Kenneth was convicted in 1994 of breaking into the home of a 28-year-old woman in Clinton Township, Michigan, and raping her, even though he didn’t match the victim’s initial description. The attacker wore a nylon stocking over his head and also blindfolded her, so she only saw glimpses of him. She assisted the police as they created a composite sketch, though she did not think she would be that helpful since she did not see the attacker very well.
The Innocence Files documents how — given the weak identification by the victim — assistant prosecutor Linda Davis worked with police to make the case against Kenneth by presenting other false testimony against him. This included a false statement from a jailhouse informant who was facing serious charges of his own. The informant would later admit that he only gave this fabricated story against Kenneth because the prosecutor “had her foot on my neck.” She also failed to turn over an audiotape police had seized containing a phone message from Kenneth’s ex-girlfriend that would have strongly supported his innocence defense — while falsely suggesting, through her cross-examination of Kenneth, that the recording did not exist.
After the Michigan Legislature passed a law in 2001 permitting post-conviction DNA testing in rape cases, Kenneth’s case was among the many investigated by Thomas M. Cooley Law School Innocence Project. They did a DNA test, and results proved Kenneth’s innocence.
But his story is sadly not all that uncommon. Innocent people go to prison a lot more than most think. That’s why it’s so important that we keep telling his story, even 17 years after his exoneration.
The Innocence Project exonerates the wrongly convicted through DNA testing and reforms the criminal justice system to prevent future injustice. www.innocenceproject.org
