Case ends against man wrongly convicted of killing 5 children

PONTIAC, Michigan – Murder charges were dismissed Thursday against a man who spent 15 years in prison for the deaths of five children in suburban Detroit, the culmination of an investigation that revealed police misconduct and prosecutors.

Juwan Deering will not face a second trial, said Oakland County Prosecutor Karen McDonald. A judge granted his request to close the case a week after Deering’s convictions were dismissed at his request.

Dressed in a three-piece suit, Deering, 50, entered court chained at the waist but left as a free man without any restraint.

“It has been an uphill battle. … The sun couldn’t shine on a brighter day, ”Deering said moments later as members of his family clung to him on a cloudless morning and other local men. Detroit exonerated from crimes stood nearby.

Deering praised the new prosecutor for his “exceptional” work.

“I told him it takes a lot of strength to oppose the status quo,” he said.

McDonald, who was elected in 2020, took a fresh look at Deering’s case at the request of the Innocence Clinic at the University of Michigan Law School.

Favorable evidence, including statements from a fire survivor, was not shared with his defense attorney ahead of the 2006 trial, and jurors were unaware that prison informants had benefited from ‘significant benefits to their testimony against Deering, McDonald said.

Deering insisted he was innocent of a fire that killed children in his neighborhood in Royal Oak Township in 2000. No one could identify him as being in the house. Authorities at the time said the fire was a revenge for unpaid drug debts.

The prosecutor said a dozen law enforcement professionals last week unanimously determined there was not enough evidence to link Deering to the fire. The investigation between 2000 and 2006 was “totally compromised by misconduct,” McDonald said.

“There is only one ethical and constitutional remedy,” she said, dropping the case.

Law students had previously tried to secure a new trial for Deering, arguing that the analysis of the fire was based on “junk science.” These requests were unsuccessful in Michigan appeals courts.

McDonald said it was possible the fire was not arson, as Deering’s legal team has long argued. She said state police are investigating again.

“Once you believed it had been intentionally defined, it was a matter of solving it at any cost. There was an uncontrolled culture here, ”said Imran Syed of the law school. “Cutting corners has huge consequences. “

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