00:00:01
Speaker 1: Derell Ewing was not your average prisoner. You have such a deep connection with a lot of celebrities in the Detroit area.

00:00:10
Speaker 2: All the time, and how does represent a city came right from my neighborhood, was my friends and my family.

00:00:22
Speaker 1: Growing up in the nineties and early two thousands, going to prison was common for many young black men in Detroit. Public schools in the city were starved of resources. There weren't many prospects for good jobs, so many young men turned to street life or fell victim to it, and a lot of the music coming out of Detroit at the time was about this. A childhood friend of Durell's is now a famous rapper. He goes by forty two Doug and has a song called It Gets Deeper about the life they grew up in. In the song, he gives a shout out to Durell, who he calls Apple, saying free app But unlike many of their other friends who ended up going to prison, they always believed in your innocence.

00:01:04
Speaker 2: They always believed in my innocence. Did look Eezy vezz All of them have always ice Wear has always champion and kept my name alive.

00:01:13
Speaker 3: And you know as soon as I went to jail.

00:01:16
Speaker 2: May always wrapped about me and my stories Alive put me on their album covers Some of Everything.

00:01:24
Speaker 1: At the twenty twenty be Et Awards forty two, Doug and Little Baby performed their opening ceremony with matching outfits. They had the names of their friends in prison written in graffiti all over. Derrell's name was on there too.

00:01:37
Speaker 3: Oh that was that was lit.

00:01:38
Speaker 2: The whole jail went crazy when they seen him come out with that on him and Little Baby and they talked about that on the yard for a whole month straight. I got letters from all type of other facilities talking about that.

00:01:51
Speaker 1: On the back of their jackets it said free them boys.

00:01:56
Speaker 3: My name is Darrel. You and a lot of people caught me miss the beat thighs.

00:01:59
Speaker 2: I did fourteen years, two months and fourteen days for crime out didn't commit.

00:02:05
Speaker 1: From love of for good. This is wrongful conviction with Maggie Freeling today. Deroute Ewing Darote Ewing was born in Detroit, Michigan, November eighteenth, nineteen eighty eight. He's the second child of four.

00:02:24
Speaker 2: Say it is the baby and that's my ride to die. My oldest sister is Donald Angela Dawson. We call her Pooh. And my middle sister that's right under me is Tiara Dowson. That's my ace. Growing up with all three of them, they was my protectors, nah though, but it was love and I always took care of them and everything was It was actually amazing. Having three sisters taught me to love more, taught me to be patient, more, carme on women.

00:02:52
Speaker 1: And among those women was his mom, Lasanya Dodson, a single parent raising three kids.

00:02:57
Speaker 2: My mama always provided for us. We didn't need eat anything, We didn't lack anything.

00:03:02
Speaker 3: You know. She was truly amazing woman. A hustler.

00:03:09
Speaker 1: Darrell says his mom worked many jobs. How did she have time to do all that and raise you guys?

00:03:15
Speaker 2: Yeah, my sister or my Auntie Cheriss, Auntie Reill step in. My mom took care of all her sister because all her sisters was younger than her.

00:03:26
Speaker 3: Yeah.

00:03:26
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, Sonya Dodson is a saint. Let's just put that on the record.

00:03:31
Speaker 3: Yeah.

00:03:31
Speaker 2: She did a rocket a family. She did glue with. She didn't want to hells it all together.

00:03:38
Speaker 1: We Sonya remembers one day when she was working at Hurts.

00:03:42
Speaker 4: That day was way at the airport. We lived on the east side of Detroit, so that's about thirty miles right. So I'm like, dang, I ain't got no gas in my car and I got to go to work tomorrow. Well, Dereal gets his lawn more he go cut grass, he'd come back. He say, man, I bought the full up your car. I got gas money, full up your car, and I also bought you a corn beef sandwich at a Pepsi for your lunch. Warm my heart so much because he's always been.

00:04:10
Speaker 1: Caring, caring, thoughtful and intelligent. Massanya says, Dereal was so smart as a young man. That's how he got his nickname Apple for his big brain and head and has.

00:04:22
Speaker 2: Always had his head and always have seen eating apples and everything. And one of my friends started calling me and my peoples to my family and them all started calling.

00:04:30
Speaker 1: Me that Lasnia tried to teach your kids about work ethic from a young age.

