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    • Unique MSU Legal Clinic Seeks to Lay Groundwork for Special Appeals
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    Unique MSU Legal Clinic Seeks to Lay Groundwork for Special Appeals

    Sakege Posted on

    On a cloudy weekday morning just a few miles from downtown Detroit, a lawyer, a private investigator and two Michigan State University law students gathered at the corner of an intersection on the city’s east side, the same place that changed Darrell Ewing’s life forever.

    Charged in connection with a fatal shooting at that intersection in 2009, Ewing was convicted of first-degree murder the following year and sentenced to life in prison. He spent 14 years in prison, but was released earlier this year after a Wayne County judge determined that evidence that had gone missing over the years violated his due process rights and dismissed his case. A new trial had been scheduled due to a separate court ruling.

    Now the 35-year-old man, who has maintained that he is innocent and was not at the intersection when the shooting occurred, could be tried again because the Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office appealed the dismissal of the case.

    That’s why Ewing is working with MSU students as part of a first-of-its-kind clinic focused on what’s called pre-conviction appeals. Led by attorney Brad Hall, the Public Defense Clinic will focus on appellate issues for clients across the state, including Southeast Michigan, specifically focusing on issues that may be grounds for appeal prior to the resolution of a case in a court of first instance. That can include evidence that was allowed in a trial that should not have been admitted or that the defendant was not read his Miranda Rights.

    Hall is the founder of the clinic and is defending Ewing against the appeal of Wayne County prosecutors’ dismissal of his case.

    “Having the opportunity to have a clinic and the students help out, it’s the best idea in the world,” Ewing said.

    The MSU clinic comes at a time when studies show that indigent clients across the country (i.e., those who cannot afford to hire their own attorneys) struggle to obtain fair and adequate representation, which leads to plea deals and longer prison sentences. Up to 80% of criminal defendants cannot afford their own lawyers, according to a 2023 article in the Michigan Law Review. For those who are assigned a court-appointed attorney, they could have one with little experience in criminal cases, who works for a flat fee and juggles a large caseload.

    Pre-conviction appeals are increasing in Michigan since the state introduced trial-level defense funding for indigent clients, experts told The Detroit News. The type of specialized work, Hall said, is well suited for a law school clinic. Because appeals tend to address limited legal issues, students can focus on delving into research and developing arguments for the appeals court.

    “Students … are exposed to the public defender process and the trial system,” Hall said.

    Michigan Supreme Court Chief Justice Elizabeth Clement said pre-conviction appeals play an important role not only for specific cases but also in addressing broader legal issues, especially if the appeals court has not addressed the issue. specific before.

    “From an appellate court’s perspective, pre-conviction appeals are very important because they can help clarify important and consequential questions of law and change the direction of a criminal case,” Clement said. “So they can help hold police, prosecutors and judges accountable, but they also help on the defense side, where they are testing the reliability of the evidence and (making sure) the case doesn’t go to the end.” conclusion before filing appeals through our appeals system.

    Fighting a conviction

    Hall met with Ewing in late October, along with MSU Law School students Ravyn Lockridge and Manisha Misra and private investigator Desiree Edwards, to discuss her case and visit the intersection where the shooting occurred.

    Ewing was identified and convicted in 2010 for the shooting, which also injured a second person, according to a disputed eyewitness account and forensic evidence. Another man was convicted of second-degree murder.

    The Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office appealed County Circuit Judge Kiefer Cox’s decision to dismiss Ewing’s case before his retrial, arguing that Cox abused his discretion in dismissing it. Prosecutors maintain that Cox’s ruling finding a violation of Ewing’s due process rights and dismissing the case was incorrect because he did not find that missing evidence would exonerate Ewing or that prosecutors acted in bad faith.

    According to a document filed in August by the prosecution, the main evidence that supposedly disappeared is a videotaped discussion between Ewing and the officer in charge of the investigation, in which Ewing denied being involved with a gang that had a rivalry with another. gang of which the shooting victims were members. Prosecutors argue that it is unclear whether the video actually exists.

    But Hall maintained that Cox made the right decision.

    “He was more than justified in dismissing the case, so that’s going to be our argument,” Hall said.

    Michigan Indigent Defense

    The Michigan Indigent Defense Commission was created in 2013 to promulgate and enforce state standards for the defense of indigents or clients who cannot afford their own defense attorneys.

