Speaker 1: On November fifth, Scott Macklum, the son of the mayor
Speaker 1: of Croswell, Michigan, was fatally shot in the parking lot
Speaker 1: of Saint Clair County Community College. A fingerprint was pulled
Speaker 1: from the box of shells at the scene. Some students
Speaker 1: described the potential getaway car as a redder Tan Sedan,
Speaker 1: but no one had gotten a good look at the
Speaker 1: shoot her. One student, Renny Gobain, intent on involving himself,
Speaker 1: submitted to hypnotherapy in order to recall the license plate number,
Speaker 1: but it didn't return any results. Eventually, the victims alleged fiance,
Speaker 1: Crystal Merrill, pointed authorities in the direction of her ex
Speaker 1: Temogen Kinsu. Even though the fingerprints didn't match and credible
Speaker 1: alibi witnesses placed Temogen over four hundred miles away. Authorities
Speaker 1: put his photo in a very suggestive lineup, and again
Speaker 1: Renny Gobain came to eight investigators with an identification. Temogen's
Speaker 1: rock solid alibi and the lack of any physical evidence
Speaker 1: connecting him to the crime was overcome by Renny Gobain's
Speaker 1: dubious identification. A character assassination campaign that should have been inadmissible.
Speaker 1: The jury was made to believe that Timogen was a
Speaker 1: Satanic sex grazed ninja assassin capable of mind control, and
Speaker 1: although deeply in debt, he was somehow still able to
Speaker 1: arrange an undocumented private round trip flight to commit a
Speaker 1: murder allegedly over a woman who he no longer cared
Speaker 1: to be within four hundred miles of the prosecutor. Robert
Speaker 1: Cleland is now a federal judge, Timogen is still in prison,
Speaker 1: and the current Attorney General Data Nessel, who was elected
Speaker 1: in part to start a conviction integrity unit, refuses to
Speaker 1: end this well recognized injustice. This is wrongful conviction. Welcome
Speaker 1: back to wrongful conviction. I gotta say, I'm flabbergasted at
Speaker 1: what we're about to do today. It's just nuts. I mean,
Speaker 1: this case, the case of Temwidgen Kinzue, is like a
Speaker 1: masterclass in the bailings of our criminal legal system and
Speaker 1: and our social system as well. By the way, but
Speaker 1: the criminal legal system is on full display in all
Speaker 1: of its terrors, and this particular cases in Michigan, but
Speaker 1: to be fair, it could have been in any state.
Speaker 1: But here to help us tell this story is the
Speaker 1: man who's been working his bought off to get Mr
Speaker 1: Kenzo out of prison. And I'm talking, of course about
Speaker 1: m Ron Sayd, who is the co director of the
Speaker 1: Michigan Innistance Clinic and a professor at Michigan Law School.
Speaker 1: Em Ron, thanks so much for being here with us today.
Speaker 1: Of course, thank you for having me, and now I
Speaker 1: am we are honored to be joined from a Michigan
Speaker 1: prison by Temogen Kanzu, Temidgen, thanks for calling in. Thank
Speaker 1: you Jason, Thank you to all the listeners out there too. Now, Temigen,
Speaker 1: you've been in prison since before probably a lot of
Speaker 1: our listeners were even born, and it pains me to
Speaker 1: say that it's really insane. But when they hear about
Speaker 1: the maniacal developments in this case, which should have had
Speaker 1: nothing to do with you, because you were over four
Speaker 1: hundred miles away at the time of the murder and
Speaker 1: provably so, I'm going to imagine that they will feel
Speaker 1: exactly the same way. But first, tell us about your
Speaker 1: life before all of this happened. I was born in Flint, Michigan,
Speaker 1: as nineteen sixty three. My parents separated when I was
Speaker 1: very young, around three or four years old. From that
Speaker 1: point on, my mother became very resentful towards me, uh
Speaker 1: kind of that story. You know, you're you're your father
Speaker 1: in every possible way, whether it was the good or
Speaker 1: the bad, and um, it became a very violent household,
Speaker 1: very abusive household. You know, I was not going to
Speaker 1: strike my mother back, so I basically got pounded a lot.
Speaker 1: It became physically apparent what was going on. I ran
Speaker 1: away a couple of times, and eventually I want up
Speaker 1: in the Reach foster program in Flint until I returned
Speaker 1: home for the last time at about fifteen. And by
Speaker 1: the time I was sixteen, I was gone for good
Speaker 1: and living with my grandmother and pretty much raising myself.
Speaker 1: Now telling Jin that wasn't always your name, and you
Speaker 1: were born Fred Freeman, but you later received the name
Speaker 1: Tellijen Kenzo from your Buddhist instructor, right, and later officially
Speaker 1: change it while you're in prison. But your fascination with
Speaker 1: Eastern philosophies and disciplines had roots in your formative years,
Speaker 1: mostly because of learning martial arts to block all of
Speaker 1: the attacks that have been coming your way. You caught there, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's true. I was getting pounded a lot. As I said,
Speaker 1: I wasn't going to strike my mother, and um, I
Speaker 1: was at the drive in, but I was probably nine
Speaker 1: years old, nine or ten years old, and I saw
Speaker 1: a movie and I saw this personal orities just blocking
Speaker 1: every blow that was thrown at him. I also lived
Speaker 1: in a very violent area, and I saw this way
Speaker 1: to defend myself. You know. I learned to learn to
Speaker 1: block and duck and you know, jump out of the
Speaker 1: way and all the magical things we see in martial
Speaker 1: arts movies. And I said, I'm going to learn to
Speaker 1: do that. And you really excelled at martial arts from
Speaker 1: what I'm told, and so much so that you were
Speaker 1: invited to live and train in Korea. Wow, but your
Speaker 1: mother would not allow it. You also excelled academically and
Speaker 1: went into the military after high school. But despite excelling
Speaker 1: there as well, transplants from your years of martial arts
Speaker 1: training kept you from moving up in ranks, and which
Speaker 1: of course kept you at the minimum pay three or
Speaker 1: four years there. And that couple with some reckless spending
Speaker 1: as a young man, which again I can relate because
Speaker 1: I did it too, you started racking up some debt.
Speaker 1: Now you were honorably discharged and moved to Washington State,
Speaker 1: where you had a child with a woman named Galen,
Speaker 1: and then at some point you lost your job and
Speaker 1: out of desperation, wrote some overdraft checks to cover your
Speaker 1: debt's thinking that you just pay the fees and get
Speaker 1: the collectors off your back. But you ended up getting
Speaker 1: prosecuted for theft by the check insurance company. He didn't
Speaker 1: go to jail, but you were put on probation. Yes,
Speaker 1: I had written some bad checks. I de literally overdrafted
Speaker 1: my account when I was in Washington State between n
Speaker 1: three not just sort of one understands, and I'm not
Speaker 1: defending what I did. I was charged with what they
Speaker 1: call first degree theft out there, and I was placed
Speaker 1: on probation, so no prison or anything like that. I
Speaker 1: didn't agree to pay everything back, and I had actually
Speaker 1: already begun to do some volunteer work for some of
Speaker 1: the businesses. Actually I paid off my entire balance while
Speaker 1: I've been in prison on this bit, about five thousand,
Speaker 1: six hundred dollars. So you made good on it. But
Speaker 1: the point of bringing it up is to show that
Speaker 1: you were both struggling financially and now the system had
Speaker 1: its hooks into you. So you're on probation in Washington.
Speaker 1: Your daughter's mother decided to head back to Michigan, and
Speaker 1: you eventually lost custody. You had a few probasian violations
Speaker 1: that almost impossible to avoid, but somehow Washington State agreed
Speaker 1: to let you go back to Michigan, where you looked
Speaker 1: up a high school sweetheart named Michelle Woodworth. You tube connected,
Speaker 1: had a son, but you also had an open relationship.
Speaker 1: Now you live together in a cabinet ann arbor along
Speaker 1: with your childhood friend Tom Ford. You were working studying
Speaker 1: martial arts and Buddhism, very much into health and nutrition.
Speaker 1: At the time you wrote a motorcycle where I left
Speaker 1: the jacket and to round out this picture, I also
Speaker 1: understand that you were the lead singer and a couple
Speaker 1: of bands back in the day. You know, I don't
Speaker 1: want to brag, but I was a pretty good singer. Um.