00:04:34
Speaker 4: I gave them money for Christmas to let them buy their own stuff, because kids got an unrealistic attitude on how much stuff costs. So I said, you know what, I got five hundred dollars to give you. That's all I got, so if you could bat Jordans out of the five hundred, that's what you do. So I remember him going to the mall and coming back and he like, well about by the Jordans, they one hundred and seventy, and I'm only gonna have this much left. So you start learning about money and everything, and just always he's been so intelligent. And then he started coming back and like, hey man, just take care of the kids. I'm like, you are not the father, young man.

00:05:07
Speaker 2: My mama always provided for us. We didn't need anything, we didn't lack anything.

00:05:12
Speaker 3: You know. She was truly amazing woman.

00:05:16
Speaker 2: A hustler for real, for real, the first hustler that I ever knew made me become a hustle boy.

00:05:21
Speaker 4: My entrepreneur where he got it all at them. He metimes ten.

00:05:25
Speaker 2: When I was cutting grass, selling dinners, doing all types of different things to make some money, because I always seen my mama hustle when he got ten different things going on.

00:05:35
Speaker 4: He always had that drive, that drive to want something, even as a boy.

00:05:39
Speaker 5: He did.

00:05:42
Speaker 1: When he was a teen, Durrell and his friend started a party promotion crew called the Hustle Boys.

00:05:48
Speaker 2: I was like fourteen, fifteen start throwing parties. We used to have everyone you know from the city coming to aut to our events, and it used to make a lot of money, making money and having fun.

00:06:01
Speaker 3: It was like a whole new hustle. I loved it.

00:06:03
Speaker 1: Were you doing any criminal activity.

00:06:06
Speaker 2: No, we weren't doing at that time. We weren't doing no criminal attitty. We was just having fun.

00:06:11
Speaker 1: So no drugs, no guns, nothing like that.

00:06:14
Speaker 2: I didn't start. I wasn't doing no drugs, none of that. Now, nope, I wonder doing any of that. None of my friends either then at that time wasn't doing drugs and none of that.

00:06:23
Speaker 3: Because actually we was all from It was.

00:06:25
Speaker 2: Actually a nice, you know, uh, middle class neighborhood that I was from.

00:06:30
Speaker 3: My best friends that daddy was a cop, the.

00:06:33
Speaker 2: Other ones it's daddy was a preacher.

00:06:36
Speaker 3: Everyone parents was doing something in the neighborhood.

00:06:39
Speaker 1: In fact, the parents helped out.

00:06:41
Speaker 4: When it started, it was high school kids and people was bringing their kids out. Kids wanted to get out and parents let them go on the weekend. So they rented little halls and they learned how to do it theyself. So we kind of monitored them and would work the door and make sure they was okay. I would be up there. Yeah.

00:06:57
Speaker 2: They started having my mind working the dose and parents for actually he collecting the money for me and everything. You know.

00:07:05
Speaker 4: I watched them make so much money so fast. Social media made a travel fast like they had MySpace back then.

00:07:13
Speaker 1: So who were the knockout boys?

00:07:16
Speaker 5: Were?

00:07:16
Speaker 1: They also like a party promotion?

00:07:18
Speaker 2: Well, we were supreme in a party promotion. But they tried to do a little something they was doing. They had a little parties going, but they used to come to our events. We was really the ones. It was a party promoters. They was just they had their little dancing group and they would come to our parties or stuff like that.

00:07:32
Speaker 1: Okay, that sounds like a far cry from like a violent gang. They had a dancing group.

00:07:38
Speaker 3: Far cry.

00:07:41
Speaker 1: I'm picturing the Dance Off and Step Up one of the many movies about dance crews that came out around this time.

00:07:47
Speaker 3: Because that's what a lot of people used to do back in our time.

00:07:49
Speaker 2: It wasn't though they would get together in that jit you know, Bisco tick all that type of stuff.

00:07:54
Speaker 3: Hip roll we was back in our era. It was hip rolling.

00:08:00
Speaker 1: That was Derell's crew in his early teens, kids partying and hustling.

00:08:05
Speaker 2: Detroit always had a history of cruise to come together and just get money. They don't have no affiliation, association of gang science, none of that. Did they do, no handshakes, none of that.

00:08:18
Speaker 3: You know.

00:08:19
Speaker 1: Derell says. It was all pretty harmless. But things were about to change. Durell graduated high school early and enrolled in Wayne State.

00:08:33
Speaker 3: I didn't qualify for fininancial aid.

00:08:36
Speaker 2: And then I had an auntie who I seen had three degrees and she wasn't doing too good, and she got to stay in school to continue to make sure that she don't have to pay the student loans back.

00:08:47
Speaker 1: Derel says he was making a ton of money with the parties, so.

