Speaker 1: On the west side of Detroit. In the summer of
Speaker 1: twenty twenty, year old Marvin Cotton Junior sold a gun.
Speaker 1: He thought it belonged to his distant cousin, but that
Speaker 1: wasn't the case.
Speaker 2: I get a knock at the door and it's him
Speaker 2: and an older guy, and I knew immediately that it
Speaker 2: had something to do with this gun. So I opened
Speaker 2: the door and make it away from my house. So
Speaker 2: as I closed the door, I heard the older guy
Speaker 2: say he don't know who he's fm with. Next thing
Speaker 2: I know, two police cars pull up. They gear up
Speaker 2: and break in my house without a warn He kept
Speaker 2: saying that it was a department issue gun, but there
Speaker 2: wasn't a gun that a police offical carry was like
Speaker 2: a huge chrome automatic weapon. They really wanted it back.
Speaker 2: They ramsacked my house. They took money. Other guns that
Speaker 2: I had with the gun that they were looking for
Speaker 2: wasn't there. He said, I got a thousand dollars for
Speaker 2: this gun. We're gonna leave. Just go hide it somewhere,
Speaker 2: call me and tell me where you hit the gun at.
Speaker 1: But instead of playing along, Marvin filed a complaint, which
Speaker 1: led to an investigation and eventually consequences for these officers,
Speaker 1: as well as Marvin being routinely harassed by the police.
Speaker 1: Fast forward to January twenty fourth, two thousand and one,
Speaker 1: gunfire erupted on Marvin's friend Jamon McIntyre's porch. Jaman ran
Speaker 1: into the alley across the street, where he was fatally shot.
Speaker 1: When witnesses at the scene could not identify the shooters,
Speaker 1: the blame eventually found its way to Marvin and to others.
Speaker 2: When I was arrested, one of the detectives told the
Speaker 2: other detectives, you know, he really fed up some good officers' lives.
Speaker 2: My name is doctor Marvincott Junior, and I spent nighteteen
Speaker 2: seven months and twelve days of prison for a crime
Speaker 2: I didn't commit.
Speaker 1: From Lava for good. This is wrongful conviction with Maggie
Speaker 1: Freeling today, Doctor Marvin Cotton Junior. Marvin Cotton Junior grew
Speaker 1: up in the nineteen eighties and nineties on the West
Speaker 1: side of Detroit.
Speaker 2: The neighborhood that I'm from, a street called Myers. Myers
Speaker 2: was the center of the universe for that area, or
Speaker 2: at least it was the center of my universe. We
Speaker 2: had restaurants on this block. We had elementary school on
Speaker 2: this block. It was like everything that you would need
Speaker 2: a community to be. It was all on this block,
Speaker 2: and it was a lot of families lived there. It
Speaker 2: was a lot of guys. We grew up together in
Speaker 2: my age group and those that were older. My co
Speaker 2: defendant in this case, Anthony Legion, who also did this
Speaker 2: show Brilliant paralegal here in Michigan, he grew up on
Speaker 2: Myers as well. He lived down the street from me,
Speaker 2: several years older. He gave my first haircut as a child.
Speaker 2: You know, I kind of grew up up under him
Speaker 2: and the older guys that was in the area. You know,
Speaker 2: Myers was really a close knit community.
Speaker 1: Marvin's co defendant, Anthony Legion, managed to stay largely uninvolved
Speaker 1: in the streets, while Marvin's situation was different.
Speaker 2: I'm the middle child of an older sister and a
Speaker 2: younger brother. We were raised primarily by my mother. My
Speaker 2: biological father struggled with drugs and alcohol for maybe thirty
Speaker 2: seven years of his life. Wow, he was very abusive
Speaker 2: in the household, and eventually she got away from that. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I grew up. I grew up very poor. I remember
Speaker 2: it creating the desire to want more, to want to
Speaker 2: have things, to not want to be singled out or
Speaker 2: bullied in school for not having things. You know, children
Speaker 2: could be very cruel. And my stepfather, the man who
Speaker 2: eventually married my mother, he helped raise myself and my
Speaker 2: brother and my sister from maybe about the age where
Speaker 2: I was twelve years old into the time that I
Speaker 2: was wrongfully convicted. He introduced me to the streets and
Speaker 2: I got involved with selling drugs and selling guns and
Speaker 2: just being involved in that whole life.
Speaker 1: And while hustling in the streets, Marvin was a senior
Speaker 1: in high school when he found out that he was
Speaker 1: going to be a dad when.
Speaker 2: I was seventeen years old, and I remember, like immediately
Speaker 2: when I found out, I just felt the pressure of
Speaker 2: being responsible for another human being that was coming. And
Speaker 2: you know, I went to every single doctor's appointment. I
Speaker 2: made sure that I fed her mother everything that I
Speaker 2: thought she should be eating. And I was very excited.
Speaker 2: But since I didn't have the two to organize my
Speaker 2: life the way that it should be, my plan was
Speaker 2: drop out of high school and then enroll in a
Speaker 2: GED course so that I can quickly get my GED
Speaker 2: and when I dropped myself from high school. I went
Speaker 2: to go and roll and they was like you a
Speaker 2: week late, Like you have to wait till next year
Speaker 2: to enroll in our ged program. So it was like
Speaker 2: I could have stayed in school, but I had a
Speaker 2: problem that no one knew about. I couldn't read and write.
