I am writing today to announce the closure of the Michigan Messenger. After four years of operation in Michigan, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news into a single site, The American Independent at Americanindependent.com. This is part of a shift in strategy, towards new forms [...]
An abstinence-only presentation provided to numerous school districts in Calhoun and Eaton Counties in October of this year provided false and misleading information to students about HIV, experts allege.
Two county registers of deeds filed a class action lawsuit Monday on behalf of Michigan’s 83 counties alleging that the Mortgage Electronic Registration Services owes millions of dollars in property title transfer taxes.
Despite evidence of the impact of mercury on children and public health, Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette last month joined with 24 other state attorneys general in filing a lawsuit to scuttle new EPA regulations that would reduce mercury emissions from power plants.
The University of Michigan’s Innocence Clinic says it has identified another innocent man who was convicted of killing someone and spent years in prison.
The Detroit Free Press reports that students and professors with the clinic have a strong case for the innocence of Mark Craighead, who spent seven years in prison after a manslaughter conviction for killing his own best friend.
Mark Craighead said he was unprepared for the way Detroit homicide detectives handled him when they questioned him about his friend Chole Pruett’s slaying.
He said they told him they had a witness who saw him kill Pruett, and that he’d never see his wife and children again unless he confessed to killing Pruett in self-defense.
Craighead, 51, said he was so distraught and sleep deprived that he signed a false confession prosecutors used to convict him of manslaughter and lock him up for seven years.
“I trusted police officers,” said Craighead, who had never been in trouble before and coached football for the Police Athletic League. “I never thought they’d mess me around like that.”
Contrary to public perception, a confession is not necessarily proof of guilt. Nationwide, more than 250 people convicted of rape and murder have been freed by DNA evidence that proved their innocence; in a full 25 percent of those cases, the innocent person had confessed.
False confessions happen in many different ways. Suspects are often subjected to interrogation sessions that last for days on end, leaving them physically and emotionally exhausted. Police often lie to suspects and tell them that they have evidence — fingerprints, eyewitnesses, an admission from another suspect — against them that they don’t actually have. “We have all this evidence against you,” they will tell a suspect, “so you’re better off just confessing and pleading guilty so you’ll get a lesser sentence.”
Add in the fact that most suspects in that situation are represented by a public defender with few resources and little time to put on an actual defense and it’s not so difficult to understand why so many innocent people will sign a false confession.
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