00:08:51
Speaker 3: I just said, now it's not the time.

00:08:54
Speaker 2: You know, I ain't gonna be buried in debt, and it ain't gonna be like my auntie who ain't using her degrees.

00:08:58
Speaker 4: You know, go ahead and got through with school. It's kind of hard to kill a kid what they can and cannot do.

00:09:06
Speaker 1: So Drell dropped out of Wayne State and continued the Hustle Boys.

00:09:09
Speaker 2: But at that time we was done with party and we were just straight selling drugs.

00:09:15
Speaker 1: Drell says, the once innocent party crew was now selling pills.

00:09:20
Speaker 2: OSSI cottins and purpose says lord tabs and things to understand. To be honest with you, I was living in the height of my life as far in the streets, and we was making a lot of money. I seen myself still at that time transitioning over to the business. I was using those that as a means to get in the proper position to give me some properties and open me.

00:09:43
Speaker 3: Up my own club. I was on the path to buy me at bar.

00:09:48
Speaker 1: But through street life, Derell eventually got to hanging out with the wrong people and soon all his dreams were going to come crashing down. On December tw ninth, two thousand and nine, two cars pulled up to an intersection in East Detroit. A man named JB. Watson was in a red van with three other passengers. In the other vehicle, a turquoise car, were three men. One of the men got out of the car when stopped and fired multiple shots at the van, killing JB. Watson and injuring his cousin. Around the same time, about five miles away, Derell Ewing was at a family member's funeral was that something you had heard about?

00:10:31
Speaker 3: Of course I heard about the murder. It was all on the news and everything.

00:10:37
Speaker 1: And what did you think, was that just normal?

00:10:40
Speaker 2: Or in a city Detroit, especially at that time, crayon runs rapping, and you know, when some way get killed, it is like okay, you know, it's like it's a norm, especially back then.

00:10:52
Speaker 1: Detroit had three hundred and sixty four homicides in two thousand and nine, according to city data. At the time, the murder rate was actually falling in major cities like Chicago, New York, and LA but not in Detroit, and the chief of police called it the Wild West.

00:11:10
Speaker 2: It kind of man going because like when you have like a nifty hustle or prince died, the whole world and the whole neighborhood crimes, but when a little girl get killed down the street, nobody says nothing about it, you know what I mean.

00:11:22
Speaker 3: So that's how numb.

00:11:23
Speaker 2: We is to crime in the city of Detroit, especially back then when murders and stuff occurred, because it was just like a.

00:11:32
Speaker 3: Norm.

00:11:34
Speaker 1: The victim, JB. Watson, was a member of the Knockout Boys. Remember Durell mentioned they were another party crew like the hustle boys. But now police were looking at this as a gang rivalry, and Darrell's name came up.

00:11:47
Speaker 3: Being a hustle boy.

00:11:48
Speaker 2: I was basically the face you know how they say Diddy used to run around and parade Severn rounds for Big A and M.

00:11:57
Speaker 3: I was the face of hustle boys, the one.

00:11:59
Speaker 2: Who was always on the mic hey, come on out, the one who was always passing flyers. So anytime somebody said something about the hustle boys, they always say app in the twins.

00:12:09
Speaker 3: So eventually that's how my name came up.

00:12:13
Speaker 1: After the shooting, a witness came forward, Raymond Love, who was at the intersection in his car with his wife at the time of the shooting. Although the incident was only a few seconds, and Love said he ducked down towards his wife. He identified Dareco Cerce as the driver of the turquoise car. He said he could see him through the rear view mirror. Did you know dia Rico Cearce?

00:12:35
Speaker 3: Yes? I knew Derico Cerce. He was an older guy from our neighborhood.

00:12:39
Speaker 1: Dareco Cerce was arrested two days later. Love also identified Darrell as the man who got out of the car and started shooting. Durrell was brought in for questioning.

00:12:49
Speaker 2: When they questioned me, they you know if they told me huh, he said, I know he didn't do it, but you don't say who did it.

00:12:56
Speaker 3: I'm gonna do everything more power to make sure you go down for it.

00:13:00
Speaker 1: And then what did you do?

00:13:03
Speaker 3: I said?

00:13:03
Speaker 2: He called my lawyer and he was like, I promise you gonna need him. And ever since then, I thought when they take me back to the sale that they was going to just be a little seventy two hour hold and I'll be released. But then nat morning it was waking me up talking about Hey, you going down to the county.

00:13:18
Speaker 3: I'm like, what, Yeah, You're getting booked on murdered. I'm like, man, this can't be rial.

