Kevin Harrington was 20 years old when he was arrested for the 2002 murder of Michael Martin in Inkster. Police had no physical or forensic evidence linking Harrington to the crime, and there was no clear connection between him and the victim. The prosecution’s case depended on Bearia Stewart, a nearby resident who initially told police that she knew nothing about the shooting and had not heard any gunfire. Stewart later implicated Harrington and George Clark after a detective threatened to keep her at the station and suggested that her children could be placed with social services. At Harrington’s first trial, Stewart claimed that she could not remember much of her earlier testimony. The judge declared her unavailable, allowed her prior testimony to be read to the jury, and prevented the defense from cross-examining her. Harrington was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life without parole. A judge granted Harrington a new trial in 2004, finding that the restrictions on cross-examination and his attorney’s courtroom conduct had deprived him of a fair trial. Two subsequent trials ended with juries unable to reach a verdict. At his fourth trial, Stewart recanted and testified that she had not witnessed the murder but falsely accused Harrington because she feared losing her children. Medical experts also testified that Martin’s injuries did not support Stewart’s original account that he had been kicked, beaten with a pipe, stomped, or dragged. Nevertheless, prosecutors portrayed her recantation as the result of intimidation, and Harrington was convicted again in 2006 and sentenced to life in prison. A later reinvestigation by the Michigan Innocence Clinic and the Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office Conviction Integrity Unit uncovered witnesses who identified another man as the shooter and reported that he had confessed to the crime. The review also documented a broader pattern of coercion and intimidation by the detective who obtained Stewart’s accusation, including the detention and threatening of a potential alibi witness. In April 2020, prosecutors agreed that the evidence against Harrington could no longer support his conviction. The court vacated his conviction, dismissed all charges, and released him after he had spent more than 16 years wrongfully incarcerated. (National Registry of Exonerations)