Speaker 1: It was a dream when I was young, in that
Speaker 1: horrible life at home, to to get out maybe for music.
Speaker 1: And I don't think it will surprise anyone that a
Speaker 1: lead singer can be popular with the ladies right this
Speaker 1: long history. I think it's white people become lean singers sometimes.
Speaker 1: But anyway, there was one young lady in particularly named
Speaker 1: Crystal Meryll from the Uran area, which is a short
Speaker 1: drive for man Arbor, and she became part of the
Speaker 1: reason why we're having this discussion today. But let's back
Speaker 1: up a bit here. So you and Michelle Woodworth, as
Speaker 1: I mentioned, had an open relationship, so you were seeing
Speaker 1: other women. It wasn't a secret to her. And to
Speaker 1: put a fine point on how long ago this was,
Speaker 1: you met Crystal Merrill at a video store. So I
Speaker 1: was looking at some musical equipment the music store and
Speaker 1: I went to the video store and there was a
Speaker 1: girl and then that was Crystal Meryll, and she started
Speaker 1: hitting on me. And I was young, and I was
Speaker 1: pretty susceptible of that kind of positive attention. And uh,
Speaker 1: She's like, Oh, let me take you out to dinner
Speaker 1: and I'll pay for everything, and blah blah blah. And
Speaker 1: you know, I went for it, and I went out
Speaker 1: with her. We wanted hav in physical relations We went
Speaker 1: out several times. She became obsessive. She was trying to
Speaker 1: change my clothing. She was trying to give me a
Speaker 1: change my hair, get rid of my motorcycle, stop wearing
Speaker 1: a leather jacket, stopped singing rock and roll. He just
Speaker 1: went on and on She's basically trying to sculpt me
Speaker 1: into the man that she wanted me to be. So
Speaker 1: she like, let's say six things about me, and didn't
Speaker 1: like ten things about me. One day she comes with
Speaker 1: a bag full of Eyeside shirts. You know, this is
Speaker 1: the eighties, pink and lime green with a little alligator
Speaker 1: or something like. I'm not wearing this. I've got on
Speaker 1: like an Iron Maiden T shirt and a letter jacket
Speaker 1: and shredded jeans. You know, right, you're a rock and
Speaker 1: roll guy. I mean, you weren't trying to hang at
Speaker 1: the country club with Chad and Blake and we're penny loafers, right, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, I swear I used to say she
Speaker 1: wanted me to be Blake. That's hilarious. And I'm like, listen,
Speaker 1: you don't like anything about me, Okay, you don't like
Speaker 1: my hair, you're like my clothes. You don't like anything
Speaker 1: about me, and I don't want to be with you.
Speaker 1: She started stalking me and driving by, and I understand
Speaker 1: there was a boiling point where she made some dramatic
Speaker 1: public spectacle at a party, and your friend Tom became
Speaker 1: concerned about how Crystal's erratic behavior could be dangerous considering
Speaker 1: your probation status. Once the system gets its hooks into you,
Speaker 1: you have to fly so straight, you have to thread
Speaker 1: such a needle and be like goody two shoes just
Speaker 1: in order to stay at a prison. And you had
Speaker 1: already had another minor brush with the law and pleasant Ridge, Michigan.
Speaker 1: So the three of you packed up and moved to Escanabo,
Speaker 1: which is way the hell up in the Upper Fincila,
Speaker 1: over four hundred miles from Port Huron, where Crystal was
Speaker 1: licking her wounds, and from what we understand, after you left,
Speaker 1: she got involved with some other men and got pregnant. Now,
Speaker 1: one of those men turned out to be the victim
Speaker 1: in this case, Scott macklem and he was the son
Speaker 1: of the mayor of Croswell, Michigan. And Crystal later claimed
Speaker 1: that they were engaged and that her unborn child was
Speaker 1: also his, But we're not even sure if that's true.
Speaker 1: And it was your previous fling with Crystal that became
Speaker 1: the basis for the States theory for your alleged motive.
Speaker 1: But what seems way more compelling, which is something that
Speaker 1: the police never investigated, was some of Scott's entanglements in
Speaker 1: the lead up to November of eighty six, prior to
Speaker 1: his being killed, supposed he got some kind of a
Speaker 1: car chase. All these things are happening to this guy.
Speaker 1: He he had a job in some kind of a
Speaker 1: men's clothing store, George and his men's wear, and there
Speaker 1: are multiple instances of these two guys coming into his workplace,
Speaker 1: according to witnesses from the story. And I have the
Speaker 1: reports and anybody wants to see him, we'll share them
Speaker 1: with you, say and says he knew these guys on site,
Speaker 1: and there were two of them, and he said the
Speaker 1: first time they came in the story, he had a
Speaker 1: confrontation with them that almost became violent, and it says
Speaker 1: he challenged them to fight. Says the second time they
Speaker 1: came in the store and he saw them, he was
Speaker 1: so scared he ran in the back of the story
Speaker 1: that he hid. So whatever happened from the first incident
Speaker 1: to the second, he was terrified at these guys. The
Speaker 1: morning that he was murdered at the college, according to
Speaker 1: people there, he was in the college for some reason
Speaker 1: nobody knows why, sub zero morning in November, but he
Speaker 1: skipped his classes. But he was in the school with
Speaker 1: his gym bag, but he never went to Jim. We
Speaker 1: have his college records. He was he was skipping more
Speaker 1: and more and more of his classes and we know
Speaker 1: now it's because he had a drug problem. And he
Speaker 1: was also dealing drugs at the college. And we found
Speaker 1: multiple dealers that have confirmed us. So I want people
Speaker 1: know that I'm not just saying this whatever his family says.
Speaker 1: They knew he had a drug problem. We found dealers
Speaker 1: that knew his father, that his father was paying off
Speaker 1: his drug debts. So Scott was in trouble. I mean,
Speaker 1: his wealthy father, the mayor, had tried to save him
Speaker 1: several times. And you can see how this could have
Speaker 1: been very embarrassing for a local politician like him, especially
Speaker 1: back in the eighties when attitudes abou drug use were
Speaker 1: informed by the colossal public policy failure known as the
Speaker 1: War on Drugs. That same policy also created the environment
Speaker 1: at which violent crimes like this one occurred. And that
Speaker 1: brings us to the morning of November, when Scott had
Speaker 1: been at the community college curiously cut in class while
Speaker 1: carrying a gym bag while not going to the gym.
Speaker 1: There were also reports that he appeared to be running
Speaker 1: from the student center to his car when this tragic
Speaker 1: incident occurred around nine am. Imron, can you tell us
Speaker 1: a little bit about this. It's a tragedy, of course.
Speaker 1: A man was shot and killed in a community college
Speaker 1: parking lot in Port Heron, Michigan. You know, he was
Speaker 1: kind of shot near his car. He's seen running out
Speaker 1: of the student center the way this was said, he
Speaker 1: was running from the student center to his vehicle and
Speaker 1: then was shot somewhere in front of his vehicle and
Speaker 1: made it to the front left tires vehicle where he fell.
Speaker 1: So the assailant fired a shotgun once at Scott Macklum,
Speaker 1: leaving him on the driver's side of the car. The
Speaker 1: key was still in the door. One shell casing and
Speaker 1: a box of shells were found at the scene. A
Speaker 1: latent print was pulled from the box of shells, and
Speaker 1: the murder weapon was never recovered. So this is a busy,
Speaker 1: bustling community college parking lot, and you would think somebody
Speaker 1: would have seen something, right, No one saw the actual
Speaker 1: shooting itself, At least no one has come forward that
Speaker 1: saw the actual shooting. So the case was built through
Speaker 1: the testimony of people that saw things that happened kind
Speaker 1: of a little bit before or right afterward. One of
Speaker 1: the witnesses said that he heard the gun shot and
Speaker 1: kind of as he was looking around, he saw a
Speaker 1: car driving away kind of fast, and you know, he
Speaker 1: had only got a fleeting look at the person. Right
Speaker 1: This was Renny Gobain, who said that he heard what
Speaker 1: sounded like a tire had alan now, which caused him
Speaker 1: to notice a light tan, foreign hatchback style car leaving
Speaker 1: a lot. There's no certainty about whether this car was
Speaker 1: even connected to the crime, but nonetheless, he saw this
Speaker 1: alleged assailant through the windshield as he drove by, wearing
Speaker 1: a dark blue skicap not covering his face. But according
Speaker 1: to Gobain, his head was tilted down the entire time,
Speaker 1: so Gobain didn't even get a good look at this
Speaker 1: alleged assailant. Now Ready, Gobain wrote down a license plate
Speaker 1: number and reported it to police, but the number didn't
Speaker 1: turn up a match, so Gobain was then hypnotized by
Speaker 1: his psychology professor in order to try to better recall
Speaker 1: the plate number. I mean, this is just embarrassing, and
Speaker 1: the results were about as probative as one might think.
