The Wrongful Conviction of Davontae Sanford

I am the mother of now two grown boys. My oldest never gave me much trouble growing up, which was just fine considering the younger one seemed sometimes to be a trouble magnet. Now, I am not one of those mothers who believed her child was always innocent, I knew better. But also learned that with the growing reputation every time something happened in the neighborhood it seemed as if the police were at my door. Most of it was petty things but it was still aggravating. This had come about because he done something more serious that had garnered him probation when he was fourteen, the same age Davontae Sanford was when he was charged with four counts of murder.

With the incident with my son, first the officer lied as to why they asked my husband and I to bring our son to the police station. On the way there my son confession to breaking into the garage of a nearby summer home and taking some things. Once at the station the officer took my husband and I aside and admitted why he had really asked us there. Amid the conversation with us he mentioned that we would start the interview with us all in the room and “depending” on how it went he would maybe want to talk to him alone. In a calm but I am sure what sounded like a “snarly” voice I just stated “We will see,” knowing there was no way I was leaving my son in a room with an officer alone. Once inside the interrogation room the officer began talking about the house we knew about and my son had confessed to. Again, my son openly admits his role. Suddenly the officer starts bringing up two other incidents. Nothing was taken in either of the other two crimes and obviously they did not have any prints of any kind. The officer indicated that someone had witnessed “two blond boys” walking away from one of them. My son staunchly stood his ground. The officer pressed and pressed him saying things like “Come on, you confessed to the more serious one, just fess up;” and “We have witnesses, this won't look good for you in court.” My son continued to state his innocence. Thinking he was getting one over on us the officer decided to leave the room, presumably so he could listen since there was a speaker and a recorder in the room. He came back into the room some ten or fifteen minutes later and tried his tactics again, pushing the other two crimes. Finally I had had enough. When he once again said they had witnesses and how court would look at things I piped up ending the interview and brought up a lawyer. We were done being cooperative. I was proud of my son for standing his ground, and in the end they found the two boys responsible for the other break ins. Minor things were taken, and returned and my son got probation, but it could have been so much worse. What if I had not been in the room and defended him? What if they would have tried to keep him longer and wore him down in time? What if my son was not so strong willed? My son could have been Davontae Sanford... your son could have been Davontae Sanford.

On September 17, 2007 officers in Detroit were called to a shooting. It was said to be a drug house on the east side of town. Inside the home were four dead bodies (three men and one woman), another woman who had been shot multiple times and a seventeen years old boy who had been left unharmed. The Detroit police chaplain lived nearby and when he heard the gunshots he went outside. The officer, Jesse King, saw two men running from the scene and while he, and the perpetrators exchanged gunfire no one else was injured and the two men got away. King would describe the two men to responding officers the best he could. One had carried a rifle as the other carried a handgun. The surviving victim, thirty year old Valerie Glover would be able to give a description of one of the shooters saying only that he was of slim build and around 6 foot tall and between thirty and thirty-five years old which matched one of the men King described. The other was simply described as being just slightly shorter. The police brought out their dogs and they picked up a trail that would be lost about two blocks from the crime scene. It was concluded that the perpetrators likely got into a car at this point and had driven away.

Among many of the onlookers was fourteen year old Davonate out in his pajamas. By all appearances it seems that he was just like so many of us adults who are out looking when something is going on in our neighborhood. Davonate has been described as “developmentally impaired” (a nice way of saying that he had a severe learning disability), blind in one eye and was known to tell “crazy” stories that were not true. On top of this many reports indicated either her could not read at all or at least not very well at all, and especially not even at a level for his age. Davonate was about five foot, fife and weighed about a hundred and fifty pounds. He looked nothing like the men that King would describe but for whatever reason officers decided to talk to him. They took him back to his home and spoke with his grandmother who he apparently either lived with or was staying with at the time and it was said that she signed a handwritten note allowing them to take him to the station. It becomes a bit confusing though here because later it was said that she did not give them permission to interrogate or officially interview him. Before taking him to the station however, officers took him to the crime scene where they ran a GSR test on his hands. The results would be negative.

Once at the police station Davontae was asked where he had been the night before. He told a story of being with some friends at a particular area, even brought up they had some guns with them. He did not admit being near the crime scene in any way and in reality his story just seemed odd. Not odd as in he was guilty and lying but just a bit weird, as in a bit outlandish. Late in the night Davontae was returned home but the following night police picked him up again. They would tell him that they had proven his story from the night before was not true. Not only were some of the places he claimed to be not opened but they had proven that the people he had claimed to be with were elsewhere. The problem was they did not tell him about the other alibi's they had proven. According to Davontae the interrogation went on for hours. Neither a lawyer, nor a parent or guardian was present with Davontae. He would later say that at some point he had asked for a lawyer but was called a “dumb ass” and that lawyers were not available at that hour of day. He was told that blood had been found on his shoes and all the other tactics officers use to attempt to get people to confess. For the record the blood on the shoes story was a lie. At some point Davontae would later say he was told that if he gave them “something” he could go home. At this point it seems he gave some sort of a confession to the murders, including as accomplices the same friends from his previous story. An officer, Sgt. Russell wrote up the statement although it is unclear if even the statement that was typed up was in any way, shape or form, matched what Davontae said. It was then that Davontae was read his Miranda Rights for the first time. He was then promptly arrested. He would be charged with four counts of first degree murder, one count of attempted murder and one count of illegal use of a firearm. It does not appear that any of the other people Davontae mentioned in his confession would ever be charged in any way. It has been said that almost immediately a psychologist was called in and Davontae would recant his supposed confession but as far as the officers were concerned the case was closed.