Speaker 2: So I had made it all the way to this
Speaker 2: point in school without being able to read and write,
Speaker 2: because I just used my ability to communicate. I had
Speaker 2: a great memory, so if I heard something in class,
Speaker 2: I would answer all of the questions. I would never
Speaker 2: do anything on paper, and teachers automatically knew, like you're smart,
Speaker 2: you know everything, just do the work, so they would
Speaker 2: pass me because they thought I knew it. And the
Speaker 2: reason I couldn't read and write is because when I
Speaker 2: was a child and I was worried about my mother
Speaker 2: and whatever fight that just happened the night before, or
Speaker 2: what was going on in the home.
Speaker 1: So Marvin wasn't exactly set up for success, but he
Speaker 1: survived and cared for his daughter with the tools that
Speaker 1: he had, and that's how it went until the summer
Speaker 1: of two thousand, when his distant cousin brought him a
Speaker 1: gun to sell.
Speaker 2: One of my cousin's cousin. He knew that I indulged
Speaker 2: in that world. So I took the firearm. I gave
Speaker 2: him some money, and I went and I sold it.
Speaker 2: Several hours later, I get a knock at the door.
Speaker 2: It's him and an older guy, probably in his forties.
Speaker 2: I knew immediately it had something to do with the gun.
Speaker 2: So I opened the door, and you know, I told,
Speaker 2: you know, man, get away from my house. I didn't
Speaker 2: just get away from my house. So as I closed
Speaker 2: the door, I heard the older guy say he don't
Speaker 2: know who he's fing with. Next thing I know, two
Speaker 2: police cars pull up. They gear up and put their
Speaker 2: vests and everything on my front line. They break in
Speaker 2: my house without a warrant. They ramsacked the house. They
Speaker 2: took money, other guns that I had, but the gun
Speaker 2: that they were looking for wasn't there. So they handcuffed me,
Speaker 2: put me in the bathroom, and one of the guys
Speaker 2: come in and says, look, I got a thousand dollars.
Speaker 2: He said it on the bathroom sync He said, gonna
Speaker 2: let you out of these handcuffs. We're gonna leave. Here's
Speaker 2: my phone number. Just go hide it. Somewhere, call me
Speaker 2: and tell me where you hit the gun, and I
Speaker 2: owe you one.
Speaker 1: Do you think he lost his gun like he was
Speaker 1: in trouble maybe, like you know.
Speaker 2: He kept saying that it was a department issue gun.
Speaker 2: But I have seen department issue guns before, and it
Speaker 2: didn't have that extra serial number with DPD on it.
Speaker 2: And it wasn't a gun that a police officer will carry.
Speaker 2: It was like a huge chrome automatic web and it
Speaker 2: was no way that it was a department issue gun.
Speaker 2: But they really wanted it back. And the gun was
Speaker 2: not worth a thousand dollars, you know, it was brand new.
Speaker 2: It was probably a four hundred dollars gun. But they
Speaker 2: were willing to pay in pretty penny for this firearm back.
Speaker 2: And he said, go hide it somewhere and just tell
Speaker 2: me where it's at. So me being twenty years old
Speaker 2: at that time and my egos bruise, they essentially robbed
Speaker 2: me because they took things that I wasn't supposed to have,
Speaker 2: but they took them, and you know, they didn't charge
Speaker 2: me with it or anything. So one day I filed
Speaker 2: a complaint with internal Affairs and the person that was
Speaker 2: leading the raid was the head of narcotics, and they
Speaker 2: was like, why is a narcotic person trying to retrieve
Speaker 2: a gun that was never reported stolen? And it started
Speaker 2: a real big investigation.
Speaker 1: Do you think this kind of put you on their
Speaker 1: radar for when doomas?
Speaker 2: That absolutely did. They would just pick me up for
Speaker 2: no reason at all, Take me to jail, let me
Speaker 2: out sometimes, come get me the same day, take me
Speaker 2: back to jail, keep me in there for a couple
Speaker 2: of days, let me out. Every time they seen me,
Speaker 2: they was pulling me over. I got to the point
Speaker 2: to where I would just pull my car over, get out,
Speaker 2: and hit the alarm as I'm running, lock my doors
Speaker 2: as I'm running, just because I didn't feel like going
Speaker 2: to jail again for no reason, which led to me
Speaker 2: filing additional complaints. And eventually I filed a complaint and
Speaker 2: a police officer came to my house arresting me. The
Speaker 2: police PRECID is like five minutes away. They drove me
Speaker 2: around for like forty five minutes, you know, cussing and raving.
Speaker 2: The officer that was driving had his gun in his
Speaker 2: hand the whole time he was pulling up on people,
Speaker 2: pointing his gun at people. He actually shot somebody that night.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, after they took me to jail, he
Speaker 2: was just like unhinged. I thought they were gonna kill
Speaker 2: me that night. To be honest, I thought, you know,
Speaker 2: being a nobody black man from the streets of Detroit
Speaker 2: where you know, constitutional rights didn't exist at all back then,
Speaker 2: and you know, I just thought it was over. And
Speaker 2: then the pressure that they were placing on me at
Speaker 2: that time, I knew that something was coming. I just
Speaker 2: didn't know what it was.
Speaker 1: Which brings us to the victim in this case, Marvin's
Speaker 1: friend Jamon McIntyre, who lived at thirty nine to fifty
Speaker 1: one third Street in Detroit with a guy named Kenny Lockhart.
Speaker 1: But the house belonged to Jamon's powerful relatives. As we
Speaker 1: learned from Anthony Legion's attorney, Wolf Muller, I.