Speaker 1: Now Ready, Gobain also initially said that the car was
Speaker 1: a foreign hatchback, but later inexplicably and suspiciously, I would say,
Speaker 1: changed his description to a Ford Escort station wagon. Now,
Speaker 1: this change curiously happened after an aymous tip came in
Speaker 1: saying that the alleged sale it had just been spotted
Speaker 1: driving one. Curiously, again, that tip came in after a
Speaker 1: tempage it had already been arrested. So why did Gobain
Speaker 1: change this initial description to a very specific and conflicting
Speaker 1: description that matched an anonymous tip. And was that anonymous
Speaker 1: tip even real. We don't know the answers to either
Speaker 1: of those questions, but we can certainly speculate that Gobain
Speaker 1: had been fed more information by investigators. But anyway, back
Speaker 1: to the immediate aftermath. So there was also this other
Speaker 1: witness named Richard Krueger, who was even further removed from
Speaker 1: the scene and any meaningful information than even Gobain was. Right,
Speaker 1: he had just seen a man that he deemed suspicious
Speaker 1: loitering nearby near some bushes in an adjoining parking lot,
Speaker 1: and that was about an hour before the shooting, right,
Speaker 1: so not so helpful at the time until both Renny
Speaker 1: Gobain and Richard Krueger both viewed a very suggestive photo lineup,
Speaker 1: and the suggestion into both of these witnesses was to
Speaker 1: pick television Kensue. And we'll get into how it was
Speaker 1: suggestive in just a bit, But first, how does this
Speaker 1: photo even find its way into this lineup? Because early
Speaker 1: on in the investigation, before these eventual misidentifications from Gobain
Speaker 1: and Krueger, television wasn't even on Port Huron Police Department's radar.
Speaker 1: How did he even become a suspect living over four
Speaker 1: hundred miles away in the Upper Peninsula. Mr Kensu initially
Speaker 1: becomes a suspect because in talking to the victims girlfriend
Speaker 1: that they find out that he was a former boyfriend
Speaker 1: of the victim's then girlfriend, Crystal Meryl, and she describes
Speaker 1: him as a curious person, let's say, someone who's into
Speaker 1: martial arts, someone who she said, was, you know, an
Speaker 1: aggressive type and and was very jealous of her and
Speaker 1: all of that stuff. So that gets police really interested
Speaker 1: in Mr. Kensu. They started investigating him. They find that
Speaker 1: he's living in Rock, Michigan, near Escanaba in the Upper Peninsula,
Speaker 1: which is a whole different world from Port Huron. But
Speaker 1: they don't let that stop them. They start trying to
Speaker 1: figure out how he could have come down from Escanaba,
Speaker 1: committed the shooting and been back. So they investigated Temogens
Speaker 1: whereabouts to find a way to nail him, not knowing
Speaker 1: that they were just going to actually solidify his alibi.
Speaker 1: They found out that he was on a date until
Speaker 1: I believe around two am with a woman named Beth Styre,
Speaker 1: and his car had actually broke down and he got
Speaker 1: help and then he went home to Michelle Woodworth even later. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: the shooting occurred at nine am, over four hundred miles away.
Speaker 1: Tem Legend was then seen by folks all over town
Speaker 1: that very day, including at a dojo in Escanaba around noon. Importantly,
Speaker 1: not everyone at the dojo liked Temigen. He was a
Speaker 1: cocky twentysomething year old guy. But despite any of that
Speaker 1: and their own animosity stories and they still corroborated his alibi.
Speaker 1: The evidence, even at the time of the investigation, was
Speaker 1: very clear that Mr Kinsey was not at the scene
Speaker 1: of the crime, that he was in fact at least
Speaker 1: four hundred miles away in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, at distance
Speaker 1: it would have taken him I think something like seven
Speaker 1: or eight hours to drive each way at the time.
Speaker 1: So even the prosecution accepted that this round trip journey
Speaker 1: in that time frame was not possible by car. And
Speaker 1: we'll talk later about how they came up with a
Speaker 1: preposterous travel theory involving a private plane of which there
Speaker 1: is no record right, no aviation logs, nothing, just to
Speaker 1: make to try to make his guilt plausible for a jury,
Speaker 1: not that they ever proved it at all. I mean,
Speaker 1: the only physical evidence to fingerprint on the box of
Speaker 1: shells clearly excluded Temission, whose alibi was as good as
Speaker 1: any we've ever seen. There's more of this to Jason.
Speaker 1: So remember, there's no Scott when Crystal and I are together,
Speaker 1: So there's no reason to be jealous of this guy.
Speaker 1: I knew about an Rnel Hope, I knew about a
Speaker 1: Mike Van Dyke, there was no Scott. Secondly, the Scott
Speaker 1: guy has done nothing to me. Third I've moved far away.
Speaker 1: I've got girlfriends up north. I'm trying to get this
Speaker 1: record deal and liveing Michelle in the Duffy little farmhouse,
Speaker 1: trying to live my singing dream. I'm not going back down.
Speaker 1: Tom Ford confirmed that. We never went back down there.
Speaker 1: We never stalked Crystal or stalk Scott or anything again. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know a lot of the listeners right now are young,
Speaker 1: and they're used to the present technology. There was no
Speaker 1: internet in my day. There were no cell phones in
Speaker 1: my day. He was killed at college, skipping class on
Speaker 1: a sub zero morning in poor here on How the
Speaker 1: hell could I have known this guy was going to college.
Speaker 1: There's just there's no way I could have done all
Speaker 1: this detective work. You know, I was stone broke, Michelle
Speaker 1: was on welfare. I was even more poor by the
Speaker 1: time we were living up north. There's no way for
Speaker 1: me to gather all this data about Scott, right, You'd
Speaker 1: have to know where Scott Macklin was going to be
Speaker 1: and when in order to pull this off and make
Speaker 1: your return flight to the Upper Peninsula to be seen
Speaker 1: by noon. It's not like you could have found out
Speaker 1: information about his class schedule online. There was no online
Speaker 1: at the time. So instead of seeing the writing on
Speaker 1: the wall that you were not the guy, but rather
Speaker 1: run down some of the potentially embarrassing leads involving the
Speaker 1: shady characters connected to the victim, who was the son
Speaker 1: of a wealthy local politician. They made you the fall
Speaker 1: guy Patsy for this murder, and in order to do so,
Speaker 1: they went back to Renny Gobain and Richard Krueger with
Speaker 1: this super suggestive photo lineup. And we'll share this photo
Speaker 1: lineup on our socials along with what was then shown
Speaker 1: to you the judge and the jury to deliberately misrepresent
Speaker 1: that the lineup was not suggestive, we'll have it all
Speaker 1: linked in the biopy. They showed Gobain and Krueger a
Speaker 1: photo lineup in which they include Mr Kinsu's photo, and
Speaker 1: what isn't disclosed to the defense, the judge and the
Speaker 1: jury is there are a number of ways in which
Speaker 1: they clue the witnesses in that they want them to
Speaker 1: identify Kensue. Much later, her Bilser discovered the photos as
Speaker 1: they were shown to the witnesses, and we found that
Speaker 1: there were a lot of differences between all the photos
Speaker 1: on one side, and Mr Knsusan Kensue was the only
Speaker 1: one who was looking in the opposite direction in his
Speaker 1: profile view. He was the only one wearing a placard
Speaker 1: of a different city. He was the only one who
Speaker 1: had a striped background. His photo was the newest and
Speaker 1: clearly like stuck out from all of the others, all
Speaker 1: of these elements that would have biased the witnesses and
Speaker 1: identifying Kensue. We're just not known at the time of trial.
