The U-M Innocence Clinic

continued

McCormack then calls Detroit police officer Robert Thomas to the stand. He tells the court that he visited Gholston in his hospital room right after the shooting and asked him if he saw the shooter. Gholston, unable to speak, blinked a “no.”

The testimony, which has never before emerged, sends the prosecutor into high dudgeon. Indignant, Breen asks why Thomas never told anyone about Gholston’s blink. “I wasn’t asked,” he says, adding, “I was praying for everyone. I didn’t want to choose sides.”

“You’re a police officer, and you did nothing to report this to anyone?” the prosecutor scoffs.

In the hallway on a break, the three students are preparing to finally launch their closing arguments, going over questions the judge might ask them.

Back in court, however, the prosecutor asks for time to rebut Thomas’s surprise testimony and prepare her own closing arguments. The case is adjourned again, until May 14.