(CBS-DETROIT) – A Detroit man who spent the past 11 years in prison will be released after a judge vacated his convictions and sentences, officials said.
Duane Williams, 53, was convicted of murder and served a life sentence after it was alleged he started a fire at a Detroit home in August 2012 that killed two people, court records show.
Wayne County Circuit Judge Bradley Cobb vacated his convictions and sentences and granted a personal recognizance bond while prosecutors review the case during another pretrial period.
The evidence used to convict Williams included “the all-too-common dynamics of a wrongful conviction,” according to a news release from the State Appellate Defender Office.
This includes an “unreliable jailhouse informant” who had said that Williams had confessed to committing the arson and that no interview was provided to the defense at his trial that contradicted the information provided by this informant.
At trial, a fire investigator testified that no smoking materials were present near where the fire started, and that the defense never received a report or photo evidence of smoking materials. Additionally, a fire investigator told the State Appellate Defender Office that “an accident cannot be ruled out as a cause of fire.”
“Duane has been wrongfully imprisoned for more than 11 years and is fighting for his freedom,” said SADO Assistant Public Defender Maya Menlo, his attorney. “Thanks to his perseverance and intellect, Duane’s unconstitutional convictions came to the attention of SADO, the Cooley Innocence Project, Clemency Investigations and the Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office’s Conviction Integrity Unit. After so many years we are happy that he has won some. relief.”
The public defender’s office worked on Williams’ case with the Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office Conviction Integrity Unit and the Western Michigan University Cooley Law School Innocence Project.
