Detroit Man To Be Released From Prison After Investigation

DETROIT — A 34-year-old Detroit man who has been in prison since 2005 is expected to be released Thursday after a Wayne County Conviction Integrity Unit investigation concluded he did not receive a fair trial.

Kenneth Nixon was 18 when he was convicted in a Wayne County courtroom of first-degree murder and felony firearm and sentenced to life in prison without parole. But Wayne County prosecutors on Wednesday said it found several issues with Nixon's conviction, including inconsistent statements made by a 13-year-old witness in the case and a jailhouse informant who lied about seeing news coverage of the case.

“The issues and findings of the CIU have convinced me that Mr. Nixon did not receive a fair trial," Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy said Wednesday. "The 13-year-old witness was the victim of a devastating arson fire that killed his infant sister and his young brother in their home. The statements and testimony by this key witness were inconsistent to support what is basically the sole identification of Mr. Nixon. These statements were properly given by the prosecutor to the defense in discovery for use in the case."

Nixon is scheduled for a hearing at 1 p.m. Thursday before Wayne County Judge Bruce Morrow in which Nixon is expected to be released from prison custody, prosecutors said. He has been lodged in the Michigan Reformatory prison, a Level 2 Security prison in Ionia County.

“This was a collaborative effort between our office and the Wayne County Conviction Integrity Unit, said David Williams, an attorney with the Cooley Law School Innocence Project. "A vital part of the justice system is ensuring that convictions rest on sound evidence and investigative practices. Thanks to the effort."

May 19, 2005

Shortly before midnight on May 19, 2005, a molotov cocktail was thrown into a home in the 19420 block of Charleston, killing a 10-year-old boy and 1-year-old girl, prosecutors said. The mother of those two children and her other children, including a 13-year-old boy, were also in the home at the time and were injured, prosecutors said.

Nixon, 18 at the time, and his girlfriend, LaToya Caulford, were both charged with two counts of felony murder, one count of arson and four counts of attempted murder in the case, prosecutors said. Caulford was charged as a co-defendant after prosecutors at the time said she drove Nixon to the home.

Caulford was eventually acquitted in a September 2005 jury trial, prosecutors said. Nixon, however, was convicted on Sept. 21, 2005, and sentenced to two life terms for felony murder. Those life sentences were to be served concurrently with a 20- 40-year prison term for an assault with intent to murder conviction and a 10- t0 20-year prison sentence for an arson conviction.

Prosecutors on Wednesday said the main issue at Nixon's trial was the identification of the suspect who threw the molotov cocktail. The identification of Nixon was based on statements and trial testimony of the 13-year-old boy inside the home, prosecutors said.

The only other person corroborating that Nixon was the person who threw the molotov cocktail was a jailhouse informant who told a homicide detective that Nixon admitted to firebombing the Charleston street house, prosecutors said.

The informant testified at the trial and said he had never seen news coverage of the case prior to speaking to Nixon, prosecutors said. The informant would later receive a shortened sentence in exchange for a guilty plea in an unrelated case, according to prosecutors.

“What is highly suspect here is the use of a jail informant by a homicide officer to gain a 'confession,'" Worthy said. "The informant testified that he had no knowledge of the case from watching tv to bolster his credibility. Years later he admitted that before Mr. Nixon allegedly confessed to him, the informant had seen details of the case on television. These and other issues support the grant of relief to Mr. Nixon today.”

Conviction Integrity Investigation

Wayne County prosecutors said the investigation by the county's conviction integrity unit concluded that Nixon did not receive a fair trial because he and Caulford were together at a different area in the city at the time of the crime, but Caulford did not testify to this at either her or Nixon's trial. There also were witnesses placing them at the separate location, but they did not testify to this, prosecutors said.

The unit also found that the 13-year-old witness in the case made inconsistent statements to police and at trial, prosecutors said. Because of those inconsistent statements, prosecutors inferred, detectives turned to a jailhouse informant who incriminated Nixon while getting special consideration in an unrelated case.

Prosecutors said that while the informant said he did not see any media reports on the case, in a 2018 interview with the Medill Justice Project, he said he had seen the case on television before speaking to Nixon. The conviction integrity unit was unable to contact the informant during its investigation.

During the investigation, prosecutors said, a K-9 unit identified the scent of accelerants on Nixon's shoes and clothes, but the conviction integrity unit report concluded that Nixon, who worked as a tow truck driver and had been working on cars the day of the fire, could have picked up those scents at work.