00:13:23
Speaker 2: They joking, you know, I know Ashton cushiering, I'm about to jump out to my punk.

00:13:30
Speaker 1: But he wasn't being punked. Ashton Kutcher wasn't waiting in the precinct and Darrell was charged with the murder of JB. Watson. When did it all become real that it was happening.

00:13:43
Speaker 2: When I was in the courtroom and people walked in the Ring and Love and Jenday Love and they talked about it was me.

00:13:49
Speaker 3: That was when it was came real.

00:13:51
Speaker 2: I almost lost my mind, telling them look at me, hold on, look at me, and just like hold on.

00:13:59
Speaker 3: Be quiet, and they can't be talking about me.

00:14:03
Speaker 1: Derell went to trial almost a year later, in October twenty ten. He and Direco Cercy were tried together by Assistant Prosecuting Attorney camp Town. No gun was ever recovered from the crime scene. The only evidence tying Derell to the crime was the eyewitness testimony of Raymond Love. He testified that inside the Turqoids vehicle he'd seen Direco Cerce driving and two other men. Love said once at the intersection, Drell got out of the vehicle with a handgun, approached the van and started firing at the rear. It's unclear if they tried to find the third man allegedly in the vehicle. Camp Town said this was a gang retaliation, that the Hustle Boys had beef with the Knockout Boys. Would a beef with the Knockout Boys wind up in a murder, in a shooting, It.

00:14:58
Speaker 3: Wasn't a beef. Seat they get this case all twisted.

00:15:02
Speaker 2: It's only the pain and narrative and help paint a theory to sell it to the jury.

00:15:07
Speaker 1: To be clear, federal court records cites some kind of beef going on between the Hustle Boys and the Knockout Boys. However, no one ever testified that Darrell had anything to do with those fights. Darrell also says he had no idea who JB. Watson was.

00:15:24
Speaker 2: Nah, I knew of some KOB members, but I didn't know this guy. I never had an issue with this guy. I never had an issue with none of the KOB members.

00:15:33
Speaker 3: I've never been in the same room with him. When he said his name, I'm like, wow, I don't even know.

00:15:38
Speaker 1: You know, Durell sat through an entire trial listening to testimony about him being in a gang and beefing with the Knockout Boys.

00:15:48
Speaker 4: When you're a black young man, especially black people, but black young men especially anything they do dance groups, singing groups, you could end up being a gang.

00:16:00
Speaker 1: Mom, La Sonya.

00:16:00
Speaker 4: Again, when they stormed the White House, they called them a group, but they called my son a gang. And it's the burbigeh that they use when they speak on you.

00:16:11
Speaker 1: You know, La Sonya knew her son couldn't have committed this murder. She was with him at the time of the killing and testified in Durrell's defense. How many people vouched for your alibi?

00:16:25
Speaker 3: Man?

00:16:25
Speaker 2: I could have called two three hundred people and said there, you know, their own witnesses placed me at the hall we called sis and I believe five or six five or sits five five.

00:16:37
Speaker 1: They all said Durell had been at Bardon Hall for a gathering following a family member's funeral. He was there the entire time the shooting had taken place. Then a bombshell, a man took the stand saying it really hadn't been Durrell, and he knew who the real shooter was because he Christopher Richardson was there.

00:17:01
Speaker 3: Christopher Richardson when William Bill and Tyree.

00:17:03
Speaker 1: Washington, they had gone on a carjacking spree.

00:17:06
Speaker 2: When they all got locked up, they started to tell on each other and they wind up that William Bill's cousin, and Christopher Richardson said, hey, man, y'all got the wrong people locked up Darrell Ewing and Derico ser She didn't commit that crime. My Cody Finish and cousin is actually wants to responsible William Bill and Tyree Washington.

00:17:26
Speaker 1: Richardson said Tyree Washington had been the shooter. And the thing about Richardson is that he was also a trusted confidential informant for the FBI. He had testified in front of four federal grand juries before, so the FBI trusted him and brought this testimony to Assistant prosecuting Attorney Cam Towns. They tried to tell her she was getting it wrong. Tyree Washington was even willing to come to trial and testify, and.

00:17:53
Speaker 2: It turns out that Cam Towns had told him that she didn't need him and that she was want to use him, and if she had, she wanted You know, when they locked in on their position, they hate the admit that they screwed up, so they kept pressing in the gas and I guess they wanted to just play out in the courtroom because it's not about guilt or innocence, you know, they just be trying to close the case.