Speaker 1: And we spoke with Herbwelser, who was a retired detective
Speaker 1: lieutenant from the Poion Police Department, and after hearing local
Speaker 1: investigative reporter Bill Procter's coverage of this case, he felt
Speaker 1: compelled to get involved. My name is Herb well Sir.
Speaker 1: I'm retired from the Port arm Police Department and I
Speaker 1: was with the department for thirty one years and then
Speaker 1: I retired as detective lieutenant. I was there my final
Speaker 1: three years. I was in charge of the detective Bureau.
Speaker 1: In two thousand and seven, Bill Proctor and myself, along
Speaker 1: with Fred Freeman's wife, Amaco, were allowed into the Port
Speaker 1: arm Police Department. This is after I retired. Lieutenant Jim Jones,
Speaker 1: who was a very good man. He took over my
Speaker 1: position as detective lieutenant. Jim invited us to come in
Speaker 1: and look at the evidence, and one of the first
Speaker 1: things that we found is the five original photographs that
Speaker 1: were shown to the witnesses. There's like ten or eleven
Speaker 1: things that are different about Fred Freeman's picture from the
Speaker 1: Pleasant Rich Police Department compared to the other four the
Speaker 1: Port Police Department. And I thought to myself, the only
Speaker 1: way that they could have ever got this admitted into
Speaker 1: court is probably to crop everything out of the photograph
Speaker 1: other than the facial view of the person. And when
Speaker 1: this case went to trial, there was an exhibit twenty six.
Speaker 1: It was a poster board that showed the pictures that
Speaker 1: were shown to the witnesses. For years and years, Fred
Speaker 1: Freeman and his supporters kept filing Foyer requests for exhibit
Speaker 1: to see what it looked like, and they kept getting
Speaker 1: responses is that this is no longer available. It's been destroyed.
Speaker 1: So in two thousand and seven, exhibit is still a missing.
Speaker 1: So about two months later Jim called me and he
Speaker 1: said her, but I found the Exhibit twenty and I
Speaker 1: was just so sad to see that they cropped out
Speaker 1: everything out of those original five photographs other than the
Speaker 1: facial view. And that's what they showed in the courtroom,
Speaker 1: and it's in the testimony. Bob Cleveland said to the
Speaker 1: sergeant Sergeant John Bounds, He said, are these the original
Speaker 1: photographs that you showed to the witnesses, and he testified,
Speaker 1: yes they are. At the time of trial, as far
Speaker 1: as the judge and the jury knew, the witnesses picked
Speaker 1: Mr Kensu out of a fair lineup. We have these
Speaker 1: two witnesses who identified Kensu through a very biased lineup,
Speaker 1: and really, you know, they didn't see the shooting, right,
Speaker 1: They hadn't seen the actual shooting, and Gobain got a
Speaker 1: fleeting glimpse at best if someone driving away with their
Speaker 1: head down, and we're not even sure that that was
Speaker 1: the actual shooter. So the biased lineup let them know
Speaker 1: who to pick. In fact, when shown live lineups later
Speaker 1: only ready to go being even remembered who to pick,
Speaker 1: Krueger picked someone else entirely. Nonetheless. On November thirteenth, six
Speaker 1: just over a week after the murder, they arrested you
Speaker 1: to Mudgen and searched your house. Found zero incriminating evidence,
Speaker 1: no guns, no ammo. Of course, they eventually used all
Speaker 1: of your martial arts weapons as evidence against you at trial,
Speaker 1: even though the cause of death had nothing to do
Speaker 1: with martial arts. So when they took you in, did
Speaker 1: they try to coerce a confession? As we often see,
Speaker 1: I was never interviewed. I was never questioned. They literally
Speaker 1: arrested me and threw me into a cell, and I said,
Speaker 1: anybody even gonna talk to me? Well, what I was
Speaker 1: told was that road officers were like the whole way down,
Speaker 1: he was saying he didn't do it. He was telling
Speaker 1: us where he was that day that people saw him.
Speaker 1: He could prove he was completely innocent. And I think
Speaker 1: they were terrified. Remember, they are decided to make me
Speaker 1: the patsy. They decided to make me the all guy.
Speaker 1: They've been putting out lies to the press, and they
Speaker 1: had witnesses who saw the murder. The whole nine yards
Speaker 1: was all lies. Of course, they didn't have any of that.
Speaker 1: And then by then they had, you know, ready Golding
Speaker 1: already willing to set me up. They refused to sit
Speaker 1: down interview because they had to record the interview and
Speaker 1: there'd be a record and probably me talking about my
Speaker 1: alibi and how I was innocent. So they went and
Speaker 1: told the prosecute he's been staying all the way down
Speaker 1: the car, he's innocent, he can prove it. And they
Speaker 1: put me back in the max section of the jail
Speaker 1: before they put me in the isolation area, and they
Speaker 1: refused to talk to me. So no police even bothered
Speaker 1: to interview you. And you are an indigent defendant, so
Speaker 1: you weren't going to make bail no matter what number
Speaker 1: they said. It that you had no money and you
Speaker 1: had this courtA pointed attorney, a former prosecutor named David Dean,
Speaker 1: who he later found out was not only get this,
Speaker 1: a good friend and the attorney for the lead detective
Speaker 1: in this case, John Bounds, He was defending him in
Speaker 1: a criminal investigation for his potential involvement with drugs and ports.
Speaker 1: Here are on, but then get this, David Dean was
Speaker 1: also compromised through his own drug addiction. My lawyer was
Speaker 1: a former prosecutor from St. Clair County. By eighty four,
Speaker 1: he was severely addicted to crack cocaine. By eighty five,
Speaker 1: he had a cocaine conviction in Ohio and was on
Speaker 1: probation in Michigan overseen by my trial judge. He was
Speaker 1: under investigation by the Drug gast force in town, and
Speaker 1: he was undercover informant and he was doing drugs with
Speaker 1: the police. Now this is all a matter of record.
Speaker 1: He was eventually disbarred for lying to the bar about
Speaker 1: his drug use. And because he was observed going into
Speaker 1: crack houses on nineteen separate occasions. They knew all of
Speaker 1: this about this guy. This is the lawyer they gave me.
Speaker 1: The more I look into your case, it seems like
Speaker 1: the only reason why you're still in there is because
Speaker 1: the fisial misconduct. It's so rampant that there would seemingly
Speaker 1: be no end of the potential civil litication if they
Speaker 1: freed you, as they should, and they've known this all along.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think if you waved your right to
Speaker 1: civil litication, they might let you out tomorrow. That's just
Speaker 1: my theory. I don't know, you know, while looking into
Speaker 1: your case, my research became more about investigating the state's
Speaker 1: wrongdoing than it ever was about what happened to Scott Mackleum.
Speaker 1: So let's get back to their wrongdoing. First, they offered
Speaker 1: you plea deals, but you were already and always adamant
Speaker 1: about your innocence, So they tried another route to get
Speaker 1: you to submit to a play. I was taking out
Speaker 1: of population early into my time in the jail, and
Speaker 1: play what was called L cell, which is an isolation
Speaker 1: cell in the back of the jail in the hallway.
Speaker 1: The cell was a freezing cold in the winter. They
Speaker 1: would open the security window in front of the cell,
Speaker 1: so it's like below outside. It was blizzardy at that time,
Speaker 1: and they would freeze me out of the cell um.
Speaker 1: They turned the water off in the cell, so I
Speaker 1: literally had to drink water out of toilet. I wasn't
Speaker 1: a lot of shower. It wasn't allowed to go to
Speaker 1: recreation that was loud, have any books. They took away
Speaker 1: my visits. I wasn't allowed any personal phone calls, and
Speaker 1: all my attorney calls were monitored and you probably know
Speaker 1: that's illegal. And we actually had the logs showing where
Speaker 1: they listened to my attorney calls and what was discussed
Speaker 1: a few times that I was allowed to talk to
Speaker 1: my attorney, who was, as you know, in on all
Speaker 1: this and a former prosecutor. So they're planning to bring me.
