. Wilson, the medical examiner, told the CIU that given the information now available, the manner of death for Simms and Cross should be “undetermined.” The appellate defender’s office, which received assistance from Cooley Law School’s Innocence Project, also hired Marc Fennell as an expert on fire investigation. Fennell said in a report that McNulty’s investigation was flawed because he and others had failed to examine the lighter to determine whether it was operational and contained sufficient lighter fluid. There was no record that the lighter was logged into evidence. Fennell also said that McNulty had testified imprecisely by “overgeneralizing” about the difficulty of setting fire to a couch with a cigarette. Some couches, Fennell said, particularly those with less-expensive coverings, burned more readily than others. Based on this evidence, SADO and the Wayne County CIU jointly filed a proposed order in early June 2024 to grant Williams a new trial. At a hearing before Judge Bradley Cobb on June 18, 2024, Valerie Newman, the director of the Wayne County CIU, said her office’s investigation did not conclude that Williams was factually innocent. But it found the errors and Brady violations were so significant as to undermine the integrity of the trial. Judge Cobb agreed that the state had failed to disclose exculpatory evidence at trial and granted the motion to vacate. He also ordered Williams to be released on bond, while the state evaluated whether to retry the case. “Duane has been unjustly imprisoned and fighting for his freedom for more than 11 years,” said Menlo after Williams was released. “After so many years, we are pleased that he won some relief.” The state dismissed the case on October 17, 2024." The entire story can be read at: |
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/120008354894645705/4704913685758792985
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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;
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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;
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