Exonerated man freed from prison, now in hotel quarantine: ‘I could watch Netflix!’

Kevin Harrington has had a “beautiful” time quarantining at a Michigan hotel after a 17-year battle to overturn his murder conviction came to an end last week. (Ali Lapetina / for NBC News)

By Rich Schapiro

Kevin Harrington walks out of the Macomb Correctional Facility in central Michigan after spending 17 years behind bars on a conviction that was tossed out this week. (Courtesy of Harrington family)

Dressed in a white T-shirt and maroon shorts, Kevin Harrington beamed as he walked out of the Macomb Correctional Facility in southern Michigan. After a few steps in the fresh air, he let go of the dolly holding his belongings and raised his hands to the sky.

Harrington had spent 17 years behind bars for a murder he had always insisted he didn’t commit. On Tuesday, a judge tossed his conviction and threw out his life sentence after prosecutors determined the lead detective coerced a key witness into implicating Harrington and a second man.

A group of friends and relatives was outside the prison waiting for him – several of them cheering his name, his mother shaking a tambourine.

But Harrington couldn’t hug them. And he still can’t go home.

Because of a COVID-19 outbreak at the prison, the 37-year-old former inmate is now holed up at a hotel for a voluntary 14-day quarantine –- a confinement of sorts but one far more pleasant than what he was used to. watch Netflix. I get to sleep on a nice comfy bed,” Harrington told NBC News by phone from his hotel room.

“It’s been beautiful.”

Speaking two days after his release, Harrington said he still doesn’t have much in his spacious hotel room.

A few pairs of clothes. His Daily Bread devotional pamphlet. And the four bags of legal work and one bag of family photos he lugged out of prison.

“That’s all I had in 17 years, six months, two days and 35 minutes of being wrongfully incarcerated,” Harrington said. “I really like to call it being kidnapped. Because kid-napping is taking someone some-where they don’t want to be without their consent and or will.”

The case began in late September 2002 when the body of a man named Michael Martin was found in a field across the street from his apartment building in the city of Inkster.

Investigators questioned a local woman who gave conflicting accounts of what she observed but told them several times that she had no idea who fatally shot Martin.

“You got up in the middle of the night and you saw something,” Inkster police Detective Anthony Abdallah said to her during an interview at police headquarters, according to a transcript.

“No, I didn’t,” she said.

Later in the interview, Abdallah appeared to threaten the woman. “We don’t want to leave you here and somebody take your kids, OK?” he said.

She eventually told investigators that she saw Harrington and a second man, George Clark, assault Martin and drag him into a field –- and then she heard gunshots.

Harrington was 20 years old. He had been taking classes at Wilberforce University in Ohio –- the first in his family to attend college –- but was at that point trying to figure out the next phase of his life.

Clark, who was 31 at the time of his arrest, had been taking care of his ailing mother who was struggling to manage severe diabetes and arthritis.

The two men had grown up in the same housing project in Inkster but they were 11 years apart in age and didn’t know each other well.

At their trial, the woman took the stand and denied witnessing the shooting or hearing any shots. But she admitted to having implicated Harrington and Clark at a pretrial hearing, according to an appeals court summary of the trial.

There was no physical evidence linking Harrington or Clark to the murder, but the jury found them guilty.

Harrington’s verdict was overturned on appeal, and he went on to have three more trials. The next two ended in hung juries but the fourth resulted in a conviction. He was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole in February 2006.

Clark received a life sentence after his motion for a new trial was denied in 2003.

Behind bars, Harrington said he poured his energy into fighting his conviction.

“I didn’t have time to be angry, bitter,” he said. “I had to fight. I had to read.”

The Michigan Innocence Clinic, which is run by the University of Michigan Law School, began looking into his case in 2009.

By 2015, however, all of Harrington’s appeals were exhausted and it seemed his fate was largely sealed. But last fall, the Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office Conviction Integrity Unit opened an investigation into the case.

A six-month probe uncovered a “disturbing pattern of behavior from the original lead detective that involved threatening and coercing a number of witnesses,” according to a statement from the prosecutor’s office.

The unit concluded that Harrington and Clark did not receive fair trials as a result of the detective’s conduct. But the prosecutor’s office “has not reached any conclusion regarding actual innocence of Mr. Harrington and Mr. Clark,” it said in the statement.

Imran Syed, the assistant director of the Michigan Innocence Clinic, praised the prosecutor’s office for recommending the convictions be vacated and the charges dismissed.

“Having investigated this case for more than a decade, the Michigan Innocence Clinic firmly believes in Mr. Clark and Mr. Harrington’s innocence,” said Syed, who was a second-year law student when he began working on the case in 2009.

“All of the evidence indicates that this is a case of police misconduct where two men who had absolutely nothing to do with the murder were charged, convicted and served 17 years in prison, while the true perpetrator remained at large.”

Inkster police Chief William Riley said the detectives involved in the case are no longer on the force and he would welcome an outside investigation.

 

About Carma Henry 24481 Articles
Carma Lynn Henry Westside Gazette Newspaper 545 N.W. 7th Terrace, Fort Lauderdale, Florida 33311 Office: (954) 525-1489 Fax: (954) 525-1861

Be the first to comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.


*