Speaker 1: It was part of the scheme they had going with
Speaker 1: my attorney where they were keep bringing me these deals
Speaker 1: and uh, of course I refused this. So you're sticking
Speaker 1: to your innocence. And at this point all they had
Speaker 1: was Renny Cobain's dubious identification. Now, remember Krueger didn't pick
Speaker 1: Temogen out of the live lineup just to suggestive photo
Speaker 1: lineup that they purposely misrepresented to you, the judge and
Speaker 1: the jury. Considering your alibi, it appears that they thought
Speaker 1: they needed some other nonsense to bolster their case. What
Speaker 1: else did they do. The one other piece that we
Speaker 1: haven't addressed so far is the jailhouse informant supposedly hearing
Speaker 1: Kensue confess to committing this crime, and then apparently in
Speaker 1: this confession, Kensu also told them plus, I have this
Speaker 1: great a bye that involves many witnesses from the Upper Peninsula.
Speaker 1: This is clearly just either the informant, at his own
Speaker 1: initiative or at the direction of someone has you know,
Speaker 1: tried to take out two birds with one stone, he
Speaker 1: confessed to me, and he confessed to fabricating an alibi.
Speaker 1: The Joe house informant at the time said he was
Speaker 1: doing this just out of the goodness of his heart.
Speaker 1: Later on he would admit that he was doing it
Speaker 1: to obtain benefits in exchange. He admitted that in an affidavit.
Speaker 1: Later he recanted in a videotape interview with an investigative
Speaker 1: reporter in the Detroit area, basically said he was just
Speaker 1: doing it to benefit himself and as far as he knew,
Speaker 1: Kensu hadn't done anything. Kenser certainly didn't confess to him
Speaker 1: that informant's name was Philip Choplin, who unfortunately has now
Speaker 1: passed away. But he did as I said, fully recant
Speaker 1: before he passed away. Philip Choplin a long term time
Speaker 1: with about thirty felonies and probably fifty misdemeanors been in
Speaker 1: out of prison. He was also a cast informant, and
Speaker 1: he'd been stitching for years at the Drug Task Force
Speaker 1: and to the police and on his other criminalcation is
Speaker 1: I'm never in the cell of other prisoners, so I
Speaker 1: know something's going on. This guy keeps asking about my case,
Speaker 1: and he's asking a lot of confidential questions some of
Speaker 1: my guard The entire time I tell my lawyer what's happening,
Speaker 1: He's like, oh, I wouldn't even worry about I said, no, no,
Speaker 1: something's going on. My lawyer knew Philip Joplin wasn't informed
Speaker 1: and even been involved in some of his cases when
Speaker 1: he was a prosepetor that's our crooket they are, well
Speaker 1: sure enough. Here comes this long letter from Philip Joplin saying,
Speaker 1: I confess to everything in the holding cell. And although
Speaker 1: it appears that your lawyer may have known what was
Speaker 1: going on but said nothing. Of course, any benefits to
Speaker 1: Joplin was not made known to you or the jury, right, no,
Speaker 1: of course not no. And what we also didn't know
Speaker 1: was a secret deal had already been made. Philip Joplin
Speaker 1: was facing what's called a habitual offender sentence or life
Speaker 1: in Michigan. The secret deal involved him basically having his
Speaker 1: charges dropped. The CEO was made with my judge. There's
Speaker 1: handwritten letters saying strong recommendation from Judge Cordon. He wants
Speaker 1: us done right away. Judge Cordon, your child judge, the
Speaker 1: same one overseeing your lawyer's cocaine. But as you know,
Speaker 1: it's so weird that your lawyer never brought up what
Speaker 1: he knew about Philip Joplin to you or the jury
Speaker 1: on cross examination. So let's get to the trial. It's
Speaker 1: about six months after the arrest television. You had endured
Speaker 1: this torture process in jail to get you to submit
Speaker 1: to a deal, which you courageously resisted. We've just talked
Speaker 1: about the nonsense Nitche testimony that they presented, and you've
Speaker 1: got this literal joke of a public defender who's aware
Speaker 1: of this informant Joplin from other cases from when he
Speaker 1: was a prosecutor. It just gets worse and worse. So
Speaker 1: everyone please give us a rent through of everything else
Speaker 1: that happened at trial. So we've already discussed most of
Speaker 1: the evidence that the prosecution presents, which is, you know,
Speaker 1: these two witnesses, one who says I saw a guy
Speaker 1: loitering in the bushes identified him as Kenzo, another who
Speaker 1: said I saw a guy driving away after the shooting
Speaker 1: and identified him as Kensu. Both got really fleeting looks
Speaker 1: at this person, and as I said already, both had
Speaker 1: identified Mr Kenseu out of a very egregiously biased lineup,
Speaker 1: but the jury and judge were not told that. And
Speaker 1: then the other evidence that the prosecution presents, and the
Speaker 1: reason this trial is incredibly long, is they put in
Speaker 1: a whole bunch of character testimony that absolutely is inadmissible
Speaker 1: that courts later have agreed should have been inadmissible, but
Speaker 1: Kensu's lawyer didn't object. And so the most egregious is
Speaker 1: the testimony of his ex girlfriend, who describes a lot
Speaker 1: of things that make Kensu seem like a bad guy,
Speaker 1: but have absolutely nothing to do with this case or
Speaker 1: with him shooting anyone ever. So that's the definition of
Speaker 1: you know, unduly prejudicial evidence that our system endeavors to
Speaker 1: keep out of the courtroom because jurors, being human beings,
Speaker 1: were taking the risk they'll convict someone because they don't
Speaker 1: like him, as opposed to because there's evidence they committed
Speaker 1: the crime. And in my mind, there's no doubt that
Speaker 1: the jury convicted Mr Kinseu because they didn't like him,
Speaker 1: because there was all of this evidence brought in that
Speaker 1: he was, you know, abusive to people in his life,
Speaker 1: that he had committed largely petty times in the past,
Speaker 1: and this whole narrative was painted of him as a manipulative,
Speaker 1: mind controlling person, which is obviously entirely irrelevant to whether
Speaker 1: he shot a guy in a parking lot. But this
Speaker 1: whole narrative includes weapons being brought in that are supposedly
Speaker 1: the kind of weapons that a ninja warrior would use,
Speaker 1: because they try to paint Kensu as a wanna be
Speaker 1: ninja master who can control people and all of that stuff.
Speaker 1: So there's throwing stars and nunchucks and all of those
Speaker 1: are just kind of brought in and put on a
Speaker 1: table at the trial. They have absolutely nothing to do
Speaker 1: with a guy getting shot in a parking lot, right,
Speaker 1: But it's a distraction, and it's kind of just painting
Speaker 1: Kensu in the eyes of a jury as an outsider,
Speaker 1: as someone you wouldn't like if you met. And you know,
Speaker 1: unfortunately that ended up working because the actual evidence of
Speaker 1: guilt was very, very tiny. Robert Cleland's entire story about
Speaker 1: this case was fabricated. It wasn't based on any evidence
Speaker 1: or any witnesses, it wasn't based on any experts or
Speaker 1: any forensic He just made it up. So when he
Speaker 1: made up the crazy story about wanting to recruit Crystal
Speaker 1: into my ninja organization, the media was actually beginning to
Speaker 1: mock him and say, this is stupid, this doesn't make
Speaker 1: any sense. Then he changed it to jealous boyfriend, So
Speaker 1: now I'm a jealous boyfriend. You know, they didn't really
Speaker 1: use the word stalker as much back then, and of
Speaker 1: course we know that wasn't true too, and Crystal never
Speaker 1: even implied that. So you know, that's the masterful, supposedly
Speaker 1: case that the prosecution has built, which has very little weight,
Speaker 1: and it is largely filled in with completely prejudicial, irrelevant,
Speaker 1: inadvisible evidence. But you know, that's what the jury ended
Speaker 1: up believing. In response. You know, Kensey presented several witnesses,
Speaker 1: none of whom were his friends and family. They were
Speaker 1: people that were largely independent, people he associated with, you know,
Speaker 1: the owner of a store or a guy he met
Speaker 1: at a kmart when his car broke down that day.
Speaker 1: And so I think this alibi probably had a big impact. Yeah,
Speaker 1: with all of these independent witnesses, his alibi was formidable.