Speaker 3: Just know from all the police reports and what the
Speaker 3: police officers knew is this was a drug house maintained
Speaker 3: and kept by Jamon McIntyre, who was related either by
Speaker 3: blood or they call them plain nephews with the Johnson
Speaker 3: crime family that ran a lot of dope out of
Speaker 3: Detroit at that time in the early two thousands, late nineties.
Speaker 3: So this was a notorious drug house. In fact, one
Speaker 3: of the defendants in our lawsuit, Santonian Adams, was a
Speaker 3: nephew of the Johnsons, and he was a Detroit Police
Speaker 3: officer there at the time of the crime. He we
Speaker 3: found out later, was actually running security for the Johnson
Speaker 3: crime family as a Detroit Police officer.
Speaker 1: So shortly after midnight on January twenty fourth, two thousand
Speaker 1: and one, Santonian Adams was out in the driveway. Kenny
Speaker 1: Lockhart and his girlfriend Renee Tate were in an upstairs bedroom,
Speaker 1: and Jamon McIntyre was on the porch, allegedly with three
Speaker 1: other men.
Speaker 3: Three guys were hanging around on a porch, apparently a
Speaker 3: little bit after midnight, McIntyre's sister comes over and she's
Speaker 3: looking for some money. He gives her some money, she leaves.
Speaker 3: She doesn't recognize any of the three. Shortly after she leaves,
Speaker 3: Adams is in the driveway and all of a sudden,
Speaker 3: here shots being fired and McIntyre calls to him tone
Speaker 3: as he's running out of the house being chased by
Speaker 3: these guys, runs down an alley across the street and
Speaker 3: gets undown. Now at this time, Lockhart is in the
Speaker 3: bedroom with his girlfriend. He first told the officers he
Speaker 3: didn't see what happened. Here's the shooting, closes his door
Speaker 3: because he's trying to protect his girlfriend and waste till
Speaker 3: the shooting.
Speaker 1: Stops, as did his girlfriend, Renee Tate. Police collected about
Speaker 1: thirty shell casings, ten near the porch and another twenty
Speaker 1: in the alley. An officer Santonian Adams, not really explaining
Speaker 1: his presence there, said that he had gotten off a
Speaker 1: few shots as well.
Speaker 3: Santonian Adams claims that he couldn't find his official police
Speaker 3: gun in the van he was driving at the time.
Speaker 3: He says, I couldn't find my gun, but as I
Speaker 3: was ducking when I heard the shots, I saw a
Speaker 3: gun under the front passenger seat, so I grabbed that
Speaker 3: and I got off about four shots. Well, he never
Speaker 3: turned in his official law enforcement handgun to have it analyzed.
Speaker 3: When they did take a look at it, they found
Speaker 3: there were four bullets missing. His story never added up.
Speaker 3: Didn't pursue him.
Speaker 1: Instead, nearly a month later, they went back to Kenny Lockhart,
Speaker 1: who inexplicitly had a new story to tell involving three
Speaker 1: young men from the neighborhood. Marvin Cotton, Anthony Legion, and
Speaker 1: twenty nine year old Devonte Parks.
Speaker 3: Lockhart claims he hears the shooting, then he comes out
Speaker 3: says that the guys are in his house, and a
Speaker 3: guy he identifies as Cotton tells another guy shoot him,
Speaker 3: shoot Lockhart. Lockhart claims he finds a gun and takes
Speaker 3: a shot. Only the problem is there are no bullet
Speaker 3: holes in the house.
Speaker 1: And not only was this account contradicted by Renee Tate,
Speaker 1: but also of the three guns that the police found
Speaker 1: in the house, none of them could be linked to
Speaker 1: the shellcasings that were collected from the scene.
Speaker 3: Even one of the police officers who first interviewed Lockhart
Speaker 3: wrote in his notes, the guy is not telling the truth.
Speaker 3: I don't believe what word he says. And mind you,
Speaker 3: he first told the officers he didn't see what it
Speaker 3: has and second he knew Cotton, so if Cotton had
Speaker 3: been there, he would have identified Cotton.
Speaker 1: Nevertheless, all three young men were arrested separately, and with
Speaker 1: all the harassment that preceded this arrest, Marvin thought this
Speaker 1: was just more of the same.
Speaker 2: You know, I had got kind of used to it
Speaker 2: at this point. I did not know why they were
Speaker 2: picking me up and they took me downtown. They put
Speaker 2: me in a bathroom size interrogation room, you know, bright lights.
Speaker 2: They left me in there for about thirteen hours. No
Speaker 2: one came to check on me. Couldn't use the bathroom.
Speaker 2: About thirteen fourteen hours later and they took me into
Speaker 2: an office. There was three detectives in that office. One
Speaker 2: of the detectives told the other detectives, you know, he
Speaker 2: really fed up some good officers' lives. Here I go
Speaker 2: in this interrogation role, twenty one years old, not knowing
Speaker 2: why I'm down here. It was Sergeant Walter Bates, Sergeant
Speaker 2: Ernest Wilson, and Inspector Donald Hughes. It was a lot
Speaker 2: of threats saying they were going to do this and
Speaker 2: do that to me, some acts of violence. And I
Speaker 2: told them that I didn't have anything that I wanted
Speaker 2: to talk about. I told him a lawyer that shut
Speaker 2: it down. And just so you know, Walter Bates went
Speaker 2: to prison for Robin thirteen banks. Ernest Wilson high speed
Speaker 2: chased from a different police department, drunk for a second
Speaker 2: DUI and had an illegal gun on him. And then
Speaker 2: I have a recording of Donald Hughes talking about how
Speaker 2: they set me up.
