Oakland County Man Exonerated After Nearly 32 Years In Prison

OAKLAND COUNTY, MI — An Oakland County man will be released from prison after nearly 32 years behind bars after DNA evidence exonerated him, Michigan law enforcement authorities said on Wednesday.

Gilbert Lee Poole, Jr.'s 1989 murder conviction was vacated after a collaborated investigation between the Michigan Department of Attorney General’s Conviction Integrity Unit and the Western Michigan University Cooley Law School Innocence Project.

The conviction was set aside Wednesday morning during a hearing before Oakland County Circuit Court Judge Rae Lee Chabot. Poole, 56, who has been serving a life sentence since 1989, is now in the process of being released from the G. Robert Cotton Correctional Facility in Jackson.

“This case serves as an example of the important work being done by our Conviction Integrity Unit,” Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel said. “When we established this team in 2019, we made a commitment to ensuring those convicted of state crimes are in fact guilty while also providing justice to those wrongfully imprisoned. I appreciate the tireless work the unit put in alongside the WMU-Cooley Innocence Project to reach this outcome for Mr. Poole.”

After the Department of Attorney General formed the CIU, Poole’s Cooley Innocence Project attorney Marla Mitchell-Cichon asked the unit to review Poole’s case, according to a news release. Following its own investigation, the CIU, led by Assistant Attorney General Robyn Frankel, moved to have Poole’s conviction vacated and requested dismissal of all charges.

DNA Evidence Overturns Conviction

The body was Robert Mejia was found in Pontiac in June 1988. He'd been stabbed to death, officials said. He had last been seen at a Pontiac bar, with several people providing a description of a man seen leaving the bar with him.

No leads developed despite drawings of the man being published in local media, officials said.

Later that year, Poole's girlfriend implicated him in the murder, authorities said Wednesday, leading to him being arrested. An expert testified that Poole's teeth matched a bit mark found on the victim's body.

But that bite mark analysis was discredited in the years following the conviction, authorities said.

Post-conviction DNA testing was done on crime scene evidence, showing unknown DNA found on and around Mejia's body. The DNA did not match Poole’s DNA nor the victim’s DNA, officials said.

The resulting DNA exclusion led the attorney general's CIU to conduct a full investigation, during which it determined Poole's innocence.

“Mr. Poole’s conviction was based on unreliable evidence, including bite mark comparison which is not based in science,” Mitchell-Cichon said. “I commend the Michigan Attorney General and her establishment of a conviction integrity unit that will investigate claims of innocence and uncover the truth.”