On Tuesday, Oakland County Judge Jeffrey Matis ruled a man who has spent 15 years in prison for a fire that killed five children was deprived a fair trial and overturned Juwan Deering’s murder and arson convictions.

https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/oakland/2021/09/21/convictions-vacated-juwan-deering-royal-oak-township-fire/5805246001/

Oakland County Prosecutor Karen McDonald appeared in court Tuesday and spoke to the judge. She said what happened in Deering’s case undermines the community’s faith and trust in the criminal justice system.

“In this case, evidence was withheld,” McDonald said. “There was prosecutorial misconduct.”

Critical evidence was buried in prosecutor and investigator files, she said.

This is a significant. The prosecutor retained a special prosecutor to investigate the investigation and prosecution of Mr. Deering, to avoid any conflict of interest. The prosecutor herself appeared, rather than an underling, and bluntly explained what was reported by the special prosecutor. This included newly discovered evidence concerning the prosecutor’s use of and the credibility of three jailhouse informants who testified against Deering in 2006, and an interview with one of the children who was in the house when the fire started. The interview, conducted during the investigation, was recorded on video shortly after the fire. Only part of the recorded interview was found in the prosecutor’s file; the second half was missing. The second half was missing.

The report further explained that “The jury was materially misled about all three jailhouse informants’ relationships with the (Oakland County Sheriff’s Office) and (Oakland County Prosecutor’s Office), their motives and their credibility.” A little sunshine, a mea culpa and perhaps hope that Karen McDonald is cleaning house. That will be a big, big job. Let’s hope it can continue.

Judge Matis rejected both the prosecutors and defense attorneys’ arguments that Deering should be freed on bond, as well as the prosecutor’s statement that “[g]iven the current lack of evidence, every additional day Mr. Deering spends in prison furthers that injustice [of being denied his constitutional right to a fair trial].” Deering will remain in prison pending the decision by the prosecutor, expected next week, whether or not to retry him.

The judge’s ruling on bond, in the face of both sides arguing in favor of it, does not diminish the significance of a prosecutor acknowledging and accepting responsibility for the misconduct of her predecessors. That is a good sign.

Fast forward from 1992 and the six month sentence a Mecosta County, MI judge imposed on a pedophile county commissioner to 2021 when a Fairfax, VA judge decried the lame plea agreement the county attorney had reached with a pedophile who victimized a young relative. https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-safety/judge-zaldivar-sentence-abuse/2021/09/20/85258424-1a40-11ec-8380-5fbadbc43ef8_story.html.

The judge called the plea deal that the office of Fairfax County Commonwealth’s Attorney Steve Descano had reached with Oscar Zaldivar “woefully inadequate” because it capped the 53-year-old’s sentence at about 17 years. The judge explained that under Virginia law he could find no way to scuttle the plea deal.

The young girl’s parents waged an unusual legal battle to try to challenge the plea agreement. Try as he might, the judge could not find a way around a maximum sentence of 17 years, 2 months. The judge said the following at the sentencing hearing: ““I don’t know how people can listen to your pain and disregard it. I’m offended for you.”

The prosecutor who fucked this one up apparently took solace in the fact that the defendant would be over sixty when he gets out of prison. He doesn’t get it. These men NEVER age out of their sex abuse patterns with children. The defendant in the Mecosta County case was 72 by the time he was finally caught. https://catherinebroad.blog/2021/09/20/i-began-by-trying-to-report-it-to-the-michigan-state-police/. And as a reader pointed out, these evil fucks tend to live a long time. But they don’t change their stripes.

It’s not just investigators who need to be specially trained to investigate sex crimes. The prosecutors and judges need to get it, too. Just one part of this chain goes sideways and the result is a miscarriage of justice.