Speaker 1: Before their misconduct was revealed, Marvin, Anthony and Davante had
Speaker 1: to find ways to impeach the identification that these menduced
Speaker 1: via Kenny Lockhart, while also trying to corroborate their alibis
Speaker 1: from pre trial detention.
Speaker 2: Like I said, I grew up not knowing how to
Speaker 2: read and write. And it's interesting because my wrongful conviction
Speaker 2: is the very thing that corrected that. I had a
Speaker 2: lot of motivation because when they gave me that big
Speaker 2: old stack of discovery papers, it was about forty five
Speaker 2: pages and I couldn't read it.
Speaker 3: Kenny Lockhart said that he was absolutely one hundred percent
Speaker 3: certain of the three guys who were charged, Legion, Cotton,
Speaker 3: and DeVante Parks on Parks had in airtight alibi. Well,
Speaker 3: then there goes Lockhart's whole identification.
Speaker 1: It appears the state had verified Parks's alibi, which directly
Speaker 1: undermined Lockhart's identification, but instead of dropping all charges, they
Speaker 1: found a jailhouse informant named Ellis Frasier to hold the
Speaker 1: case together. Meanwhile, Marvin had taught himself how to read
Speaker 1: and write, just in time to find out out how
Speaker 1: Detroit Police operates.
Speaker 2: Four days before Trout, my attorney came to visit me
Speaker 2: in the county jail and he slid a statement to me.
Speaker 2: So I'm looking over this statement and my blood pressure
Speaker 2: is just going through the roof as I'm trying to
Speaker 2: read it. And my attorney he says, listen, this guy
Speaker 2: is saying that you can confessed him, and I'm like,
Speaker 2: this didn't happen.
Speaker 3: It is the Detroit Police Department, and particularly the homicide
Speaker 3: section in the late nineteen eighties through the nineteen nineties
Speaker 3: and even into extending the early two thousands, if they
Speaker 3: had a weak case, they would recruit some snitch, typically
Speaker 3: from what would be the ninth floor jail, where you're
Speaker 3: only supposed to be held there for about forty eight
Speaker 3: hours before you get transferred to the county jail. But
Speaker 3: some of these guys on a ninth floor were in
Speaker 3: the ninth floor lockup for a year or more and
Speaker 3: they had sheets over their cells, they had VCRs, they
Speaker 3: had TVs, they had food, they had drink, they had
Speaker 3: everything because they were regular snitches for the DPD. And
Speaker 3: three of them have said under oath is, we would
Speaker 3: get discovery packages from the detectives told to memorize it.
Speaker 3: A handwritten statement from the homicide detective saying, how this
Speaker 3: guy confessed and all you had to do was sign it.
Speaker 2: I don't even consider Ellis Fraser or jail house informists
Speaker 2: a snitches, because a snitch tells something they know, But
Speaker 2: when detectives give you the information for you to testify to,
Speaker 2: that's just something completely different.
Speaker 1: But in the time before this informant system was exposed,
Speaker 1: it seems that the pattern weaved this case together as well.
Speaker 1: Ellis Fraser said that Marvin confessed to him an implicated
Speaker 1: legion and importantly not Parks. But there are some problems
Speaker 1: with this statement.
Speaker 2: He says this happened in the county jail, which has
Speaker 2: huge bullopeans. As you're going to court, they're putting people
Speaker 2: in different bullpens depending on what judge they're going to see.
Speaker 2: In his state, he said that Anthony Legion, myself, and
Speaker 2: my third cod defended were all on the docket to
Speaker 2: go see the trial judge. I went and see my
Speaker 2: probation judge on this day that this jail house informant
Speaker 2: says that I was in a different bullpen, So.
Speaker 1: Wrong, Judge He also said that Marvin had changed into
Speaker 1: street clothes, but that doesn't happen when seeing the probation judge.
Speaker 1: And then the statement placed them all in the trial
Speaker 1: judge bullpen together.
Speaker 2: Anthony never came down that day, even though on the
Speaker 2: computer it says that he had court that day, but
Speaker 2: we got documents showing that they never signed him to
Speaker 2: come down to court. My other co defendant had to
Speaker 2: go see a different judge in a completely different county,
Speaker 2: so he wasn't even in the bull pen. And then
Speaker 2: I went and seeing a different judge because I was
Speaker 2: seeing my probation judge. So none of us was in
Speaker 2: the bullpen with Ellis Fraser Junior. Although they thought that
Speaker 2: they had set it up like that, did.
Speaker 1: This get brought up at trial? Did your defense attorney
Speaker 1: bring this up?
Speaker 2: Well? When he went and showed the judge and the
Speaker 2: prosecutor they had a sidebar to then that's when they
Speaker 2: changed the story and Illustrazer was like, no, nobody was
Speaker 2: in the bullpayn with me. I talked to him through
Speaker 2: a wall and he told me his first and last name,
Speaker 2: victims first and last name, the street where this happened.
Speaker 2: Witnesses first and last name, all of these details that
Speaker 2: you can get out of policy ports and preliminary transcripts,
Speaker 2: and it was like literally a perfectly written statement that
Speaker 2: no one would ever say, and no one would ever
Speaker 2: share this information through a wall in a bullpen with
Speaker 2: forty to fifty people in his bullpen, forty to fifty
Speaker 2: people in my bullpen. People don't even use their real
Speaker 2: names in jail.
