The U-M Innocence Clinic

continued

“If Tyrone Allen were alive today,” Moran concludes, “based on what we know now, the worst prosecutor in this building on her worst day would have no trouble convincing a jury to convict Tyrone Allen.”

When it’s Breen’s turn, the prosecutor is indignant. She scolds, “Recanting witnesses are frowned upon,” and at the same time claims that Gholston “did not recant.” She argues that Thomas wasn’t credible because he didn’t come forward for nine years.

Of the smoking gun, Breen says: “They all know each other. The gun could have passed through the neighborhood. Guns are always passing around.”

In rebuttal, Bridget McCormack says, “I’d like to see a prosecutor convince a jury that it was just a coincidence” that the gun that shot Gholston ended up on the body of the same man who had threatened to shoot him—and who a witness had seen firing from the alley that day.

There’s another piece of evidence, too. It turns out that a few hours after the shooting, Allen told his girlfriend, Anitra Dalton, that he had shot Gholston. Dalton told her uncle, a Wayne County sheriff’s deputy, who called the Ecorse police. Yet the call was never reported to the officer in charge of the case nor to the defense team. That alone could be the basis of an appeal in federal court.