Speaker 1: It was airtight. And this brings us to the ridiculous
Speaker 1: theory that they used to come it. So on Rebuttal,
Speaker 1: the prosecution comes up with this theory that theoretically he
Speaker 1: could have chartered a private plane, committed the crime, you know,
Speaker 1: flown back and forth and no one would know. There
Speaker 1: was never any record that any such flight took place.
Speaker 1: There was no showing that Mr Kinzu, who at the
Speaker 1: time was integen, even had money to make this happen. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean poor people always fly private, right, Yeah. Can
Speaker 1: you imagine this scenario in real life? He somehow finds
Speaker 1: the private jet department at his local airport in the
Speaker 1: Millinoa and then convinces this random pilot who's just hanging
Speaker 1: out to not make any record of the flight. Of course,
Speaker 1: it's all made plausible by his being a ninja who's
Speaker 1: capable of mind control. But let's just say that he's
Speaker 1: able to accomplish all of that, which is obviously bat
Speaker 1: shit insane, he's still got to pay for it. Up
Speaker 1: until this point, he would have had to have been
Speaker 1: hiding his vast wealth while drowning in debt and living
Speaker 1: in poverty. But even if he was secretly well healthy,
Speaker 1: he must have blown it all on the private jet
Speaker 1: because he certainly wasn't spending it on his defense attorney.
Speaker 1: So when we spoke to Herbwells, he pointed out some
Speaker 1: things about this charter plane theory and the pilot Bob Evans,
Speaker 1: who testified a child to boast of this theory, and
Speaker 1: somehow it gets even worse from here. I met with
Speaker 1: the detective that was under this starche and Detective Harry Hudson,
Speaker 1: and I talked to Harry about three hours one night
Speaker 1: about this case. When we got to the airplane theory,
Speaker 1: Harry said to me, it's as a Herb, you know
Speaker 1: who the airplane pilot was do you that is Bob
Speaker 1: Cleveland's personal airplane pilot. Bob Cleveland was running for attorney
Speaker 1: general here in the state of Michigan, and in fact
Speaker 1: had just lost the election the day before this murder.
Speaker 1: He lost the election on Tuesday. On Wednesday morning was
Speaker 1: the murder, but he said, Bob Evans is the pilot
Speaker 1: who would take Bob Cleveland to his speaking engagements here
Speaker 1: in the state of Michigan while he was running for
Speaker 1: attorney general. And of course it didn't come out in
Speaker 1: the test moment. You know, even having spoken about this
Speaker 1: case hundreds of times, I am still shocked at how
Speaker 1: how how nonsensical all of this is. So despite the
Speaker 1: fact that all the physical evidence was exculpatory and that
Speaker 1: your alibi was rock solid, they stacked up this character
Speaker 1: assassination campaign that should have been inadmissible and invented this
Speaker 1: ridiculous charter plane theory to support the one tiny bit
Speaker 1: of evidence that mattered. The misidentification from Renny Cobain, who
Speaker 1: had caught this fleeting glimpse or said he did, of
Speaker 1: an alleged assailant with his head tilted downward in a
Speaker 1: car that we're not even sure was the shooters, and
Speaker 1: then when presented with this unduly suggestive photo lineup, he
Speaker 1: chose your picture and said that you look like the
Speaker 1: driver of that car. Then the prosecution purposely misrepresented to you,
Speaker 1: the judge and the jury just how suggested that lineup was.
Speaker 1: So Gobain's testimony, then the nonsense nitche testimony, along with
Speaker 1: a bunch of irrelevant bullshit like the testimony from Crystal Meryl,
Speaker 1: your martial arts weapons collection, the mystery around you being
Speaker 1: some sort of a ninja, the fact that you had
Speaker 1: children by two different women and enjoyed an open relationship
Speaker 1: with Michelle Woodworth. Seeing all of that, it seems like
Speaker 1: the jury was more convinced that they just didn't like you,
Speaker 1: rather than that you had committed this crime. So when
Speaker 1: the jury came back in, take us back to that moment,
Speaker 1: that horrible, horrible moment when they convicted and sentenced you
Speaker 1: to life without parole. Jar hit the floor. I couldn't
Speaker 1: believe it. I literally almost fell over, and I just
Speaker 1: I turned him so I didn't do this, And I
Speaker 1: turned the judge and said that there's no way you
Speaker 1: can believe that I did this, your honor. I said
Speaker 1: that it my sentencing too. There's no way you can
Speaker 1: believe that I committed this crime. You watched this whole trial.
Speaker 1: There was no events I had anything to do with this.
Speaker 1: I've never even met this guy. MBoC policy required you
Speaker 1: had at least twenty seven years old to go to
Speaker 1: state prison Southern Michigan. I was twenty three um in
Speaker 1: violation that policy. Robert Cleland had made demands on the
Speaker 1: MDOC that they placed me in Jackson. Jackson, at that
Speaker 1: time was the world's largest wall prison, and it was
Speaker 1: also one of the most violent. Two corrections officers were
Speaker 1: killed the year that I came down, Josephe McCallum and
Speaker 1: Jack But jack But was killed in front of me,
Speaker 1: by the way, in December seven, I believe it was
Speaker 1: nineties seven. It was insanely violent. I watched a man
Speaker 1: killed over what we call a shot of coffee, a
Speaker 1: little tablespoon of coffee. I mean, it was crazy violent.
Speaker 1: And I was the ninja killer, and I had been
Speaker 1: in the press, so everybody had to try me. And
Speaker 1: so when I got to Jackson, I knew my life
Speaker 1: was in danger, and I was attacked while I was
Speaker 1: still once called quarantine. I was able to defend myself. Fortunately,
Speaker 1: and after that I began it, just trained furiously. I
Speaker 1: thought I'm gonna die in this place, right, And you
Speaker 1: also learned a lot even when a couple of times
Speaker 1: pro say, which happens basically almost never. Yeah, I beat
Speaker 1: the ND you'll see like times now. And I just
Speaker 1: settled some more cases. I settled some diet cases and
Speaker 1: abuses for our digital content provider and some other things. So,
Speaker 1: but I do this for other prisoners. You know. I
Speaker 1: don't do this to get rich. I do this to
Speaker 1: help people. And what I what I do is my
Speaker 1: rule has always been I try to be the person
Speaker 1: for them that I needed for me when I was
Speaker 1: a young guy that was a mess and didn't have
Speaker 1: any help. And while you help many others, it all
Speaker 1: started with learning how to help yourself in your own
Speaker 1: legal filings. And I want to turn to IMRN here
Speaker 1: now we know, even with evidence of all of this misconduct,
Speaker 1: exculpatory evidence, etcetera, post conviction litigation is usually a long
Speaker 1: and winding road to nowhere to no relief and star
Speaker 1: contrast how easy it is to get wrongfully convicted, and
Speaker 1: even among a galaxy of other cases, telligence really stands out.
Speaker 1: Here we are thirty five years later. There are so
Speaker 1: many twists and turns, including a near turnaround moment in
Speaker 1: two thousand ten. But even before that, there were times
Speaker 1: when what Kne did to happen in this case was
Speaker 1: made painfully obvious to any objective observer. There are, you know,
Speaker 1: probably five or six moments when this conviction could have
Speaker 1: been overturned because enough had been shown to be wrong
Speaker 1: with it, and unfortunately all of those five or six
Speaker 1: opportunities were lost. So it starts on the direct appeal,
Speaker 1: where his direct appeal attorney is trying to obtain the
Speaker 1: original photos because he wants to be able to show
Speaker 1: that these witnesses identified Tensu through a bias lineup that
Speaker 1: essentially police framed Kinsue, and he's not given the original photos,
Speaker 1: and then ultimately, if the transcript is correct, they essentially
Speaker 1: hand him some other photos from the case and say
Speaker 1: these are the ones, and we know they're not the
Speaker 1: ones because they had different people in them. So that
Speaker 1: direct appeal is unfortunately a failure. Then in the mid
Speaker 1: nineties is when an investigative reporter starts digging into this stuff.
