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A panel of arbitrators awarded wrongfully convicted Mubarez Ahmed $10 million last year. (Photo: Michigan Department of Corrections)
An attorney suing Detroit on behalf of prisoners wrongfully convicted due missteps by its police department is accusing the city of challenging their exonerations to save money on civil suits.
WXYZ reports 34 men have been set free by the Conviction Integrity Unit (CIU) of the Wayne County Prosecutor's Office, with one going on to be awarded a $10-million city settlement in 2021 after he was imprisoned over 17 years for a double murder he did not commit. Most of the exonerees cases were in Detroit.
Wolf Mueller, the attorney representing the man wrongly convicted of murder, tells the TV station that "interactions between attorneys for the city and the CIU have gotten downright dirty with the city challenging findings by the CIU."
"Instead of trying to figure out, okay, exactly what did you do to get to the conclusion, they make it so personal. It is absolutely unprofessional and venomous," Mueller said.
Deputy Corporation Counsel for the City of Detroit Charles Raimi spoke about the millions of dollars in payouts when he addressed the Board of Police Commissioners in late March.
"The bad news is that we are having these, I call them reverse conviction cases, some people call them wrongful incarcerations. I call them reverse convictions because it's not always at all clear that there was a wrongful incarceration," said Raimi. "What is clear is that somebody at the prosecutor's office has decided to reverse the conviction which is, and I'm speaking in public so I just want to be a little careful, but we have significant concerns about some of the decisions."
Mueller called Raimi's use of the term reverse conviction a "marketing ploy" designed to get commissioners and the public to think they weren't wrongful convictions.
"Would Kym Worthy the prosecutor, who is a hard-charging prosecutor put her reputation at risk to let murderers out? That is absolutely not going to happen," Mueller said. "They turn over every rock."
Raimi has said the city settlements do not speak to the validity of the CIU's decisions; they're awarded to avoid bringing the cases before a jury that could find more in damages.
One exonerated man, Darrell Siggers, called out what he saw as double-speak by the city, noting that council has issued apologies and awards to the wrongly convicted, while at the same time "paying these lawyers to defend, vigorously, against our lawsuits and they're pulling out every stop."
The prosecutor's office and city officials declined on-camera interviews, but the City of Detroit's top attorney Conrad Mallet said, by phone, "We have great faith and respect for the prosecutor's office and for the Conviction Integrity Unit. We also have a responsibility to the taxpayers in the city of Detroit to examine each one of these cases, carefully, to be sure that we agree with the conclusion that's been reached absolutely.
