Omar Abdel-Baqui: Michigan man imprisoned for nearly 4 decades exonerated after witness admits lying

By Dilip -

“Calling it the justice system gives a false impression. Just using the term ‘justice’ gives you the sense that it is a just system,” Forbes said. Black people make up about 13% of the U.S. population but account for about half of all exonerations and 54% of homicide exonerations since 1989..  

DETROIT – Walter Forbes was a full-time student at Michigan's Jackson Community College in 1982. He had dreams of owning a real estate development firm after graduating. One night that year, Forbes broke up a bar fight. He didn’t know that would change his life forever.  A man involved in the bar fight shot Forbes the next day, according to court documents.  The damage the gunshot did to Forbes’ body may have taken a few months to heal, but what happened next led to him spending nearly four decades in prison, leaving deep lifelong wounds on him and his family. The man who shot Forbes, Dennis Hall, died in his apartment in Jackson, Michigan, in a fire that appeared to be deliberately set on July 12, 1982.

Because Hall and Forbes were recently involved in an altercation, police considered Forbes a suspect in the arson. Police arrested him at his home. Forbes was convicted of arson and murder in May 1983 and was sentenced to life in prison. Forbes, 63, became a free man on Nov. 20, more than 37 years after his conviction, after the prosecution’s star witness admitted fabricating her story and evidence surfaced that the fire may have been part of an insurance fraud scheme orchestrated by the apartment building owner...

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/12/14/jackson-michigan-walter-forbes-exonerated-4-decades-prison/6537810002/

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