The United States Supreme Court will not hear Bobby Ferguson’s appeal of his corruption conviction.
Legal experts say this means Ferguson’s direct appeals are over, but he still has a few options to try to overturn his conviction from the historic city hall corruption case.
A jury found th former city contractor, and his friend, former Detroit mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, guilty on several counts of racketeering, extortion, bribery and other charges back in March 2013. Kilpatrick is serving a 28 year sentence in federal prison and Ferguson is serving 21 years.
Today the Supreme Court denied Ferguson’s writ of certiorati, which means any direct legal issues that he was raising from his case in federal district court will not be reviewed by the higher court.
Wayne State University Law Professor and former federal prosecutor Peter Henning says Ferguson can still make some arguments, such as ineffective assistance of counsel, but the burden is on the prisoner to come up with a reason for the high court to look at his conviction. Henning says those appeals are rarely granted.
Kilpatrick’s attorney also plan to appeal his case to the highest court. The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals denied the former mayor’s appeal.
