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Faulty jailhouse informant testimonies may lead to more wrongfully convicted men being released from prison

By and Fox 2 Staff
Updated  February 10, 2021 12:53am EST
Crime and Public Safety
FOX 2 Detroit

Faulty jailhouse informant testimonies lead to more wrongfully convicted men being released from prison.

A wrongfully convicted man was released after spending 26 years in prison behind faulty testimony, more men to be released.

DETROIT, Mich. - There was no forensic evidence linking Larry Smith to a murder from 1994 - only a witness who saw a suspect run away - and jailhouse testimony that Smith confessed, and yet he spent more than 26 years behind bars for a murder he says he never committed.     

This past week Smith was set free after the Wayne County Prosecutor's Conviction Integrity Unit recommended his release - not just because of weak evidence but unreliable jailhouse snitch testimony.      

Fox 2’s Hilary Golston spoke to civil rights attorney Wolf Mueller who's represented other men who've been let go based on bad testimony from incarcerated informants.

Mueller is convinced more people could be released because of police misconduct surrounding the unreliability of jailhouse testimony.