Speaker 1: A guy named Bill Procter and he interviews jurors, and
Speaker 1: he interviews some of the alibi witnesses, and most significantly
Speaker 1: gets that videotaped recantation from the jailhouse informant, who by
Speaker 1: that time is admitting not only was he given incentives
Speaker 1: to testify against Kensu and those were not disclosed, but
Speaker 1: also as admitting that it was entirely a fabrication. So
Speaker 1: that's another moment where you know, based on that, you
Speaker 1: could think this conviction should be reversed, but it wasn't.
Speaker 1: Then you pointed out, you know, slowly but surely, we
Speaker 1: get to two thousand ten and and a couple of
Speaker 1: important things happened there. First, Kensu, working on his own
Speaker 1: without an attorney, fils a federal habeas corpus petition um.
Speaker 1: And it's an absolutely massive filing because you know, as
Speaker 1: far as he realizes, he just wants to put everything
Speaker 1: he has into it. A lawyer might say, hey, let's
Speaker 1: edit this down, let's only keep the most salient stuff.
Speaker 1: But you know, for Kensu, his life is on the line,
Speaker 1: and he puts together this massive filing. And interestingly, that
Speaker 1: is right around the time when our Innocence Clinic at
Speaker 1: Michigan Law school opened, and we had started to look
Speaker 1: at this case. And we were looking at this case
Speaker 1: because even by then Kensu had a lot of local
Speaker 1: supporters that were urging us to look at this case.
Speaker 1: We read trial transcripts and found that this was an
Speaker 1: absolutely silly conviction, that he clearly hadn't committed this crime.
Speaker 1: So we signed on. And you know, at the time,
Speaker 1: I was a law student, so I wasn't representing Kenseu,
Speaker 1: but the professors who were leading our clinic at the
Speaker 1: time signed on to be Kenso's attorneys in federal district court.
Speaker 1: You know, they intended to file amended habeas petition where
Speaker 1: they could you know, winnow the claims to what they
Speaker 1: believed was the most important um. But actually by then
Speaker 1: the judge had, as it turned out, already been reviewing
Speaker 1: Kensu's federal habeas and she ended up granting it pretty
Speaker 1: quickly after we had signed on, so clearly she hadn't
Speaker 1: really even read any new filings we made. She granted
Speaker 1: based on what Kensu had filed. Wait, so the federal
Speaker 1: judge looked into the petition that Temgent filed pro say,
Speaker 1: and it was granted. That's incredible. So then what happened.
Speaker 1: Why did this not lead to his release? Unfortunately, the
Speaker 1: law is very very restrictive on this stuff, and so
Speaker 1: the state has a right to appeal that to our
Speaker 1: intermediate appellate court, the sixth Circuit Court of a Fields,
Speaker 1: and they unfortunately reversed and upheld the conviction again. They
Speaker 1: said all of this should have been brought before that
Speaker 1: they couldn't consider the merits of this evidence because it
Speaker 1: should have been presented earlier. So you know. Unfortunately, after
Speaker 1: that loss, a couple of other things happened. In two
Speaker 1: thousand ten, Kensu sought clemency from the governor for the
Speaker 1: first time. He succeeded in getting a hearing. Unfortunately, clemency
Speaker 1: was denied and there were a lot of underhanded tactics
Speaker 1: I I feel that we used during that time again
Speaker 1: to just get at character assassination instead of focusing on
Speaker 1: the evidence. Clemency was denied at that time, but herb
Speaker 1: Weltzer had discovered this uncropped photo lineup that showed for
Speaker 1: the first time that the witnesses had been biased by
Speaker 1: the police into selecting Mr Kensu. So we filed a
Speaker 1: new state court filing based on that. We got a
Speaker 1: hearing on it around two thousand, thirteen fourteen. But unfortunately,
Speaker 1: the writings on the wall. Every time you go to St.
Speaker 1: Clair County and talk about the Kensu case, no one's
Speaker 1: really going to give you the time of day. So
Speaker 1: we had a hearing. It was a very very contentious hearing,
Speaker 1: and the judge ended up ruling against us. We law
Speaker 1: the appeals on that filed a federal habeas petition. Unfortunately
Speaker 1: that was denied as well. The interesting thing here, of course,
Speaker 1: one of many interesting things, is that the prosecutor who
Speaker 1: had tried Kensu's case subsequently was appointed a federal judge,
Speaker 1: and now it's still a federal judge in Detroit, that's
Speaker 1: Robert Cleland. That's created kind of a whole new level
Speaker 1: of of conflict in this case. When we filed his
Speaker 1: second federal habeas petition, all of the judges in the
Speaker 1: Eastern District of Michigan, which is the Federal court in Detroit,
Speaker 1: all of the judges recused themselves and Kensu's case was
Speaker 1: actually decided by a senior status semi retired judge in Kentucky,
Speaker 1: which you know, is an interesting situation and not one
Speaker 1: I've come across before. Unfortunately, that was denied as well,
Speaker 1: and so since he has filed for clemency a few
Speaker 1: more times with subsequent Michigan governors. Now one would think
Speaker 1: that after a federal judge agreed with his actual innocence
Speaker 1: claim and an appellate court denied him only on procedural grounds,
Speaker 1: maybe that should have held some weight in the governor's mansion.
Speaker 1: But he's been denied three times there as well. And
Speaker 1: then Dana Nessel ran for Attorney General, and all during
Speaker 1: that summer she was riding the wave of righteous indignation
Speaker 1: about the state of law enforcement and the criminal legal
Speaker 1: system in this country. She made promises, including that they'd
Speaker 1: start a conviction integrity unit. This, of course, is the
Speaker 1: kind of thing that couldn't go around the procedural bars
Speaker 1: restrict relief throughout the court system, right But unfortunately, after
Speaker 1: reviewing this case, get this, they didn't disagree that he
Speaker 1: was innocent, but rather they changed the rules after he
Speaker 1: filed and came up with some self imposed restriction about
Speaker 1: a need for new evidence, just like he needed an
Speaker 1: appellate court. So now this is the Attorney General's see IU,
Speaker 1: not the Wayne County SEIU, which is widely regarded as
Speaker 1: one of the finest and most effective in the country.
Speaker 1: But this a g they in a nestle c IU
Speaker 1: has only successfully granted relief in three or four cases,
Speaker 1: and they came up with a reason to deny Temogen
Speaker 1: as well, which was to require new evidence. So since
Speaker 1: Timodgen was already so thorough in this federal habeas petition,
Speaker 1: there's no currently new evidence to present, and I'm just
Speaker 1: sitting here struggling to figure out why they did this.
Speaker 1: In addition, since closing their investigation into timogence case, they
Speaker 1: won't even release the summary report as they've done in
Speaker 1: the past, So I can only guess, as I did earlier,
Speaker 1: that there's just such vast official misconduct in this case
Speaker 1: that admitting to the wrongdoing would be very expensive, not
Speaker 1: to mention, probably highly embarrassing for some people in positions
Speaker 1: of real power. So this conviction Integrity unit is now
Speaker 1: totally ignoring Timidgen's innocence and doing exactly what everyone else did,
Speaker 1: of course, except for that one federal judge, Judge Hood,
Speaker 1: who alone had the courage to recognize Timagion's innocence. So
Speaker 1: that's where we're at now, you know, believing the kentsus innocent.
Speaker 1: We're not going to give up on the case, but
Speaker 1: with each subsequent loss, there are fewer and fewer options
Speaker 1: that are still on the table. Fortunately, I think we
Speaker 1: still do have a couple of pathways left to us,
Speaker 1: thanks to the work of her Welser, who has done
Speaker 1: all this amazing work for him. But the craziest part
Speaker 1: of this case is he's a person who should never
Speaker 1: have been convicted to trial, and yet here we are,
Speaker 1: now thirty five years later, always trying to think of
Speaker 1: more and new evidence of innocence, when really all the
Speaker 1: evidence of innocence has existed in this case from the beginning. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it's not like the CiU has different evidence from
Speaker 1: what you've all heard here today. They've got it. So
Speaker 1: I hope that with an election looming, they would take
Speaker 1: bold action. That's what I keep saying. You'd start kicking
Speaker 1: ask now so you can you can go out there
Speaker 1: say look what I just did. I mean, this is
Speaker 1: what they campaigned on and we're elected to do. And
Speaker 1: I understand that you phone bank for these people. Your
Speaker 1: your new wife, Paula, since Amaco, your previous wife had passed.