Speaker 1: Fraser also testified that he was receiving nothing in return
Speaker 1: for his testimony, even though he was released soon after.
Speaker 1: And the surprises didn't stop there. Without explanation, DeVante Parks
Speaker 1: was severed from Marvin and Anthony's trial all of a.
Speaker 3: Sudden, Parks severed from the case. Why it turns out,
Speaker 3: right before trial they verified Park had an airtight alibi,
Speaker 3: and so they dismissed charges against Parks, but only after
Speaker 3: the Cotton legion trial.
Speaker 1: Which gave the appearance that Parks was still being charged.
Speaker 1: While this information could not be used to impeach Lockhart,
Speaker 1: who had said that he was one hundred percent certain
Speaker 1: when he identified Parks, but at trial, Lockhart only had
Speaker 1: to identify the two defendants in front of him.
Speaker 3: The state's evidence simply came to Lockhart and being backed
Speaker 3: up by a snitch witness, which then would give credibility
Speaker 3: to Lockhart, right, because they're saying the same thing. And
Speaker 3: they never got to hear about the Duponte Parks misidentification.
Speaker 3: As much as the defense tried to punch holes in Lockhart,
Speaker 3: Lockhart could say, I knew Cotton, so I knew who
Speaker 3: it was. And then this other guy legion, I saw
Speaker 3: him too.
Speaker 2: We called two witnesses, a detective that Kenneth Lockhart had
Speaker 2: told several different variant stories too. And we called another
Speaker 2: witness that was the girlfriend of Lockhart, and she had
Speaker 2: told a story in her statement that conflicted with Lockhart.
Speaker 1: Right, because she was in the house with him, right,
Speaker 1: they allegedly had heard the gunshot.
Speaker 2: Yes, So we wanted to call her to show that
Speaker 2: this guy is lying, he's not telling the truth. But
Speaker 2: when she came in court, she was crying, shaking, She
Speaker 2: kept looking at Anthony and I and you know, we've
Speaker 2: never seen this woman before in our life. But the
Speaker 2: jury don't know why she's crying looking at us in
Speaker 2: this way.
Speaker 1: So without context or how Lockhart came to name these men,
Speaker 1: or how Parks's charges were just about to be dismissed,
Speaker 1: or how Frasier was definitely receiving a deal for testifying.
Speaker 1: On October nineteenth, two thousand and one, the jury Anthony
Speaker 1: and Marvin a first degree murder and illegal use of
Speaker 1: a firearm, sending them away for life without the possibility
Speaker 1: of parole, and in the process, another generation of the
Speaker 1: Cotton family was in jeopardy.
Speaker 2: Once I was wrongfully convicted. I knew that my daughter
Speaker 2: was in danger fathers in prison, a young black female
Speaker 2: in the city of Detroit. I did not want her
Speaker 2: to be a statistic so I knew that I needed
Speaker 2: to draw as many lines and connections and communication with
Speaker 2: her as possible. So even before she learned how to read,
Speaker 2: I was writing her letters. I wanted her to have
Speaker 2: a drawer full of letters that she can always see,
Speaker 2: and I would put lessons in it. I would talk
Speaker 2: to her about protecting her space and just communicating and
Speaker 2: being kind to people. I would just put lessons in
Speaker 2: every letter. I will send her cards, I will send
Speaker 2: her Teddy Bears money. I would call her all the time.
Speaker 2: So I just drew as many lines to build the
Speaker 2: relationship as possible. Because I knew that our relationship may
Speaker 2: give her a little bit of what she need not
Speaker 2: to fall and be a statistic in any way.
Speaker 1: You know, the relationship you had with your mother and
Speaker 1: your father and these different men in your life, did
Speaker 1: that affect or inform the way you parented with your daughter.
Speaker 2: Absolutely. I didn't have a perfect guide on what to be,
Speaker 2: but I knew what I did not want to be.
Speaker 2: You know, our biological father. You know, we've been building
Speaker 2: relationships since I've been out. I go see him a
Speaker 2: few times a year. But what I got from him
Speaker 2: that he wasn't trying to give me. But what I
Speaker 2: got from him is my discipline when it comes to
Speaker 2: alcohol and drugs because of what I witnessed and what
Speaker 2: I seen, and you know, all of the broken promises
Speaker 2: growing up, all of that stayed with me, and I'm
Speaker 2: able to practice opposite in a positive way. You know,
Speaker 2: he was never present, so I make sure that I'm
Speaker 2: very present. You know, drugs was his priority. And you
Speaker 2: know drug addicts are not interested in asking you how
Speaker 2: are you doing? They actually you know you have anything
Speaker 2: for me? Can I borrow some money? So his communication
Speaker 2: is not the best, So I make sure my communication
Speaker 2: with my daughter is solid.
Speaker 1: That it's not about needing or wanting.
Speaker 2: It's absolutely yeah, wow, it's all about me getting in
Speaker 2: their business. Like in prison, I understood that these detectives
Speaker 2: that was doing the wrong things. I recognized that they
Speaker 2: were smart because they were able to hide things from
Speaker 2: me in my face. So I knew that the battle
Speaker 2: was a mental battle. I have to become smarter because
Speaker 2: they're not planned. So my initial motivation was to turn
Speaker 2: myself into a weapon so that I could fight back
Speaker 2: against the system that had rolled over my life. I
Speaker 2: read a lot of books, I studied a lot. I
Speaker 2: did a lot of work on myself. So I turned
Speaker 2: my prison sale into a university. But when you can
Speaker 2: think in prison, everybody starts coming to you for askers.
