Wisconsin: Something Evil Has Been Happening There For Decades: After 25 Years in Prison, Man is Finally Free After Being Framed by Detroit PD

Monday, February 23, 2015

After 25 Years in Prison, Man is Finally Free After Being Framed by Detroit PD

The Daily Sheeple
May 29, 2017

After being locked up in prison for 25 years, the entire time claiming he was framed by the Detroit police department, a man finally gets to taste his freedom. New tests have absolved Desmond Ricks, now 51, of a 1992 murder he’s certain police framed him for.

Ricks has never changed his story but the same cannot be said for the police, who switched out the evidence. Since being accused of the murder of his friend, Gerry Bennett, Ricks has denied that he committed the crime and alleged that the cops framed him with false evidence. And his claims have now been vindicated. A judge on Friday threw out the murder conviction of Desmond Ricks who has been in prison for a quarter of a century after new tests on the bullets supported his remarkable claim that police framed him with bogus evidence.

The bullets removed from the victim’s body were in poor shape and didn’t resemble the pristine bullets that were presented as evidence by Detroit police in 1992. Police at that time said a gun belonging to Ricks’ mother was the murder weapon, but new tests now have ruled out any connection, Innocence Clinic director David Moran said. One of the bullets doesn’t match the gun, and the other bullet was too mutilated for a thorough analysis, he said. Rebecca Haan, a supervising attorney with the Innocence Clinic, says that calls into question the credibility of [all] evidence used in Ricks’ case.

The Detroit Police Department closed its crime lab in 2008, after investigations revealed numerous problems with the testing and handling of evidence. The lab was riddled with scandals and more often than not, mishandled evidence. The corruption in the DPD’s lab, of course, stemmed from the corruption in the police department itself. Seeking only a conviction, not the truth, the Detroit police department falsified evidence, according to Ricks, from day one. This new lab testing backs Ricks’ story that the police framed him. The Innocence Clinic and Michigan law school have exonerated 10 people and freed four others since 2009 by exposing bad police work in Michigan, finding new witnesses, and tapping specialists.

Ricks had a key ally in his bid to reopen the case: an independent firearms expert who was involved in the ’92 trial. He found David Townshend’s name in a law journal in 2009 and wrote to him from prison. Townshend agreed to help. He recalled that the bullets originally presented to him by police appeared to be in excellent shape with no trace of blood, bone or hair that would suggest they were removed from the victim’s brain and spine. Townshend said they didn’t resemble the actual bullets that were locked away in police storage and produced just two years ago.

“Townshend’s a hero,” Moran said. “He was willing to put his reputation on the line.”

But it wasn’t only Townsend who helped save Ricks from his life sentence. Moran also attributed it to Ricks sticking to his story and following through.

“Ricks was a great advocate for his own cause,” Moran said.

“What he was saying seemed to be outlandish: The Detroit police crime lab would not only make mistakes but switch bullets. It wasn’t outlandish — it was true. This outlandish conduct cost Desmond Ricks 25 years.”

Luckily, Ricks is now a free man, but only after spending half of his life locked up. No amount of money could ever make up for what has been done to this man, but the Innocence Clinic is at least making strides to right the wrongs committed by the corrupt Detroit police.

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Quotes

"The most common way for forensic evidence to be planted is by re-labeling the forensic swabs." - Dr. Karl Reich, PhD

A former New York City narcotics detective testified in court that planting drugs on innocent people was common practice, a quick and easy way to boost arrest numbers. Stephen Anderson, the former detective, is now cooperating with prosecutors and is spilling the beans on the crooked practice of framings and false arrests, often to reach arrest quotas. “It was something I was seeing a lot of, whether it was from supervisors or undercovers and even investigators,” Anderson testified in Brooklyn Supreme Court. “It’s almost like you have no emotion with it, that they attach the bodies to it, they’re going to be out of jail tomorrow anyway; nothing is going to happen to them anyway.” The Drug Policy Alliance, a group that promotes alternatives to the war on drugs, issued a statement calling the case against the officers indicative of larger, systematic failures. “One of the consequences of the war on drugs is that police officers are pressured to make large numbers of arrests, and it’s easy for some of the less honest cops to plant evidence on innocent people. The drug war inevitably leads to crooked policing — and quotas further incentivize such practices.” - Huffington Post, October 13, 2011

A crucial aspect of Zellner’s effort to overturn Ryan Ferguson's conviction was obtaining two recantations from key witnesses whose testimony placed Ferguson at the crime scene. They admitted to lying after being pressured by police and prosecutors. Zellner has become a standard bearer among civil rights attorneys and has long been known as a fierce courtroom advocate — armed with a recorder-like memory, trial techniques that include videotaped re-enactments of crime scenes and, perhaps most crucially for her clients, an ability to elicit the truth from co-defendants or witnesses who have previously lied about innocent defendants’ involvement in crimes in order to save themselves. Quite simply, she gets people to talk. And to tell the truth. - Chicago Lawyer Magazine, December 2014

