Wrongfully Convicted Michigan Man Freed After 37 Years In Prison

JACKSON, MI — A Michigan man who spent more than 37 years in prison for a crime he did not commit has been freed.

Walter Forbes was a college student in 1982 with hopes of beginning a career in real estate upon graduation, according to a report from the Detroit Free Press. But a year later, he was convicted of arson and murder in connection with a fatal apartment fire in Jackson and sentenced to life in prison.

Forbes sat in prison until his exoneration just a month ago.

The prosecution's main piece of evidence, a witness who identified him as one of three people who set the fire, admitted to lying about it in 2017. The other two people the witness falsely identified didn't spend any time in prison, according to the Free Press. Charges were dismissed against one, and the other was acquitted.

Still, Forbes remained behind bars for decades, including three years after the witness said she was intimidated to lie about what she saw.

Imran Syed, the attorney who represented Forbes in his post-conviction process, described to Patch the extent of such a miscarriage of justice.

"This is a tragic case, where a person was killed and his family never got justice, while Walter was wrongfully convicted and the witness against him was intimidated into lying," Syed said.

All along, Forbes maintained his innocence.

“I didn’t think it would take that long, but patience paid off,” he told the Free Press.

Read More On Patch: Wrongfully Convicted In America — Failed Justice And Lost Years

Syed praised his client's "faith and perseverance" in the decades before the truth came out.

"I am grateful to the judge for throwing out the conviction and also to the prosecution for dismissing the charges," Syed said. "I am also saddened about how long it took to get here."

Syed was part of the legal team that represented Richard Phillips, who, according to the National Registry of Exonerations, spent the longest time in prison for a crime it was later determined he was not guilty of. Phillips, another Michigan man, was behind bars from 1972 to 2017.

"Michigan does tend to have a lot of exonerations, and that does mean that there were a lot of errors made in our criminal justice system," Syed said, crediting the creation of the Conviction Integrity Unit in the Wayne County Prosecutor's office for the high number of exonerations in the state.

In the case involving Forbes, evidence was later presented that suggests the apartment fire was set intentionally as part of an insurance scheme by the building owner, who was later convicted in a separate arson conspiracy scheme in Livingston County, the Free Press reported.

The building owner, David Jones, received $50,000 in insurance money from the fire that led to Forbes' conviction, according to the newspaper. He died in 2010.