DETROIT – At 19 years old, Kenneth Nixon was sentenced to life in prison without parole for an arson murder case. Nearly 16 years later, in 2021, he was exonerated.
Now, Nixon wants the city to pay for what his attorneys called a botched case with manufactured evidence.
Wednesday (June 28) morning, Nixon’s attorneys filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the City of Detroit and the Detroit Police Department’s investigating officers at the time of the incident, including Detective Moises Jimenez, Commander James Tolbert, Detective Kurtiss Staples, Sgt. Eddie Croxton, Officer Alma Hughes-Grubbs, and others as-of-yet unknown city employees.
Local 4 did reach out to the city and DPD, but both declined to comment.
Nixon said the money was just one aspect of the lawsuit, but the bigger picture was criminal justice reform.
“This is about getting it right and fixing the system,” said Nixon as several other exonerated men stood behind him.
Nixon said while he sat in prison for close to 16 years for something he did not do, the people he claimed were responsible were not held accountable.
“You were rewarded with advances in your career,” Nixon said. “You were allowed to leave with your pension intact after wrecking countless lives. We don’t know how many wrongful convictions these people are responsible for.”
Nixon’s attorneys are accusing the defendants in the lawsuit of fabricating and withholding evidence.
“One such piece of evidence was a memo that, if I recall correctly, Kurtiss Staples wrote to Tolbert, making the observation that the witness was obviously coached by family,” said Kathyrn James of Goodman, Hurwitz and James.
She also mentioned other memos that were not shared with Nixon’s defense team during the murder trial, along with multiple alibi witnesses and evidence Nixon passed a polygraph.
Nixon and attorneys at Goodman, Hurwitz and James are hoping the lawsuit becomes groundbreaking because, along with money, they are seeking declaratory relief where the court would declare what happened to Nixon as unconstitutional.
“With that type of judicial ruling, we are hoping to send a powerful message to the people who rule this city and cities all over the country,” said Attorney Julie Hurwitz of Goodman, Hurwitz and James.
“I don’t want to be having this conversation 20 years from now with some kid that faced the same injustice because we didn’t fix it,” Nixon said.
Nixon is currently a political science student at Wayne State University. He wants to become a lawyer.