As far as the district attorney was concerned they were preparing for trial. Apparently a public defender was assigned to Davontae's case but his family decided to hire an attorney named Robert Slameka. They would say that he had been recommended by friends but by the sound of things it does not sound as if they could have been very good friends. Slameka did not have a great reputation among his clients and it appears that would worsen even over the years. Davontae's trial would begin on March 17, 2008, some six months after the crime was committed. On March 18^th, after never attempting to prevent the supposed confession into the court, not giving an opening statement or cross examining Officer Russell who had gotten on the stand to not only discuss the confession but claim that Davontae had drew a diagram of the crime scene with an accurate description of where each body had been found, Slameka told Davontae and his family that his only hope would be to plead guilty to second degree murder. Davontae would later say that Slameka also claimed to be friends with the judge and assured him that the prosecution had a “slam-dunk” case for first degree murder and the judge would give him a light sentence. At this point Davontae and his family believed he really had no other hope and so he did as his attorney suggested. He was sentenced to 37-90 years.

The following month a man by the name of Vincent Smothers was arrested and was questioned about the murder of the wife of a police officer. What Smothers had to say all but turned Detroit upside down. First, when it came to the murder of Rose Cobb, wife of Sgt. David Cobb, Smothers readily admitted being the shooter. Rose Cobb had been murdered on December 26, 2007 while she sat in her car in a CVS parking lot. But Smothers would claim that he had been hired to commit the murder by none other than David Cobb. Investigators would bring Cobb in the following day but would release him for lack of evidence. Cobb was still under investigation when he apparently committed suicide by hanging himself from a tree in a park in October of 2008. It appears that most believed Vincent Smothers' story. Smothers had not stopped there however. He readily admitted to killing nearly a dozen people, many of them drug dealers (he would say Rose Cobb was his first true innocent victim), all for money. Smothers claimed he was a hit-man for hire. Smothers would ultimately confess to more than a dozen murders, one of those crimes was the one in which Davontae Sanford had pleaded to just the month before. Smothers would later claim that the officers and prosecutors did not want to hear about that case and offered him a deal that if he pleaded guilty to second degree murder for pretty much all, except those, they would get him 50-100 years, but he had to keep his mouth shut about those. Smothers claims that he rejected that offer simply because he knew an innocent boy sat in prison. In the end Smothers would get the same deal only without the provision that kept him quiet. Smothes would claim that it was he and a man named Ernest “Nemo” Davis that had committed that crime. Both men would look like the men described by Jesse King on the night of the murder, something that Davontae had not done.

It was another year before attorney's working for Davontae would hear about Smothers confession to police. They would file with the court a motion to withdraw Davontae's plea deal. It was denied by the trial judge but the Michigan Court of Appeals did allow there to be a hearing on the matter. That hearing appeared to be much of a joke. The court did not allow Smothers to testify nor did they allow the defense to present expert testimony regarding false confessions. In the end all motions were denied to the defense and everything appeared to stand in the courts.

As time went on Davontae and his family continued to protest his innocence and apparently Smothers, who had not obviously been charged in that case, was not keeping quiet either. It appears that Smothers, who had once been an honors student, with a bright future, truly felt remorse for some of the things he had done and did not like the idea that Davontae was serving time for a crime he had not committed. With a sentence of 50-100 years really what did Smothers have to lose? Worse case is he would probably just plea to that case also (the courts were all about doing plea deals) and get more time added to time that already likely assured that he would die in prison. By 2014 it seems that the Michigan Innocence Clinic was representing Davontae. In March of 2015 they had a several page “detailed” affidavit from Smothers and had learned a few other things. In 2010 the Detroit Deputy Police Chief, James Tolbert testified in a post conviction hearing that while interviewing Davontae in 2007 he had handed him a blank piece of paper in which Davontae had drawn a diagram of the crime scene along with indicating where each victim was found. This was considered to be something that only the killer, and the police would have known. At his trial the diagram had become a key piece of evidence and was discussed by Sgt. Russell while on the stand. In 2015 however it seems that Tolbert, who was now the police chief in Flint Michigan, “contradicted” this statement (in other words, changed his story) and stated that Davontae had not made the drawing but he, himself, Tolbert, had created the drawing. Tolbert would be fired by the city of Flint, along with the fire chief, in February 2016 amid the well known water contamination crisis, although an official reason was never given. Even still Tolbert's comment about Davontae's case warranted the then current District Attorney too look into the case again and look at everything.