Speaker 2: They want you to save them. So now I'm a mentor.
Speaker 2: Now I'm a leader, And then I started to feel
Speaker 2: a duty to help more than just myself.
Speaker 1: So Marvin went from a young father who couldn't read
Speaker 1: into a man who understands the law, parenting, and leadership
Speaker 1: as only doctor Marvin Cotton Junior can, all while fighting
Speaker 1: for his freedom, which began in the denial of his
Speaker 1: initial appeals and federal habeas So by twenty ten, Marvin
Speaker 1: needed to find new evidence.
Speaker 2: I hired a private investigator and he went and talked
Speaker 2: to Elis Fraser. Elis Fraser did not know who he was,
Speaker 2: who was working for, and he just revealed everything.
Speaker 1: Fraser said how he initially told Detective Hughes that he
Speaker 1: never saw anyone, but had overheard two men talking. One
Speaker 1: said I wasn't even there man.
Speaker 3: Elie Fraser says in an affidavit that the officer in charge, Hughes,
Speaker 3: walks him into court and has to explain to him
Speaker 3: who these guys are, so he makes sure that he
Speaker 3: picks them out and identifies cotton as cotton and doesn't
Speaker 3: confuse the guys.
Speaker 1: Fraser also claims that he was promised early release by
Speaker 1: both the detective and prosecutor and was reminded not to
Speaker 1: mention that deal at trial. Then the investigator visited Detective Hughes.
Speaker 3: Private investigator who used to be with the Detroit PD,
Speaker 3: makes a secret recording with Donald Hughes, the officer in charge,
Speaker 3: and Hughes tells him, Yeah, Lockart hadn't seen anything. This
Speaker 3: drug dealer told me, and then I told Lockhart. So
Speaker 3: Lockhart's story then lined up with whoever was the suspect
Speaker 3: that the drug dealer had identified, and that became Cotton
Speaker 3: and Legion and Parks.
Speaker 1: The investigator also visited Lockhart's girlfriend, Renee Tate, about why
Speaker 1: she backed up Lockhart's story at trial, and her answer
Speaker 1: might identify who this drug dealer was.
Speaker 2: She said she was receiving pressure from detectives as well
Speaker 2: as the victim family, one of which was the head
Speaker 2: of this criminal organization that was pressuring her to come
Speaker 2: in and say a particular thing.
Speaker 3: Lockhart's girlfriend said that Lockhart never saw anybody, because neither
Speaker 3: of them saw anybody. But she won't sign an affidavit
Speaker 3: and has basically said, if you subpoena me to testify,
Speaker 3: I'm just gonna lie and I say I never said
Speaker 3: that because she's terrified of the Johnson crime family. Word
Speaker 3: on the curb was that Johnson was the one orchestrating
Speaker 3: all of this. Johnson wanted McIntyre out of there. Santonian Adams,
Speaker 3: the Detroit please officer there at the time of the crime,
Speaker 3: who was a nephew of the Johnsons, set McIntyre up,
Speaker 3: and maybe Lockhart set McIntyre up too, because think about it,
Speaker 3: if he had been in the house, he'd have been killed.
Speaker 2: Two.
Speaker 3: If this was just a robbery for drugs, they would
Speaker 3: have killed everybody. And so because Cotton and McIntyre are
Speaker 3: buddies and doing stuff together, have the cops go get Cotton.
Speaker 1: And that word on the street was corroborated for the
Speaker 1: detectives in this case. Before trial, a.
Speaker 3: Guy named Kurt Nerd was living with Lockhart just a
Speaker 3: couple weeks later, and Lockhart told him Johnson offered him
Speaker 3: ten thousand dollars depended on Cotton and Legion, and so
Speaker 3: he ended up telling Kurt Neard, I never saw those guys,
Speaker 3: but ten thousand dollars a lot of money. Nard went
Speaker 3: to a Detroit Police homicide detective, Walter Bates, and told
Speaker 3: him exactly what happened. Even gave Bates the handwritten napkins
Speaker 3: that he took notes on after Lockhart told them this.
Speaker 3: Bates never turned that evidence over.
Speaker 1: Surprisingly, this Brady material and new evidence didn't make much
Speaker 1: difference on appeal.
Speaker 3: The court system is much more focused on procedure than
Speaker 3: whether you're innocent or what do you get screwed at trial?
Speaker 3: So they submitted their case to the Wayne County Conviction
Speaker 3: Integrity Unit, and the CiU took a fresh look at
Speaker 3: the case, and then they were able to understand, especially
Speaker 3: with this tape that the PI had with Donald Hughes
Speaker 3: where Hughes admitted that Lockhart hadn't seen anything. Now you
Speaker 3: start getting into a whole lot of police misconduct and
Speaker 3: their right to affair trial. They were robbed a due process,
Speaker 3: and the CiU came to that conclusion that they couldn't
Speaker 3: say one hundred percent that these guys were.
Speaker 1: Innocent, couldn't or wouldn't.
Speaker 3: What they did was they said there was so much
Speaker 3: police misconduct they were entitled to a new trial. And
Speaker 3: then a Wayne County prosecutor's office realized the flaws with
Speaker 3: the case and dismissed the charges. But I think the
Speaker 3: new evidence that really rocked this case, other than what
Speaker 3: we've talked about, is that the prosecutor's office was very
Speaker 3: likely involved in this miscarriage of justice with not allowing
Speaker 3: Parks to take the stand because they didn't dismiss the
Speaker 3: charges until after this conviction.
