“A man who spent nearly half his life in prison because Detroit police allegedly framed him for a murder he did not commit has sued the city and five Detroit police officers, according to a federal lawsuit filed Wednesday.
Kenneth Nixon, now 37, spent 16 years in prison after being sentenced to life without parole in prison for killing a 1-year-old and 10-year-old in a house fire in Detroit. At his 2005 sentencing, Nixon told the judge, “I just would like you to know that you’re about to sentence an innocent man to prison,” according to the lawsuit.
The lawsuit alleges Detroit police officers manufactured false evidence and suppressed exculpatory evidence that should have been given to him and his attorneys. Nixon was released from prison in February 2021 after investigations by the Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office Conviction Integrity Unit and the Cooley Law School Innocence Project.
“Rather than investigate the fire and determine the identity of the true perpetrator, Defendant Officers short-circuited the police investigation and fabricated evidence to corroborate (the teen’s) coached and false identification of Plaintiff,” according to the lawsuit…” Read the entire article from the Detroit News here.