Eight years into her prison sentence, Michigan resident Lorinda Swain was released after the University Law School’s Innocence Clinic presented new evidence nearly one year ago for her defense in the request for a new trial.
But Swain, now 49, could be sent behind bars once again for the same crime because the Michigan Court of Appeals ruled that too much time has passed since her initial conviction.
A jury trial convicted Swain in 2002 of sexually assaulting her adopted teenage son, Ronnie, whose testimony alone put her behind bars. Shortly following Swain’s conviction, Ronnie admitted his claims of sexual assault were false and has since tried to clear his mother’s record.
Sentenced to 25 to 50 years in prison for the four counts of sexual assault she was convicted of, Swain has always maintained her innocence and wrote to the Innocence Clinic — founded in January of last year at the Law School.
Recent law school graduate Erin Opperman, a member of the student staff for the Innocence Clinic, said the group took an interest in the case upon receiving the letter from Swain last spring.
After determining that Swain was innocent through its own investigation of the information and that the conviction ought to be overturned, the clinic took on Swain’s case.
Representing the Innocence Clinic, University Law School professors Bridget McCormack and David Moran, along with University Law students Opperman, Caitlin Plummer and Imran Syed — who is also an Arts writer for The Michigan Daily — conducted a search for new evidence to help overturn Swain’s conviction, which a press release issued by the clinic states the original defense attorneys failed to bring to the court’s attention.
In a new July 2009 hearing under Calhoun County Circuit Court Judge Conrad Sindt — the same judge who oversaw Swain’s initial conviction — the clinic presented the court with Ronnie’s new notarized testimony along with other evidence not available in the 2002 trial.
According to the release, Ronnie admitted that when he was 13 years old in 2002, he was caught molesting a younger relative and, to protect himself, filed the initial accusation of his mother.
Among the new evidence were testimonies from Tanya Winterburn, Ronnie’s bus driver at the time of the alleged incidents, and William Risk, a boy who lived in the same neighborhood as Swain and her son at the time. The accounts of both witnesses contradicted Ronnie’s original statement.
With the new information presented, Sindt granted Swain a new trial and ordered her release from prison in August of last year, the press release said.
But when Sindt’s decision was brought in front of the Michigan Court of Appeals by the prosecution on Jun. 8, the court ruled that, regardless of whether the new evidence proved Swain’s innocence, too much time had passed since the conviction for a retrial to take place.
Opperman, who joined the Innocence Clinic in January 2009, has worked on Swain’s case since it was taken up, said the clinic knew fairly early on in the quest for retrial that prosecutors would argue too much time has passed since Swain’s conviction.
“The prosecutors have been basically unwilling to speak to us,” she said.
Opperman also said that this case isn’t the first difficult relationship with prosecuting attorneys for the Innocence Clinic.
“We’ve had some contentious relationships with prosecutors,” Opperman said. “They’re very similar to us, the defense attorneys, in that they are vigorously advocating their position … Though I can’t say that we’ve had quite the struggle (in the past) that we’ve had in Lorinda’s case.”
The next move for the Innocence Clinic is to appeal the decision to the Michigan Supreme Court, which has the option of rejecting the case, ultimately upholding the Court of Appeals’ decision.
The clinic’s argument for the Supreme Court is that the appellate court’s interpretation of Michigan Court rules unconstitutionally keeps innocent people from being released from prison.
The Innocence Clinic stated in the press release that a decision from the Michigan Supreme Court could change the fate of wrongly convicted people across the state.
“In contrast to the Michigan Court of Appeals’ decision in this case, American courts have long recognized that procedural rules must yield in cases where a prisoner can prove that he or she is completely innocent,” the press release said.
If the Supreme Court does take the case, it could still choose to maintain the Michigan Court of Appeals’ decision, which would likely send Swain back to prison to complete her sentence.
On Jun. 21, Sindt ruled that Swain’s bond would not be revoked during the continuation of court proceedings and that she may continue to stay on her parents’ farm.
Opperman added that the fight with the prosecution’s office is particularly interesting because, with the new statement from Ronnie, there is no victim in the case.
“We don’t know who the prosecutor is fighting for right now,” she said.
Opperman said that if the Michigan Supreme Court either does not take the case or upholds the Court of Appeals’ decision, the Innocence Clinic intends to take the case to federal court.