Speaker 1: So that was October one, twenty twenty, when Marvin was
Speaker 1: finally able to be an even more present father.
Speaker 2: Now we talked all the time, We text all the time.
Speaker 2: My daughter is not a statistic She's twenty seven years old,
Speaker 2: she don't have any children. She's a business owner, she works,
Speaker 2: she's college educated, graduated college early. I got out the
Speaker 2: day before her surprise college graduation celebration. Wow, I was
Speaker 2: able to make that.
Speaker 1: And so you surprised her.
Speaker 2: Oh she came and picked me up from prison for mom.
Speaker 2: So she.
Speaker 1: Oh, I love that. When Marvin got out, he continued
Speaker 1: being the leader that he became inside. He and a
Speaker 1: few other men founded the Organization of Exouneries.
Speaker 2: The Organization of Exneries is a group of exouneries here
Speaker 2: in Michigan. You know, we started coming together as a
Speaker 2: support group. Valerie Noman, the director of the Conviction Integrity Unit,
Speaker 2: started bringing all the exuneries together. I think she really
Speaker 2: just wanted to just look in our eyes every month
Speaker 2: and make sure we was good, and to start opening
Speaker 2: up resources and finding out what we needed. And you know,
Speaker 2: just the way things landed. We got a great group
Speaker 2: of guys that can think and that was motivated and
Speaker 2: wanted to get involved in activism and advocacy, and we
Speaker 2: founded the Organization of Exouneries. Because there's so many gaps
Speaker 2: when it comes to someone being exonerated. You know, when
Speaker 2: people get out on parole, they do have some access
Speaker 2: to resources. But when you're exonerated, everybody washes their hands
Speaker 2: and like they go hire lawyers to fight you. But
Speaker 2: they're not concerned about your vitem documents. They're not concerned
Speaker 2: about your housing, they're not concerned about therapy, they're not
Speaker 2: concerned about any of these things. Yet we're suffering. We
Speaker 2: noticed that a lot of our guys were getting out
Speaker 2: and were struggling, taking us several months to get IDs.
Speaker 2: Couldn't even cash checks that people have for us because
Speaker 2: we couldn't set up a bank account without an ID.
Speaker 2: So we went to work creating those resources. So in
Speaker 2: our organization here in Michigan, when you get out, we
Speaker 2: have a straight line to almost everything you need. We're
Speaker 2: gonna put some money in your hands out of our
Speaker 2: Walking Free Fund. I'm usually want to take them shopping
Speaker 2: clothes and cosmetics.
Speaker 1: Where are you getting this money from?
Speaker 2: Well, we raise money. We are nonprofit with the five
Speaker 2: and one C three. We have gallas every year. I'll
Speaker 2: make sure you get to invite before October. We always
Speaker 2: do it in October. But we raised money We've made
Speaker 2: a lot of friends that really wants to see us successful.
Speaker 2: And we also apply for grants to make sure that
Speaker 2: we can so for our people to where we can
Speaker 2: do reparow services for exigneries here in Michigan. As you know,
Speaker 2: we travel around the country doing advocacy though it helps
Speaker 2: some people out in other states.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you guys are really such an amazing support group.
Speaker 1: So you Ken Nixon, Eric Anderson really cultivated this amazing
Speaker 1: group of exguneries that you travel. I mean recently, a
Speaker 1: good friend of mine being from New York, Andre Brown,
Speaker 1: his conviction was vacated, but the prosecution was fighting that
Speaker 1: and trying to send him back to prison, and that
Speaker 1: looked like it was something that was going to happen
Speaker 1: after he had been out for a few years at
Speaker 1: this point with his family and his son, and you
Speaker 1: guys flew from Detroit to the Bronx to support Andre.
Speaker 1: You do things like that, and you know, coming up
Speaker 1: in Detroit, drell Ewing is having the same situation happened
Speaker 1: to him right now. Are you guys going to be
Speaker 1: there to support Durell?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Well, in Michigan, as you know, it's a lot
Speaker 2: more progressive here. We have a lot of allies that
Speaker 2: work within the criminal justice system as well as allies
Speaker 2: that's outside the criminal justice system. You know, there's more
Speaker 2: of a willingness than it is just to oppose. Do
Speaker 2: opposition happen? Absolutely, dreil Ewing very brilliant guy, growing into
Speaker 2: a great organizer as well, and he's organizing an event
Speaker 2: around his case. Definitely support Derail Union.
Speaker 1: We will link to info about Derell's mobilization event, his Instagram,
Speaker 1: and our coverage of his case in the episode description.
Speaker 1: Please scroll down and get involved. We cannot let this
Speaker 1: clearly innocent man be dragged back to prison for the
Speaker 1: sake of a finality and conviction. We so hope those
Speaker 1: in power are called to do the right thing. And
Speaker 1: we're also going to link to Marvin's books as well
Speaker 1: of some of his other work.
Speaker 2: The entire time that I was in prison, I was
Speaker 2: planning the day that I walked out of prison, even
Speaker 2: though it felt differently different than the way I plan
Speaker 2: but all of my structural plans with setting up my life,
Speaker 2: starting a business, being a motivational speaker, being an author
Speaker 2: of not one but two books, I knew everything that
Speaker 2: I would do and I knew how I.
Speaker 1: Would do it, Doctor Cotton, Where did the doctor come from?