    Before the commission’s creation, counties received no money from the state for public defense at the trial level, and attorneys representing indigent clients sometimes received flat fees for their work that amounted to as little as $10 an hour. said Kristen Staley, the commission’s executive director.

    A class action lawsuit filed in 2007 by the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan argued that the state’s practice of assigning responsibility for funding and administering indigent defense at the trial level entirely to counties violated the constitutional rights of accused to adequate representation. The creation of the Indigent Defense Commission was one of the changes driven by the lawsuit.

    “It wasn’t the lawyers. It was the system that was created to make everyone fail,” Staley said. “So we’ve changed the entire culture…of public defense services in the state.”

    The commission awards state subsidies to indigent defense systems. Once distribution of funds began in 2019 and the amount of money available to attorneys doing the work increased, pre-conviction appeals filed by attorneys representing indigent clients increased 250% from 2019 to 2023. according to a commission presentation in March before a state House committee.

    The indigent defense commission approved more than $295 million in grant funds for fiscal year 2025 and more will go to cities and counties.

    Staley said 80% to 90% of the grant money goes to attorneys and staff who work in indigent defense.

    A specialized practice

    Hall, who spent 10 years as administrator of the Michigan Appellate Assigned Counsel System, which assigns attorneys for post-conviction appeals in criminal cases, said trial attorneys have traditionally taken responsibility for pre-conviction appeals, but work often falls outside their experience. . Appeals are fundamentally a different type of practice with different procedural requirements than judicial work, he said. Appellate work also requires a lot of time for deliberation, research and writing, which trial attorneys often don’t have because of their caseloads, Hall said.

    The increase in pre-conviction appeals in Michigan, while welcome because of its importance to proper representation of defendants, led to an overload of the system of assigned appellate attorneys, he said.

    The existing defense system is “working structurally, but it hasn’t been able to keep up,” Hall said. “So I proposed this idea of ​​developing a clinic at the law school to get into that area where there is no system capacity to handle these cases.”

    Ewing said he spent 14 years, two months and 14 days in prison before being released earlier this year. He is studying in Wayne State University’s LawStart program, which allows students to earn a bachelor’s degree and a law degree in six years. He also carries out community violence intervention work with the city.

    Ewing’s family was able to pay private attorneys to represent him for several years, but he became eligible for indigent defense earlier this year, and challenging the dismissal of his case required specialized appellate representation. He said he is grateful that the MSU clinic took on his case and that Ewing likes the idea of ​​having the help of a team deeply involved in the work.

    “I knew there would be more eyes on it,” Ewing said.

    While helping clients with appeals, students like Misra gain practical legal experience.

    He said he first discovered his passion for public defense work during a college internship in Alaska. He got the internship while working at a coffee shop, where he struck up a conversation with a lawyer who was a client. Misra said he worked on a murder case involving a defendant with serious mental health issues. It was a privilege to help the person through that difficult time, he said.

    Misra, now a third-year law student, had no experience with pre-conviction appeals before learning about the program from Hall, and the opportunity to try something new appealed to her.

    “So for me it was a new facet of public defense,” Misra said.

    During the clinic team’s visit to the intersection of the 2009 shooting for which Ewing was convicted, Hall and the rest of the group studied nearby buildings: churches, a few gas stations and a liquor store with a sign advertising lottery tickets. The lot where the abandoned and now demolished Easttown Theater stood is nearby.

    As a few cars went through the light on the gray Thursday morning afternoon, Hall pointed out the spot on Harper at the light where the victims’ car was traveling. Although the MSU team is not handling Ewing’s case at the trial level, they wanted to get a sense of the scene that changed their client’s life.

    The clinic has accepted six students for the spring 2025 semester, when they will officially begin work. The clinic plans to accept at least six cases to start, four in Wayne County and two in Genesee County. Michigan has other public defender clinics, but none that focus specifically on pre-conviction appeals.

    Chief Justice Clement said the MSU Law School has done an excellent job of identifying areas of need in legal practice across the state that offer mature training opportunities for law students. He said the increase in pre-conviction appeals is a natural result of systemic improvements in Michigan’s quality of indigent defense trial cases.

    “When quality is increased based on better resources and training, it is natural that we will see the need increase even more in the future,” he said. “Whether it’s pre-conviction appeals or post-conviction appeals, I think we’ll see a greater need in those areas.”

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