(WXYZ) — Wayne County officials are confronting system failings that led to wrongful convictions, and a new report is outlining how a variety of stakeholders are playing a role, and offering new solutions in the name of improving our justice system.
Watch Simon Shaykhet's video report:
At a press conference on Monday, I spoke to the man who was wrongfully convicted, and whose case is the blueprint for change.
Eric Anderson was wrongfully convicted for armed robbery in 2010, and served nine years before his release.
“What happened to me shouldn’t happen to anybody," he told me. "I was a victim and got victimized by the criminal justice system."
Anderson sat down with me after a press conference led by Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy, Detroit police, Third Circuit Court staff, the Cooley Innocence Project and others.
They came to share findings outlined in a new report from the Quattrone Center for Fair Administration of Justice at the University of Pennsylvania's Carey Law School.
You can read the entire report below
Wayne County Sentinel Event Review Report for Eric Anderson by WXYZ-TV Channel 7 Detroit
“Just about every actor within the criminal justice system has improvements to make. From the defense to the judge. From my office to DPD," Worthy said.
“This was the people doing the work, saying every single recommendation in this report we can implement," Valerie Newman, the director of the Conviction Integrity Unit (CIU), added.
“The last thing we want to occur is to not get it right and have an innocent person spend any amount of time in jail," Detroit Police Chief Todd Bettison added.
In Anderson's case for relief, worked on by the Wayne County CIU, a sworn confession by an actual perpetrator proved vital to his being freed.
Anderson is one of 43 people granted relief since 2017 in Wayne County. The report found key systemic issues, such as unreliable witnesses, miscommunication, rushed and incomplete pretrial steps, appearance of judicial influence and more.
Worthy asked for this review of her own office, which she says handles 18,000 cases a year, and more than 60% of all criminal cases in Michigan.
“One of the recommendations is layers of supervision for eye witness testimony. That’s something that we have," Worthy said.
“This to me is unprecedented. In Michigan, to have all the varied stakeholders come together, to actually try to do good, "Wolf Mueller, Anderson's attorney, said.
He praised the effort, along with 25 recommendations that include more accuracy in arrests with single source identification, improving case management, better exploring alibi evidence, improving investigator communication, securing adequate funding and investing in training and more counsel oversight.
In Anderson's case, it was revealed he was actually a victim who was shot, not the person behind an armed robbery.
Worthy says you can expect to see more cases being analyzed through similar studies in the near future.