Speaker 2: I have an honorary doctorate in humanities from a university
Speaker 2: that wastow to honor on me. Because of the work
Speaker 2: that I do and the people that I help, I'm
Speaker 2: considered to be an expert in humanitarian work. Some of
Speaker 2: the things we talked about today. I service not only
Speaker 2: people that were wrongfully convicted, but also people that were
Speaker 2: directly impacted by the criminal justice system and deserve a
Speaker 2: second chance. And I try to make sure that they
Speaker 2: second chance is something that society can benefit from.
Speaker 1: I have in my notes that you have helped get
Speaker 1: twenty nine people out of prison. Is that an accurate number?
Speaker 2: Yes, both both innocent and those that deserve a second
Speaker 2: I do commutation packages, parole packages. I walk them through
Speaker 2: the entire process. I have other experts that I partner with,
Speaker 2: but support letters, but resources. We outline what their life
Speaker 2: is going to look like if they have the privilege
Speaker 2: of being released early. Now, if somebody refuse to see
Speaker 2: that people are redeemable, that's more of a them issue
Speaker 2: and it has nothing to do with the person. I
Speaker 2: mean people all the time that refuse to forgive. Imagine
Speaker 2: me refusing to forgive my biological father. And there's people
Speaker 2: in my family that's upset that I deal with them
Speaker 2: that were directly impacted by him. But he's clean, he's
Speaker 2: off drugs, he doesn't drink, he goes to church, he
Speaker 2: goes to therapy for the first time in his life.
Speaker 2: He's good for him. Who am I to have a
Speaker 2: forever judgment when God is still working and bringing beautiful
Speaker 2: things out of his life. Now, I'm just not willing
Speaker 2: to put a period on someone before God put a
Speaker 2: period on them.
Speaker 1: Doctor Marvincotton Jr. Thank you so much for speaking with
Speaker 1: me and sharing your story. Is there anything else that
Speaker 1: we missed? You want to say to the listeners.
Speaker 2: If you have a loved one that you believe has
Speaker 2: been wrongfully convicted and you're really trying to help and
Speaker 2: serve them and you just don't know how. Now, I
Speaker 2: can't tell you what to do, and I'm not even
Speaker 2: giving you advice. I'm not a lawyer. Let me say
Speaker 2: that I'm not an attorney, but just know that there's
Speaker 2: things you can do that will help you in the
Speaker 2: battle with this beast number one. This is my personal policy.
Speaker 2: I like to refrain from attacks. So I know it
Speaker 2: feels good and it feels natural to attack the police officers,
Speaker 2: to attack the prosecutor, attack the judge. But just remember
Speaker 2: you dealing with human beings and nobody likes to be attacked.
Speaker 2: You can get more things out of a human being
Speaker 2: by treatment. With their respect doesn't mean you can't hold
Speaker 2: people accountable. We love our children, we hold them accountable.
Speaker 2: We don't abuse our children. But you can hold people
Speaker 2: accountable without being abusive. Build relationships. Go to coffee hours.
Speaker 2: Go see what politicians are talking about. Go see what
Speaker 2: the person is running for, prosecutors talking about. Go sit
Speaker 2: in an audience, stand up, ask questions, Ask them about
Speaker 2: wrongful convictions, Ask them about cases that they've worked on.
Speaker 2: That's number one. Number two, start from the beginning. Learn
Speaker 2: about freedom information acts requests. Send it to the prosecutor
Speaker 2: office so that you can get files. Because oftentimes we're
Speaker 2: wrongful convictions. You have information that's hitting in files that
Speaker 2: was never turned over. It can be a single sheet
Speaker 2: of paper that can lead to freeing your loved one
Speaker 2: from a wrongful conviction. So start from the beginning. Of course,
Speaker 2: it's always good to support financially if you can afford
Speaker 2: a private investigator, I would say a private investigator even
Speaker 2: over an attorney, especially if you're trying to get the
Speaker 2: wheels to start turning, look at private investigators that worked
Speaker 2: on innocent cases before. If you're trying to figure out
Speaker 2: what attorney to get, look at attorneys that work on
Speaker 2: innocent cases. It is a difference between a good attorney
Speaker 2: and an attorney that works on innocent cases. They come
Speaker 2: from a certain pedigree. They have the energy, they have
Speaker 2: the passion. They love to spend all this energy on
Speaker 2: a single case because that's what it's take in order
Speaker 2: to free somebody that's been wrongfully convicted. So if you
Speaker 2: really want to help your love one out, send them letters,
Speaker 2: be supportive. The institution needs to know that they have
Speaker 2: somebody that loved them. Send cards, send letters, send messages,
Speaker 2: let them call every now and then if you can
Speaker 2: afford it. But on the legal front, there's little things
Speaker 2: that you can do to be helpful and to just
Speaker 2: get that ball to roll.
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to Conviction with Maggie Freeling. I'd
Speaker 1: like to thank our production team Connor Hall and Kathleen Fink,
Speaker 1: as well as executive producers Jason Flam, Jeff Kempler, Kevin Wortis,
Speaker 1: and Jeff Clyburn. The music in this production was supplied
Speaker 1: by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure
Speaker 1: to follow us across all social media platforms at Lava
Speaker 1: for Good and at Wrongful Conviction. You can also follow
Speaker 1: me on all platforms at Maggie Freeling. Wrongful Conviction with
Speaker 1: Maggie Freeling is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts
Speaker 1: in association with Signal Company Number One.
Speaker 3: We have worked hard to ensure that all facts reported
Speaker 3: in this show are accurate.
Speaker 2: The views and opinions expressed by the individuals featured in
Speaker 2: this show are their own and do not necessarily reflect
Speaker 2: those of Lava for Good