00:18:20
Speaker 1: Tyree Washington did not testify a trial, but the FBI agents and Christopher Richardson were allowed to share their testimony, all saying Darrell and do Rico had not been the ones who killed JB. Watson. By the end of trial, the prosecution's case seemed in shambles. Darrell Ewing had an alibi, there was no physical evidence linking him to the crime, and the jury was aware that someone else had confessed. Drellte was feeling pretty good about the outcome.

00:18:50
Speaker 2: We had the federal agents coming to testify, and they bringing their top performer, Christopher Wich. Jennalo was telling on his own cousin. So when you got that, I mean, I'm secure.

00:19:01
Speaker 1: During deliberation, the jury was deadlocked when they returned. Instead of ordering a mistrial, the trial judge Carol Youngblood responded by ordering them to continue deliberating. When the jury came back, Durell was convicted a first degree murder and later sentenced to life in prison without parole. La Sonya was heartbroken.

00:19:26
Speaker 4: Oh god, it was so horrifying. I mean, my body took a hole, like I went into my minstrel stopped when they convicted him. Like literally, how old were you? I was forty four, and I was so sick, Like it really really really took a hole on us, like it was very high. They almost had to drag us out of the out of the courthouse because we were just we couldn't believe it.

00:20:00
Speaker 1: Durrell felt it too, but didn't have much time to wallow. Very soon after trial, another bombshell would drop. As soon as Derell got to prison, he started trying to prove his innocence. When you go out to prison, as you know, twenty two years old, why didn't you just start hustling in there, dealing drugs in there? And maybe you did. You don't just say so, but you did more than that. You didn't just say prison is now my life.

00:20:31
Speaker 2: You know, when you embrace to start to hustle in prison and everything, it's certain things to come with that, and it's a certain focus that it keep you distracted. I know a lot of gas that hustle inside of prison, but they'd be consumed with that because that's a daily thing that you can have to focus on, you know, and it doesn't give you time to focus on your case. Everybody that I ever knew that ever get out of prison, they were extremely dedicated to nothing but their case.

00:20:58
Speaker 3: And that's what I was on.

00:21:00
Speaker 2: So I was always I spent all my time in the law library and reading law books.

00:21:05
Speaker 1: Darrell actually learned the laws so well he started practicing law.

00:21:09
Speaker 2: Not only do I fight for me, I fight for others, and you know I fight for others on behalf of others.

00:21:14
Speaker 1: Darrell became a paralegal in prison, helping others file legal documents and fight their cases for free.

00:21:21
Speaker 2: Everyone that I have got out recently, I didn't give charge of a dollar in their home.

00:21:25
Speaker 1: Now, Derell was also trying to get himself home, and he had a lot to work with in terms of trying to prove his innocence. After trial, two specific things happened. Tyree Washington, who the FBI and FORMAT pointed to, formally confessed.

00:21:42
Speaker 2: He told the Michigan State Police undermandarized confession that he was responsible.

00:21:49
Speaker 1: Years later, Tyree Washington would also talk to private investigator Scott Lewis, and I got a hold of that recording.

00:21:56
Speaker 3: We just asked you some questions. We'll get right down to.

00:22:00
Speaker 2: I want to ask you about the December twenty ninth, two thousand and nine, fatal shooting of JB.

00:22:05
Speaker 3: Watson. Are you familiar with that incident?

00:22:09
Speaker 1: Yes, I am.

00:22:10
Speaker 3: What do you know about it?

00:22:14
Speaker 5: Well, I know everything about it was I was there and I actually was the shooter.

00:22:19
Speaker 2: Of that answer Okay, where did this take place?

00:22:25
Speaker 5: All van Dykin Harper.

00:22:28
Speaker 1: The second thing that happened was a juror came forward.

00:22:33
Speaker 2: Kathleen Barnes was great, the most amazing woman I ever seen, came forward and told the truth.

00:22:39
Speaker 1: Kathleen Burns said that she was the holdout for a not guilty verdict, but she changed her mind after two jurors came up with extra information. One of the jurors, Karen James, had googled about gangs and gang hierarchy.

00:22:54
Speaker 2: She valeted the court orders, the court orders you put when you are the jurors every time to not to consider anything outside this corporal you go home, don't talk about this even with your husband.

00:23:04
Speaker 3: Please don't look on anything social media and that about the case.

00:23:08
Speaker 1: But Karen James did. She found articles about gangs having a pecking order, and she told the other jurors she believed Durell was at the top. She surmised that Tyree Washington was at the bottom, so the Hustle boys sacrificed him instead of Durell. They set up Tyree for the murder.

