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Prosecutors will not retry man after fatal Royal Oak Township fire conviction overturned

By Amber Ainsworth
Updated  September 30, 2021 5:19pm EDT
Crime and Public Safety
FOX 2 Detroit

Man convicted of killing 5 in house fire in 2001 freed

Juwan Deering will not be re-tried for the 2001 fire that killed 5 children in Royal Oak Township after the Oakland County Prosecutor said the conviction was based on a bumbled investigation.

ROYAL OAK TOWNSHIP, Mich. (FOX 2) - A man will not be retried after his conviction in connection with a fatal fire was overturned.

Read: Judge erases conviction of man in arson case

Juwan Deering was serving a life sentence in prison for an arson that killed five children in Royal Oak Township 20 years ago.

A judge erased Deering's sentence last week after Oakland County Prosecutor Karen McDonald began investigating past misconduct in her office and found that Deering did not receive due process or a fair trial.

McDonald said there was prosecutorial misconduct and withheld evidence.

"They essentially fabricated evidence against him by using jailhouse informants," said Imran Syed, from the University of Michigan Law School Innocence Clinic. "They gave benefits to those informants that were not disclosed at trial. And so the jury was told these were honest citizens who were testifying to the truth when really they were incentivized by benefits given to them by police and prosecution."

Judge tosses convictions in fatal arson case that killed 5 children

The University of Michigan Law School Innocence Clinic has been advocating for Juwan Deering for more than a decade, but the ball really started rolling when Oakland County Prosecutor Karen McDonald began investigating past misconduct in her office.