Speaker 1: Paula was literally out there knocking on doors, and then
Speaker 1: their in action here is It's just it's made extra
Speaker 1: painful by that fact, right, And they made so many promises,
Speaker 1: and you know, Paula has been to so many rallies
Speaker 1: and listening to so many families who were weighing on
Speaker 1: that unit to do something. And they brought any amazing
Speaker 1: people like Robin Frankel and Patricia Litl and Loriie Montgomery
Speaker 1: and Valerie him In, the best the best mis State,
Speaker 1: great investigators, great attorneys, and nothing's coming out. And it's
Speaker 1: not because the investors and the attorneys. It's because something happened.
Speaker 1: I don't I don't know if people scared her. I
Speaker 1: don't know if they told her they thought I was
Speaker 1: going to hurt her re election chances. How in the
Speaker 1: world can setting the innocent free be seen as anything
Speaker 1: other than a moral imperative. Everyone agrees the innocent shouldn't
Speaker 1: be in prison. This is a pretty bipartisan issue, so
Speaker 1: I'm sure our listeners would like to do whatever they
Speaker 1: can to right this wrong. If you're a Missigan thought,
Speaker 1: imagine that you're incredibly frustrated by everything you've heard on
Speaker 1: this podcast today, all this evidence, So please we need
Speaker 1: all of you to sign a petition that's linked in
Speaker 1: the bio, and hopefully your support can help move this
Speaker 1: one over the line as it's done in other cases.
Speaker 1: And so many people have already joined this fight, including
Speaker 1: US Representatives Andy Levin and Rashida Laive, as well as
Speaker 1: State Senators Stephanie Chang, who issued a joint statement after
Speaker 1: Demogen's denial in the c i U. I'm gonna quote
Speaker 1: from that statement. They said, we were deeply disappointed. We
Speaker 1: have great respect for the Attorney General and the other
Speaker 1: attorneys involved in this case. However, the standard used by
Speaker 1: the c i U and its review of the Kinzu
Speaker 1: case predetermined the outcome to us, the wrong outcome. Our
Speaker 1: point of view is not based on technical or procedural
Speaker 1: flaws in the case or discovery of an alibi witness
Speaker 1: who has never presented a trial. It's based on the
Speaker 1: fact that Kinzu could not have committed and did not,
Speaker 1: in fact commit, the crime for which the state is
Speaker 1: taking away the entire the rest of his life now
Speaker 1: thirty five years on, and the continued resistance to this
Speaker 1: fact of actual innocence by current and former law enforcement
Speaker 1: officials does nothing to change the fact itself. Wow. So
Speaker 1: if you're as outraged as we all are, we'll have
Speaker 1: links to action steps in the bio, so please check
Speaker 1: those out and get involved Separately, if anyone has new
Speaker 1: information about this case, call herb Welser will be posting
Speaker 1: his contact info as well. And now we turn to
Speaker 1: closing arguments, where I thank both of you for joining
Speaker 1: us to share your story, and then I'll turn my
Speaker 1: microphone off, kick back in my chair and listen to
Speaker 1: whatever else you feel is left to be said. We'll
Speaker 1: kick it off with them Roun and Temision. Please take
Speaker 1: us off into the sunset. This is one of those
Speaker 1: cases that really leaves you scratching your head because all
Speaker 1: of the evidence that he didn't commit this crime has
Speaker 1: existed from the beginning, and so now it's just a
Speaker 1: matter of kind of acknowledging that evidence and coming to
Speaker 1: grips with it, as opposed to looking for technicalities to
Speaker 1: to skirt around the evidence, which is unfortunately what the
Speaker 1: past you know, thirty years of appeals have been everyone
Speaker 1: looking for an excuse not to consider the actual evidence
Speaker 1: of the case, whether that excuses you know, initially cancuse,
Speaker 1: a manipulative person or he's a he's a bad guy
Speaker 1: to women in his life, or that he you know,
Speaker 1: he's the type of person who would do this. And
Speaker 1: then later it turns into, oh, you have even more
Speaker 1: evidence of innocence, but you should have presented it earlier.
Speaker 1: I think we have to look past all of this stuff.
Speaker 1: This is simply a guy who should never have been convicted.
Speaker 1: You know, if he was to be led out tomorrow,
Speaker 1: that would be thirty five years too late. There's really
Speaker 1: not a way to to give him back what what's happened.
Speaker 1: The only thing is that there should be an urgency
Speaker 1: to right this wrong. And I know that's the only
Speaker 1: thing he's ever wanted. So hopefully we're approaching a time though,
Speaker 1: where we can finally come to grips with the reality
Speaker 1: of his innocence. I want everybody understand it. We say
Speaker 1: this all the time and it becomes cliche, but you know,
Speaker 1: your voice really doesn't matter. You know, we had all
Speaker 1: these protests going on a little while ago, and you know,
Speaker 1: sadly some riots but changed with starting because of those protests,
Speaker 1: they put they create this great bills George Floyd Bill,
Speaker 1: and you know what, all the protesting stopped all the
Speaker 1: noise making stopped, the media coverage stopped, and the bill's
Speaker 1: gonna sit in limbo. It's already done. They could pass
Speaker 1: that bill right now, that Policing Act. It's a great act.
Speaker 1: It's not unfair. It creates necessary protections. But we stopped
Speaker 1: making noise. And when we stopped making noise, they don't
Speaker 1: have to pay attention to us anymore, or only a
Speaker 1: few of us are just crickets chirping in the field
Speaker 1: at night. It's pleasant, it's not too irritating, and it
Speaker 1: can be easily ignored, and you to enjoy whatever you
Speaker 1: want to do. And I know people have their own
Speaker 1: lives and they have their jobs, and they have their
Speaker 1: kids and all their responsibilities. But nothing is going to
Speaker 1: change until we demand change. Nothing's could get me better
Speaker 1: until we stopped complaining about it. Some people want things
Speaker 1: to be better, but they feel like, you know, it's
Speaker 1: like my vote, it just doesn't matter. It's not going
Speaker 1: to change anything. It does matter, and it is going
Speaker 1: to change something. You don't have to be famous, and
Speaker 1: don't have to be wealthy, and you don't have to
Speaker 1: be connected. You just have to want things to get
Speaker 1: Call your senators, call your Congressman, if you're out there
Speaker 1: and you hear the story of this case, just for example,
Speaker 1: and it is one of the worst cases ever. So
Speaker 1: it's a great example. But I'm no better and no
Speaker 1: more important than anybody else who's suffering in here. But
Speaker 1: if the story moves, you would all of you if
Speaker 1: you say, I don't ever want to see this happen
Speaker 1: to anybody ever again, not just Mr Kensue, Nobody call
Speaker 1: our governor, call our attorney general and demand that they
Speaker 1: fixed this, and then demand legislation changes. If you make
Speaker 1: a deal with an informant, you have to put in
Speaker 1: a writing that there was a deal, and you have
Speaker 1: to disclose everything because there's no loss in They have
Speaker 1: to disclose anything they have to, you know, the Brady
Speaker 1: rule and disclosure. But it's so shame prosecutors have absolute immanity.
Speaker 1: Why they'll tell you they can't do their jobs without immunity.
Speaker 1: That's insane. What if the doctor said, I can't do
Speaker 1: any surgery on you unless you waive all of your rights.
Speaker 1: I can read instruments behind you and cut the wrong
Speaker 1: leg off you. Cool of that, But we do this
Speaker 1: with prosecutors and judges. They don't need immunity unless they're
Speaker 1: doing something wrong. Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction.
Speaker 1: I'd like to thank our production team Connor Hall, Jeff
Speaker 1: Clyburne and Kevin Wardis, with research by Lila Robinson. The
Speaker 1: music in this production was supplied by three time OSCAR
Speaker 1: nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us on
Speaker 1: Instagram at Wrongful Conviction, on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast,
Speaker 1: and on Twitter at wrong Conviction, as well as at
Speaker 1: Lava for Good. On all three platforms, you can also
Speaker 1: follow me on both TikTok and Instagram at It's Jason
Speaker 1: flom Raleful Conviction is a production of Lava for Good
Speaker 1: Podcasts in association with Signal Company Number one