00:23:26
Speaker 2: That wasn't even the prosecuted theory. Let's make that clear. This is something that the juror summarized in her mad Karen James, another black woman, hurt me.

00:23:37
Speaker 3: I'm like wow.

00:23:39
Speaker 1: Another juror, Michelle Chesney, found Drell's Facebook and on it there were photos of him with guns.

00:23:45
Speaker 2: One day, it was my man home girl birthday and she came over and we had a few guns out, and she's like, oh, let's take some pictures with these guns. And we took some pictures with them guns that she put on our social media. And from that the juries testified. This ain't my words. This was testified on oath that they said, hey, if he didn't do this, he did something else just because I had a gun. But that's just because I'm a black man, a black young guy with a gun. Because if you see a Caucasian man with a gun, especially the ones we had, you're gonna say he doing hunting, you know what I mean.

00:24:24
Speaker 1: All this information made Kathleen Burns change her vote to guilty. Years later, in an evidentiary hearing in twenty nineteen, she testified that this trial haunted her, that she kept wondering if she'd done something terribly wrong. Once the jury misconduct came to light, Darrell was able to file post conviction relief. Meanwhile, out on the streets, Lasaanya and Derell's family were also putting in the work.

00:24:52
Speaker 4: We wouldn't stop protesting and making the ways and making sure that we did everything we possibly could do to get him out of there.

00:25:00
Speaker 3: Man.

00:25:00
Speaker 2: My family, then petitions, my family, and then protests.

00:25:05
Speaker 3: Is my family that did town halls? They did? They didn't done something. Everything they have it.

00:25:12
Speaker 2: One time we was applotting to strategizing to do a protest in front of kim Worthy's house.

00:25:19
Speaker 1: Kim Worthy is the prosecutor in Wayne County, which covers Detroit, Lasnia. Says she wasn't going to let the system treat another young black man as disposable.

00:25:31
Speaker 4: When you throw somebody away and nobody ever say nothing out of sight, out of mind, you know, you kind of don't worry. But if you keep seeing us on social media, you're seeing us on the news, that's different. We knew he didn't do it. So when we knew he didn't do it, there's no way. The love that we have for him and the love that we have as a family, this is what I think people supposed to do. You know, I didn't see it no other way until a young man told me that he was locked up for eight years and it took his mother two years to send him some pictures. He said, you don't even know what you did. He said, my mom took two years just to send me a couple of pictures. And I kept asking for him and it took her two years to get him to me.

00:26:16
Speaker 1: But Lasnya wasn't that mom. She stuck with Durell, and in true hustler fashion, she even started a transportation business.

00:26:25
Speaker 4: Man, I've been doing everything like I am. I we started a transportation company. When Drell was in prison. He started calling me to about mine. Some such Grandma want to ride with you, some such want to ride with you. I'm like, shoot, we finished out a transportation company and get a vans and come up there. So then he would do work that in the inside and we'd come up there and pick up people. And we called the Stay Connected Transportation. So really we just made the best out of a bad situation.

00:26:54
Speaker 1: That support meant everything to Durell.

00:26:57
Speaker 3: It kept me fighting.

00:26:59
Speaker 2: You know me, when you know you got a support system, I gotta be strong for them and they strong for me.

00:27:03
Speaker 3: It was a battery in my bed.

00:27:06
Speaker 1: One of those times was in twenty thirteen, the Court of Appeals upheld his conviction, saying the jury misconduct was quote harmless error. But since then, multiple federal and state judges ordered a new trial for Durell and de Rico, finding that their constitutional right to a fair trial was indeed violated by juror misconduct. In twenty seventeen, a judge struck down the murder conviction and ordered release or a new trial within ninety days. But despite the order, Durell stayed in prison, and then the pandemic hit. When I first spoke to Durell in twenty twenty, he had actually just recovered from the illness. How long were you sick for?

00:27:51
Speaker 3: I was thankful about thirty three days, Oh my gosh.

00:27:56
Speaker 5: And then I couldn't nail the taste even half of that and fealed to it. I feel got like plammed to be in.

00:28:03
Speaker 3: My system and my launs.

00:28:04
Speaker 5: I'll be trying to go out and run and work out and keep myself have a job. But it's just all type of aspects of this COVID thing. And in Michigan they had yet to release any prisoners.

00:28:18
Speaker 1: Lake Lynd was one of the worst prisons in Michigan, where at least twenty four prisoners died from COVID, but Darrell would eventually get a break. After years of fighting, he got a retrial date set for March twenty twenty four.

