– Photo by John Meiu
By Linda Laderman
Legal News
Sentenced in 1988 in Wayne County for a murder they didn’t commit, the Highers brothers, Tommy and Raymond, served 25 years of a life sentence before they were exonerated in 2013.
Tommy Highers, along with Western Michigan University Cooley Law School criminal law assistant professor Erika Breitfeld and State Appellate Defender Valerie Newman, recently revisited the Highers brothers’ ordeal for law students when the school’s Criminal Law Society presented “Making a Murderer.”
The 60 law students who attended the March 22 program watched the 2014 “Dateline” segment on the case, followed by remarks from Highers and Newman.
According to Breitfeld, the meeting was as instructive as it was reflective on what defense attorneys and prosecutors should to do to bring a case to a just conclusion.
“This was an example to young lawyers on the importance of principle, of understanding how powerful a job an attorney can be,” Breitfeld said. “Think of the practice of law as the pursuit of justice, don’t keep track of your wins. That is not being a great lawyer.
Because Brietfeld is a former prosecutor and Newman a state appellate defender, Brietfeld said the two “often discuss ways we can promote justice rather than an ‘Us v. Them’ mentality in the criminal justice system.”
“We brought this to our students to give them the opportunity to ask questions about how this horrible mistake happened,” she said.
For that purpose, Newman and Highers dissected the case from its beginning with the 1987 murder of drug dealer, “Old Man Bob,” Robert Karey, to the Highers brothers’ 1988 conviction and exoneration 25 years later.
Throughout an unsuccessful 18-year appeals process, the brothers maintained their innocence and belief that justice would be served.
But not until a seemingly innocuous 2009 Facebook post prompted a series of events that led to fresh revelations in the case did the court agree to hear the new evidence.
Newman, who represented the brothers after new developments in the case were brought to her attention, and Highers recounted how the brothers voluntarily went to the police, without legal counsel, to talk about the murder after a jailhouse informant said he heard the brothers were involved in the murder.
“So they go talk to the police and never walk about again,” Newman said.
Added Highers, “If I’d committed that crime, I’d never went there. I was there for 72 hours before I knew I was in trouble. That’s when everything started.”
A person of interest voluntarily talking to the police is not unusual, Newman said, because he or she knows they’ve done nothing wrong.
“It is a hallmark of the wrongfully convicted,” Newman said.
“Don’t believe everything the police say,” Newman said. “It is your job to question to investigate, to find an alternative story. I’ve had clients who were charged with first degree murder when the guy died of natural causes.”
In support of Newman’s determination to fill in the gaps that were created during the Highers brothers’ litigation, Breitfeld said, “I haven’t been privy to the documents in the case, but to me the case was circumstantial, which is okay but there were so many questions that were left unanswered.”
Breitfeld said she wants her students to take away the importance of being willing to question how the case can be best handled and to critically think regardless if you are a defense attorney or the prosecutor.
“There is a gap with this generation of law students that is due in part to the reliance on technology,” she said “The lack of physical evidence like a video, text or DNA does not mean you can’t prove a case. There has to be a balanced perspective.”
The lesson is “in the importance of being a great lawyer,” Breitfeld said.
“The measure of that is the ability to be fair and ethical,” she said. “With this presentation we are using a tragedy, a mistake to show Cooley’s law students how this could have been prevented. There could have been a different outcome.”
The responsibility to be fair “transcends your position in the case,” Breitfeld said.
“Look at how important being a lawyer is in all the small but important decisions that are presented,” she said. “If you’re a prosecutor, ask questions. You can still respect the police and ask for more. It is all about delivery and how you carry yourself.”
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