A Michigan man who spent the last 15 years in prison for a murder he didn’t commit is still adjusting to freedom. C’quan Hinton, 33, was finally exonerated after being arrested during school lunch in 2007.
“Four and a half months don’t wash away the last 15 years,” Hinton told Clay Cane on Feb. 16.
Hinton’s wrongful conviction case follows a familiar pattern where prosecutors’ overreliance on a single witness costs an innocent person many years of their life.
Hinton’s life changed on Oct. 9, 2007, when Robert Person, 14, was shot three times in Burton, Michigan, just outside of Flint, Michigan. He later died at the hospital from his gunshot wound injuries.
During the police investigation, police recovered “35 shell casings,” according to The National Registry of Exonerations.
Investigators started connecting a slew of people related to Person’s shooting. On October 13, 2007, another shooting occurred at a convenience store near the location of Person’s shooting. During that investigation, police found a gun with shell casings that matched those found in Person’s shooting days earlier.
Seven days after Person’s shooting, then-15-year-old Jarylle Murphy came forward as a witness to Person’s shooting, telling Flint police what he saw. He told police he saw Person was confronted by four men with guns in a gray Dodge van. He gave a recorded interview detailing the description of the shooters’ physical appearance and the kinds of firearms used during the shooting. He said the guns included “two handguns, one AK-47, and one TEC-9.”
Police showed Murphy a photographic lineup of potential suspects, and Murphy identified Hinton as one of the gunmen. Murphy was shown another photographic lineup on Nov. 8, 2007, in a follow-up interview with police. During the second interview, Murphy identified Kino Christian, Dartanion Edwards, and Joshun Edwards as the other men alongside Hinton on the day of Person’s…
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