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    • The unique MSU Advocacy Clinic attempts to lay the groundwork for special appeals
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    The unique MSU Advocacy Clinic attempts to lay the groundwork for special appeals

    Online Niel Posted on

    On an overcast weekday morning just miles outside of 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 2009 fatal shooting at that intersection, 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 found evidence that disappeared over the years violated his due process rights and dismissed his case. It had been set for a new trial because of a separate legal ruling.

    Now the 35-year-old, who has maintained his innocence and was not at the intersection when the shooting occurred, could face a new trial as the Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office appealed the dismissal of the case.

    That’s why Ewing works 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 Defender Clinic will focus on appellate matters for clients throughout the state, including Southeast Michigan, with a particular focus on issues that may be grounds for an appeal prior to the disposition of a case in the court of law. These may include evidence that was allowed in a trial that should not have been, or a defendant who was not read his Miranda rights.

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

    “To have the opportunity to have a clinic come in and have students help, that’s the best idea in the world,” Ewing said.

    The MSU clinic comes as studies show that poor clients nationally — meaning those who can’t afford to hire their own attorneys — struggle to get fair and adequate representation, leading to plea deals and longer sentences. prison. About 80% of those accused of crimes cannot afford their own lawyers, according to a 2023 paper in the Michigan Law Review. For those who are assigned a court-appointed attorney, they might have one with little experience in criminal cases, working for a flat fee and juggling a high caseload.

    Pre-conviction appeals are on the rise in Michigan since the state introduced trial defense funding for indigent clients, experts told The Detroit News. The specialized type of work, Hall said, is well suited for a law school clinic. Because appeals tend to deal with narrow legal issues, students can focus on deepening their research and developing arguments for the appellate court.

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

    Michigan Supreme Court Chief Justice Elizabeth Clement said pre-conviction appeals have an important role not just for specific cases, but also for addressing broader legal issues, especially if the appeals court did not deal with it. problem 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 and prosecutors and judges accountable, but they also help on the defense side, where they test the reliability of the evidence and (make sure) the case doesn’t go all the way. conclusion before filing an appeal through our appeal system.”

    Fighting a belief

    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 his case and tour the intersection where the shooting occurred.

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

    The Wayne County District Attorney’s Office appealed Judge Kiefer Cox’s decision to dismiss Ewing’s case before his new trial, arguing that Cox abused his discretion by dismissing it. Prosecutors argue that Cox’s ruling that found a violation of Ewing’s due process rights and dismissed the case was wrong because it did not find that either the missing evidence could exonerate Ewing or that prosecutors acted in bad faith -faith.

    According to a memo filed in August by the prosecutor’s office, the main piece of evidence allegedly missing is a videotaped conversation between Ewing and the officer in charge of the investigation, in which Ewing denied involvement in a gang that had a rivalry with another gang. gang of which the shooting victims were members. Prosecutors say it’s unclear whether the video actually exists.

    But Hall argued Cox made the right decision.

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

    Michigan’s poor defense

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

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

    A class-action lawsuit filed in 2007 by the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan argued that the state’s practice of placing responsibility for funding and administering full-trial indigent defense on counties violated defendants’ constitutional rights to adequate representation. The creation of the Indigent Defense Commission was one of the changes brought about by the lawsuit.

    “It wasn’t the lawyers. It was the system that was set up to make everybody fail,” Staley said. “So we changed the whole culture … of the public defense services in the state.”

    The commission awards state grants to poor defense systems. Once the funding rollout began in 2019 and the amount of money available to working lawyers increased, pre-sentence appeals filed by lawyers representing indigent clients increased by 250% from 2019 to 2023, according to a commission presentation in March to a state House committee.

    Needs Defense Commission approved more than $295 million in grant funds for fiscal year 2025 with more going to cities and counties.

    Staley said about 80 percent to 90 percent of the grant money pays for the attorneys and staff who work to defend the indigent.

    A specialized practice

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

    The growth of pre-conviction appeals in Michigan, while welcome because of their importance to the proper representation of defendants, has led to an overburdened system of appellate attorneys, he said.

    The existing defense system “is working structurally, but it hasn’t been able to keep up,” Hall said. “So we proposed this idea of ​​developing a law school clinic to step 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 studies in Wayne State University’s LawStart program, which allows students to earn a bachelor’s degree and law degree in six years. He also does community violence intervention work with the city.

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

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

    While helping clients with appeals, students like Misra gain hands-on legal experience.

    She said she first discovered her passion for public defense work during an internship in Alaska. She landed the internship while working at a coffee shop, where she 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 their difficult time, she said.

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

    “So it was to unlock a new facet of public defense for me,” 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 surveyed nearby buildings: churches, a few gas stations and a liquor store with a sign advertising lottery tickets. The lot where the abandoned Eastown Theater stood, now demolished, is nearby.

    As several cars went through traffic lights late Thursday morning, Hall pointed out the spot on Harper at the light where the victims’ car was going. Even though the MSU team isn’t 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 their work. The clinic plans to take 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 Judge Clement said MSU’s law school has done an excellent job of identifying areas of need in legal practice around the state that provide mature training opportunities for law students. She said the increase in pre-conviction appeals is a natural result of Michigan’s systemic quality improvements for mistrial defense cases.

    “When you increase quality based on better resources and training, it’s natural to see the need continue to increase in steps down the road,” she said. “Whether it’s pre-conviction appeals or post-conviction appeals, I think you’re going to see a greater need in those areas.”

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