This case has had critics for forty years. Their strongest arguments deserve answers. Here they are.
The doubts have never come from one place. A jury convicted him. Appellate courts let the conviction stand. A state review unit closed its file. The victim’s family has opposed his release. Those who maintain he is guilty have offered nothing that places him in Port Huron that morning. This page answers their arguments on the record.
The specific claims:
“Innocence fraud.”
“He stalked Macklem. That’s how he knew to be in the parking lot.”
“He had a good lawyer and a fair trial.”
“He assaulted Crystal Merrill in 1986.”
“He telephoned the witnesses and talked them into the wrong day.”
“The prison recordings and the divorce filings show who he really is.”
Statements by former partners and family members.
“The 2010 ruling was undone by a paperwork error.”
“Only one alibi witness, and all from the karate school.”
“You can drive it in six hours.”
The allegations lack credibility or simply attack his character.
Character evidence is not geographical evidence.
The murder question has one factual issue: where was he at 9:00 a.m. on November 5, 1986? On that issue the record contains nine alibi witnesses, none of whom ever wavered, a tenth never heard by any jury, no physical evidence, a recanted informant story, and a prosecution theory that required an undocumented private flight. A man’s character does not put him in a parking lot 450 miles from where nine witnesses saw him. Nearly everything the critics offer is about who he was; almost nothing is about where he was.
The critics have been answered. She hasn’t been asked. Not by you.
Her term ends in 95 days.
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