“What drives me is the abuse of power—the bullying and the victim. I have such a strong reaction when I see people who can’t defend themselves... When I watched the Avery case, I felt that the attitude toward him by the prosecutors and the state was that he was disposable. It was almost like a class thing. [His family] didn’t matter, they had no power. The longer I watched it, the more angry I got.” - Kathleen Zellner, Newsweek, April 8, 2016

“We are continuing to examine every aspect of Mr. Avery’s case and all of his legal options. We are confident Mr. Avery’s conviction will be vacated when we present the new evidence and results of our work to the appropriate court.” - Kathleen Zellner, The Wrap, January 11, 2016

“There is evidence that already exists in the case that points to a different location and a different suspect. We've got a combination of forensic evidence and a tip from somebody that we've interviewed multiple times that we think is credible... I've never seen a more graphic, compelling illustration of a crime scene that was fabricated.” - Kathleen Zellner, The New York Times, August 18, 2016

During a press conference on August 26, 2016, Kathleen Zeller said: “[In the post-conviction petition] we're going to lay out all of our investigation that we have done that will point to a third party. That was not successfully done at the trial level. I think the most reassuring thing is that we are going to get to the bottom of who killed Teresa Halbach... we're not going to disclose that until we do the post-conviction petition. But I can tell you that the testing we've already done will establish Mr. Avery's innocence. But we are going to do the whole thing; we're going to do every conceivable test. We've been contacted by scientists all over the world, volunteering, offering us ideas. And now we've got it pinned down to the testing we need to do to determine once and for all: was the evidence in the vehicle planted, was the DNA on the bullet planted, was the car key planted, was the DNA on the car key planted? We're going to be able to answer all of those questions because it's been almost 10 years since the verdict and there have been really huge developments in forensic science... Because he [Avery] never made any incriminating statements. The [Dassey] confession has been invalidated. So you're down to the evidence at the crime scene. You're down to the key, the hood latch, the blood in the RAV and the bullet.” When asked, “Do you just have one suspect in mind or are you looking at multiple suspects?,” Zellner replied, “In fairness, yeah, we are looking at multiple people, but we are narrowing it down.” And when asked, “What can you tell us about the suspect?,” she answered: “Nothing. Nothing. Not until I file [the post-conviction petition].”

“Not 1 but 8 plants: bullets, bones, blood, camera, cellphone PDA, key, car + false confession. World's best experts on it. #MakingAMurderer” - Kathleen Zellner, Twitter, January 17, 2017

“There’s always an element of misconduct. Police, prosecutors—They’re actually able to sleep at night knowing they’ve convicted an innocent man. They rationalize it. They say ‘I didn’t convict him, the jury did!’” - Paul Henderson, Private Investigator, May 7, 2013

"My biggest problem with police interrogations is they don't believe anything you say. So right out of the gate everyone is a liar as far as they are concerned. They are pretty much trained to be cynical of society and given power over them at the same time. They claim you are lying, while they themselves lie. To them, the end justifies the means when you’re a police officer protecting the citizenry from the scum of the city." - Reddit

“I think people become jaded when they spend too much time as a prosecutor, or if they first come to be a prosecutor after being a victim of some kind. They start seeing all of the accused as a subclass of humanity that doesn't deserve due process. Then they start watching Nancy Grace, and hanging around with the like minded, until their journey is complete. Unfortunately it is within human nature to descend down these paths to prejudice, to form self congratulating, witch burning mobs, and to rationalize the injustices they cause by dehumanizing their victims.” - magilla39, Reddit, October 11, 2017

"She’s not intimidated by anybody. In particular, she doesn’t have much respect for authority. She has a willingness to challenge and be skeptical of authority. And she has a real compassion for the underdog. Most of the people in prison are dangerous, violent criminals who belong there—she knows that. She’s not starry-eyed about criminals. But she’s not starry-eyed about people in authority, either." - Robert Zellner, January 2018

U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions rededicated his department to working with local law enforcement on civil asset forfeiture efforts that bypass the need for criminal convictions to seize property—and also bypass state and local safeguards. Forfeited funds are split between federal and local agencies in a lucrative arrangement for everybody but the victims. "Equitable sharing" collaboration between federal and local agencies was suspended under former Attorney General Eric Holder, but the new regime is jump-starting the program. Yes, Sessions promised that "the federal government will not adopt seized property unless the state or local agency involved provides information demonstrating that the seizure was justified by probable cause." But that's cold comfort if the probable cause comes from eager cops planting bags of drugs hither and yon. The evidence—not planted—suggests that police officers don't need more incentive to falsify reasons for slapping on the cuffs. Day-to-day pressures to meet arrest quotas, out-do colleagues, or spackle over errors in judgment seem to have already done the job in spades. - J.D. Tuccille, July 24, 2017

'If I was able to spoon feed an audience for 10 hours facts that I could pick and choose, edit or even create from other clips I could get an audience to believe whatever I wanted them to believe." - Ken Kratz, Daily Mail, February 13, 2017

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Monday, February 23, 2015

After 25 Years in Prison, Man is Finally Free After Being Framed by Detroit PD

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