00:28:41
Speaker 5: Howell.

00:28:42
Speaker 1: On December one, twenty twenty three, thirty five year old Durell Ewing went in front of Judge Keefer Cox for emotions hearing. Durell stood in the courtroom in his green jailhouse uniform, representing himself with some help from outside council, and Derell went for it, even criticizing the judge for having just come out of a job at the Wayne County Prosecutor's office.

00:29:07
Speaker 6: But the thing is run, the thing is, and respectfully, I just learned that you just came out to prosecuted office a couple of months ago, and did your friends with Ken Wordy and did your friends with John watch the toll? So how are you even sitting on my case?

00:29:20
Speaker 4: I just learned this, drun. How are you even that's actual?

00:29:23
Speaker 3: White?

00:29:23
Speaker 1: The press, friends and family were in the audience.

00:29:28
Speaker 6: Did you remove yourself from this case because you this is a fact. Anyone in the crowd here's the mumbling and hearing some speaking in the background.

00:29:39
Speaker 4: The scariest thing I ever seen. I was just so scared, so nervous. I didn't even know what I was going to do if they wouldn't have got this right. But you know, as I watched him, like he did such an awesome job. We almost give him standing ovations, and it was it was something to see, like you had to be there.

00:30:01
Speaker 1: As Durell prepared for his retrial, District Attorney Kim Worthy's office was confronted with several challenges. Not only did they have to account for jury misconduct, they also did not provide Durell with evidence he'd requested for over a year, and they were short on witnesses.

00:30:19
Speaker 2: Because by this time, Raymond Love he got to be at home somewhere like, hey man, I don't want nothing to do with that case. This case is everywhere don and got this innocent man locked up. He didne finally came to the realization.

00:30:31
Speaker 1: And that was one of their key That was their key witness.

00:30:34
Speaker 3: That's their key witness.

00:30:36
Speaker 1: On March twenty fifth, twenty four, after considering Durell's case and the fact that the police and prosecution still had not made their evidence available to Durell. Judge Cox made a decision just miss the case.

00:30:51
Speaker 3: This is egregious due process violation. So for.

00:31:00
Speaker 2: All the reasons, plays down the records have dismissed the cases.

00:31:07
Speaker 3: Don't time to keep it under control.

00:31:10
Speaker 4: If there's gonna be an outburst taken in a hallway leave.

00:31:13
Speaker 1: Derell's family and friends tried to contain their emotion, but after years of fighting, when the courtroom doors opened, you heard the sound of relief. That day Darrell walked out of Wayne County Jail a freeman.

00:31:37
Speaker 4: I just feel like since he came home, I almost have relaxed. Finally. I used to start at eight o'clock in the morning. I don't want to do eight no more. Like I'm like, oh God, can we do ting? You know?

00:31:52
Speaker 1: Today Lasagnya is surrounded by her entire family and owns her own beauty salon. But a decade ago she lost her home, her four one K and the good years of her life advocating for her son's innocence.

00:32:06
Speaker 4: It was a lot. It's a lot to go through. But you know, I tell him all the time, only the strong subbab.

00:32:13
Speaker 1: And Darrell takes none of it.

00:32:15
Speaker 3: For granted, I was one of the blessed ones.

00:32:17
Speaker 2: There's a lot of people in prison that need help and don't have little ones that support them. But the difference is when you do TECH, when you do time for a crime that not only you know you didn't do, your family you know you didn't do They're always going to be behind.

00:32:30
Speaker 3: You one hundred percent, you know.

00:32:33
Speaker 1: So what's next?

00:32:35
Speaker 2: Well, right now I'm working to put into the appeal that they just filed.

00:32:41
Speaker 1: DA kim Worthy is appealing Judge Cox's decision. If she wins jury will have to go to trial, but he says he's not worried. He thinks the evidence in her case is too weak. And on the flip side, if.

00:32:54
Speaker 3: Kim Worthy Lewis's appeal is over and I'm a suit of shit out or ass.

00:32:57
Speaker 1: Does kim Worthy have the power to not fight this? Does she have the power to say it's over?

00:33:04
Speaker 3: Of course she do.

00:33:05
Speaker 2: She decided this moment's enough, We're gonna dismiss the appeal and let this be got back one. But at the end of the day, they got they thinking dollars now over justice. They got forty people that just got desonerated.

00:33:21
Speaker 1: One wrongfully convicted man was recently awarded ten million dollars in damages.

00:33:28
Speaker 3: You know they think in money now in bankruptcy.