Throughout the new investigation it seems that Smothers' story was becoming more and more plausible and true. Officers eventually recovered a .45 caliber weapon where Smothers had told them it was hidden and had linked it to the murders committed in September of 2007. Citing this, but more so the issue with Tolbert and his, what the DA was calling “perjury” at the time, it was decided that it was time for Davontae to be released. It has been said that the DA has fallen short of calling Davontae “innocent” but never intends to refile charges. Davontae was released from prison on June 8 2016 and the following month all charges were officially dismissed.

It does not appear that Vincent Smothers had been charged with the four murders as of yet, and there has been talk that there could be but it does not appear to have happened yet. A look at the Michigan Department of Correction website shows Smothers as an inmate but I could find nothing on the man, Ernest Davis, that Smothers claims committed the crime with him. This is obviously a bad mark not just on the prosecutors in Detroit, but the police department in general.

Davontae's life has been chaotic since his release. In November of 2016 his stepfather was murdered. A man was convicted and sentenced for his murder but details are short because the media was fascinated on the link to Davontae. In September of 2017, the day after his attorney's had filed a federal law suit against the city of Detroit and two officers (presumably Tolbert and Russell), Davontae himself was shot in the leg. Once again facts are few on the case. There was a comment in a few of the articles that for whatever reason Davontae seemed to be “very uncooperative with police.” Well, can you really blame him?? In January of 2018 (this month) Davontae was awarded $408,000 from the state of Michigan for his wrongful conviction. The award stems from a 2016 law that allows a wrongly convicted prison a sum of $50,000 for every year they unjustly had to serve n prison. However, his federal case is still pending and as of now it is set to go to trial in January of 2019. If Davontae wins that case his attorney's believe that he will be awarded several million dollars based on other cases of its kind and per the agreement in the law Davontae would be required to pay back that $408,000. That s okay though, at least it can sustain him.

Throughout my research in this case I often thought of the case of Brenden Dassey, the teenager convicted in the Making a Murderer case. First there was the talk of Davontae being “developmentally impaired” by a learning disability. Then there was the confession that seemed obviously coerced. In the end they both had lawyers with very shoddy and questionable reputations. In fact, Davontae's original lawyer, Robert Slameka, continues to have his own issue and does not sound as if he will be practicing law in the state of Michigan ever again (although obviously that could change). In April of 2015 his law license was suspended for what was said to be the second time. He had received several reprimands and and admonishments over the years. He had also lost his driver's license several years prior after failing to pay nearly sixty different parking (or other) tickets. His law license was not suspended at the time due to anything professionally. He had apparently broken into an ex-girlfriend's home allegedly to retrieve his wallet but had taken several items he claimed to have given to her. Upon a hearing in 2016 to review the issue in which Slameka was attempting to have the Bar reinstate his license several things were discussed. First they discussed the issue of the parking tickets in which Slameka allegedly claimed his “drunken” wife was to blame because she would throw them away without informing him. An investigation revealed that Slameka's wife had died in 2008 before at least ten of the tickets were issued. Slameka's mother had died in 2005 and it was discovered that he had continued to forge her name on dividend checks she received and had placed them in his bank account. Slameka denied this until he was faced with the canceled checks. Then there were arguments about his handling of not just Davontae's case but several others including that of a man named Eddie Joe Lloyd who would also later be exonerated. At some point one of the board members referenced the television show Better Call Saul, when talking to Slameka. Apparently with all the money and homes that he owned he never really had an established office and at some point was running his business out of the lobby of a local casino. There did appear to be two judges who advocated for Slameka saying that the courts benefited from him because he saved the taxpayers and the courts a lot of money by quickly pleading cases. The state would argue that did not mean that he was an adequate attorney! The board apparently had asked Slameka to produce some things to them, including some financial records that he would later fail to do. In late 2016 the board ruled that Slameka's law license would not be returned (at least at that time) based on many things but the most important of which revolved around not just the fact that he had lied to them several times but that they felt if he was not sincere enough to “save his own butt” so to say, then how could he be expected to save someone else and give an adequate defense.

One can only hope that Detroit has learned from these errors and has changed the way they do things and who does them. While Detroit is still one of the most deadly cities in the country their numbers do appear to be falling slightly. It is said that part of the issue with Detroit is that violence is widespread as opposed to other major cities were it is often a bit more centralized in particular areas. During the 70s and 80s the city had become the most unsafe city in America. There was corruption and violence everywhere. Some could argue that it is not that Detroit has gotten safe but that the rest of America has caught up.