Before Eric Anderson went to trial for armed robbery and ended up getting convicted and imprisoned for years, a Wayne County judge ridiculed him for not taking a plea deal, telling him: “Are you stupid, or what?”
Whatever he was — he was innocent.
Fifteen years later, the judge’s words would turn up in a first-of-its kind report detailing numerous mistakes that led to the wrongful conviction of Anderson, who was freed in 2019 after spending nearly nine years behind bars for a crime he didn’t commit. Two others would confess to the armed robberies, triggering a new investigation and ultimately Anderson’s exoneration.
Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy listens to questions from the media on November, 20, 2019.
“Mr. Anderson’s wrongful conviction could not have happened without systemic errors occurring at every level of his case,” states the 54-page report, which was released Monday, Nov. 17 by the Wayne County Sentinel Event Review Team, a collaboration of prosecutors, Detroit police, judges, public defenders and the Cooley Innocence Project.
At the request of Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy, the team came together to investigate the Anderson case, and figure out what mistakes were made to make sure they don’t happen again. Her office said it’s the first-ever such review conducted in Michigan to identify factors that led to an inaccurate conviction. It also offers 25 system-wide recommendations to strengthen the fairness and accuracy of the Wayne County criminal justice system.
According to the report, the authors “identified 40 distinct factors that contributed to Mr. Anderson’s wrongful conviction and his wrongful incarceration for 9 years.” Among the factors cited:
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Anderson was arrested based on only one witness — one of the victims who said he knew Anderson from the neighborhood, though he couldn’t see who the robbers were that night because they were masked and it was dark. No other witnesses were sought by police.
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Anderson’s alibi was not properly investigated. He was arrested based on the words of a woman who was not at the scene that night, but told one of the victims that Anderson was known for doing those kinds of things.
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A video that supported Anderson’s alibi was never shown to the jury. Following his arrest, Anderson told police he, himself, was shot at a Coney Island at the same time as the armed robbery, and therefore could not have committed the armed robbery. Anderson said he stopped to use the restroom at the restaurant when upon entering, someone fired shots inside. Surveillance video of that shooting shows Anderson entering the restaurant, but was never shown to the jury.
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Medical personnel were not called to testify about the foot injury he sustained at the Coney Island shooting, which was backed by hospital records.
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Police theorized that Anderson could have shot himself while fleeing from the robbery, but upon review years later, hospital records show his foot was shot on the side, not on the top, suggesting he could not have shot himself, but was shot by someone else .
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Security cameras inside the restaurant captured images of the shooter(s). One is later identified as the person who confessed to the shooting for which Anderson was convicted. A companion of that confessor also appears to have fired shots. That restaurant shooting formed the basis of Anderson’s alibi.
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The appearance of “influence” by the judge, who during trial allegedly showed favoritism for the prosecution and may have impacted the jury. At the pretrial hearing, the same judge “aggressively questioned” Anderson’s intelligence after learning he had turned down an offer to plead guilty and receive a sentence of three years’ probation. The court asked Anderson, “Are you stupid or what?” and asked what his level of education was, and which high school he had attended. Anderson stood by his refusal to plead, and the judge told thim: “there will be no pleas accepted after today.”
” Ultimately, there was no one thing that caused the Wayne County criminal justice system toconvict Mr. Anderson,” the report states. ” … Rather, a wide variety of “contributing factors” came together in ways that led all participating agencies at the time to conclude incorrectly that Mr. Anderson was guilty of armed robbery.”
Anderson was convicted in 2010 of armed robbery and served roughly 8.5 years before a sworn confession from one of the actual perpetrators of the crime caused a subsequent investigation of the case by th WCPO’s Conviction Integrity Unit. After an extensive investigation, the CIU found that two other men had committed the robberies and moved to vacate Anderson’s conviction. He was released on April 30, 2019.
Shoddy police work by DPD cited in report
A comprehensive review would follow, with the results being released on Nov. 17. While the report focuses specifically on Anderson’s case, it also sheds light on what is described as problematic past practices by Detroit police. For example, it lists the following as contributing factors to the wrongful conviction:
A community and police department focus on successfully closing non-fatal shooting cases may have contributed to the speed with which Anderson was arrested, the report states. ” DPD’s practice of marking a case “closed” for statistical purposes when an officer signed an arrest warrant may have created a disincentive for officers to conduct additional investigation” on the case after he was arraigned.
Multiple people interviewed for the report also noted that “during the 2010 time period, community members, including DPD, were very concerned about gun violence in Detroit and an emphasis was placed on increasing the closure rates of gun violence cases. This public focus on closure rates may have played a part in the speed (48 hours) with which Mr. Anderson’s case went from an eyewitness identification to an arrest despite some of the areas of weakness identified above.
“It should be noted, however, that the participants in the case who agreed to be interviewed did not feel that they had moved too quickly in this case given the information available to them at the time,” according to the report, which did not list any names of police officers or judges who were involved in the case.
The report noted that the reviewers did not identify any instances where anyone involved in the prosecution “acted with malicious intent” or “intentional misconduct.” It stressed: “The WCSERT did not seek to punish or find blame with any individual or agency, but to learn from this wrongful conviction and make changes to avoid such errors again, helping the criminal justice system operate fairly and justly for all.”The purpose of the review, as stated in the report, is to “shed light on systemic issues that can lead to problematic arrests and convictions, and aid in the promotion of a culture of accountability and transparency in the criminal justice system.”
Contact Tresa Baldas: tbaldas@freepress.com
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Report details wrongful conviction of Detroit man jailed for 9 years