00:33:32
Speaker 1: Darrell says he wants people to understand that public officials like Da kim Worthy are elected.

00:33:38
Speaker 2: We as a people only get involved in the elections, in the voting process when it's a national thing. We in a frenzy about Donald Trump, but we don't deal with the real people that directly affect us locally. Be intentional on who you vote for and put in not only a seats of power in a presidential but you a local prosecutor and judges seeks. Because we be crying about injustice, but we put these judges in there who don't get a damn about the law.

00:34:11
Speaker 1: Since he's been out, Durrell re enrolled in Wayne State with a full scholarship to study law man.

00:34:17
Speaker 4: When his first day down in law school, we all followed him down there. I said, we're gonna get him kicked out on his first day. We taking pictures, We got camera crews with us. We like so excited about everything that he do, Like the whole family is excited. And that's a beautiful thing because this is like our moment, our happy time that we waited on, that we didn't see it was we was in the dark and now it's just light and we're just happy. We want to see everything evolved.

00:34:45
Speaker 1: And she says she is always grateful to the woman who had the courage to come forward and make this all possible.

00:34:52
Speaker 4: Kathleen Burns had a heart to speak up, and a couple of times when she spoke, she said, I just hope he makes his mother is proud as she thinks he is. And I'm like, oh he is. And every time he doing something I'll get today, I just be like, I hope she watching them.

00:35:09
Speaker 1: Not only is Durrell in law school, but he's working in the community doing outreach.

00:35:14
Speaker 2: I work hand in hand with our mayor and police chief out here intervening in community violence, keeping the.

00:35:21
Speaker 3: Crime right down daily, winning schools.

00:35:24
Speaker 2: Were going there, We do mentoring, were working with the Turnative School right now, real heavy. These are the most risks and trouble making kids, you know, but when we get in there, all they need is love and attention.

00:35:38
Speaker 5: You know.

00:35:38
Speaker 2: Some of these parents are struggling, don't have no job, on welfare, struggling to make it.

00:35:44
Speaker 3: Some of them kids don't have no food.

00:35:47
Speaker 2: We got to turn around and get them money to go home and get them get their mother and them fell theirfrigerators up, you know, just being there any way we can, showing offering them resources.

00:35:59
Speaker 3: That's what I spend my time doing. I ain't in school working on a case.

00:36:04
Speaker 1: He also spends time catching up with the family that was there for him for nearly fifteen years.

00:36:11
Speaker 4: We just love just getting together. I could just have him here at the house, like seeing him with my grandkids now and just they love him to death. We love him like we loved him, and he love us.

00:36:25
Speaker 1: Do you hope that Drell gives you some.

00:36:28
Speaker 4: Man, I'm waiting on my little grandson coming to look. I just keep seeing Grasslam. But I take a granddaughter too.

00:36:35
Speaker 1: But Drell says he's got time first, more hustle.

00:36:40
Speaker 3: You know.

00:36:40
Speaker 2: I got a book coming out of the real stuff, and the most saying I'm working on my documentary.

00:36:44
Speaker 3: Be on the lookout for it. I got work.

00:36:46
Speaker 1: That's what I wanted to ask you about the book. I have a copy that you sent me years ago. Is there more to it now?

00:36:54
Speaker 3: Oh? I didn't reassed and re edited. I'm gonna send it to you.

00:36:57
Speaker 1: Well when you're super famous. I now have an original manuscripts.

00:37:01
Speaker 3: Yeah, you got the original manuscript.

00:37:06
Speaker 1: That's Darrell the whole time I've known him, always on the move, an array of light even in his darkest times. Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction with Maggie Freelink. Please support your local innocence organizations and go to the links on our website to see how you can help. Thank you to Attorney Adam Clements at Perkins lawg Group for helping with legal review. And thank you to the reporting of Diane Bukowski for Voice of Detroit. We relied on it while researching this episode. This episode was written by me Maggie Freeling, with story editing and sound design by senior producer Rebecca Ibarra. Our producer is Kathleen Fink. Our mixer is Josh Allen, with research by Alison Levy an additional production help by Jeff Cliburn. Executive producers are Jason Flam, Jeff Kempler, and Kevin Wurtis. The music is by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Make sure to follow us on all social media platform at Lava for Good and at Wrongful Conviction. You can also follow me on all platforms at Maggie Freeling. Wrongful Conviction with Maggie Freeling is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts in association with Signal Company Number One. We have worked hard to ensure that all facts reported in this show are accurate. The views and opinions expressed by the individuals featured in this show are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of Lava for Good.