Michigan Law professor David A. Moran gives his farewell Blue Jeans Lecture.
By Annie Hagstrom
Michigan Law
Professor David A. Moran is best known for co-founding the Michigan Innocence Clinic. It’s fitting then, that in his farewell Blue Jeans Lecture to the Michigan Law community, he shared the floor with one of his final exonerees.
In May, Michigan Law students selected Moran to receive the 2024 Award for Excellence in Clinical and Experiential Teaching. During the nomination process, students praised Moran as an “absolute gem” and lauded his ability to bring wit and excitement to an 8 a.m. class.
The Law School Student Senate, which sponsors the faculty awards program, invites recipients to deliver a Blue Jeans Lecture—a nod to the days when professors dressed in business attire to teach classes—on a topic of their choosing.
Moran’s lecture in early December comes at a significant moment in his career, as he prepares to retire from teaching.
At the Law School, he has taught criminal law and criminal procedure as well as hundreds of students in the Michigan Innocence Clinic (MIC), which he co-founded in 2009 with Professor Bridget Mary McCormack, who was a full-time member of the faculty until she left the Law School in 2012 to serve on the Michigan Supreme Court.
Moran and McCormack created the Innocence Clinic to litigate prisoners’ claims of innocence in cases where DNA evidence isn’t available. In the 15 years since its founding, 45 people have been exonerated thanks to the efforts of faculty and more than 200 student-attorneys. Moran has also published a number of articles about criminal law and argued six times before the US Supreme Court.
In his Blue Jeans Lecture, Moran shared the story of one of the MIC’s most recently exonerated clients, who was in attendance.
“There are about 30,000 people in prison in Michigan right now,” said Moran, noting that wrongful convictions not only exact a huge toll on the incarcerated individuals and their loved ones but are tremendously costly for society as a whole. “The Michigan Innocence Clinic has taken on approximately 70 cases and won 45. Case number 44, LaVone Hill, who served nearly 23 years, exemplifies so much of the work the students in the clinic do.”
—————
From a life sentence to a new life
In Detroit on the night of September 8, 2001, a group of men were playing dice in front of an abandoned house when a shooter opened fire, killing two of the dice players. The police who responded to the killings obtained no cooperation from eyewitnesses.
However, a few days later, a police detective, Walter Bates, picked up a man and held him in custody until he agreed to sign a statement that Hill was the shooter.
The man testified in a trial that Bates had coerced him into signing the statement but that he wasn’t there and didn’t know who committed the murders. Bates denied the coercion, and Hill was convicted of the two murders, even though there was no other evidence that he was at the scene, much less that he was the shooter.
Approximately 12 years later, Hill learned of the MIC and submitted his case, asking Moran and the students at Michigan Law for help. Over the next few years, the clinic uncovered four new pieces of evidence for Hill’s case that proved his innocence, implicated another man as the real killer, and discredited Bates (who was convicted of multiple bank robberies one year after Hill’s trial). In October of this year, he was freed from prison, and his convictions were vacated.
After outlining Hill’s case, Moran gave him the floor.
“It was a long, hard journey, those almost 23 years in prison,” Hill told the audience. “I can’t explain what was going through my mind all those years. But the day I walked into that place, I told myself I’d be walking out someday.”
He continued, “Dave and the Michigan Innocence Clinic spent countless hours working on my case, and, at times, they believed in me more than I believed in myself. Without this school, I would still be in that place. I’m happy to be home, and I look forward to being a productive, tax-paying citizen, living a good-quality life, and enjoying the best of everything. I want to be an example for the hundreds of men still in there, those who are denied due process and equal justice, those who are innocent but haven’t had the opportunity I have.”
Moran closed his final lecture by expressing gratitude to Michigan Law, Jenna Cobb—who now serves as MIC’s co-director, alongside Imran Syed, ’11—and the students with whom he has worked in the clinic.
“It has been the joy of my life to co-found this clinic, see it flourish, and know that this work will continue without me,” said Moran. “So, I am riding off into the sunset on my cross-country skis—I’m mixing metaphors, but I thank all of you for this award.”
Michigan Law
Professor David A. Moran is best known for co-founding the Michigan Innocence Clinic. It’s fitting then, that in his farewell Blue Jeans Lecture to the Michigan Law community, he shared the floor with one of his final exonerees.
In May, Michigan Law students selected Moran to receive the 2024 Award for Excellence in Clinical and Experiential Teaching. During the nomination process, students praised Moran as an “absolute gem” and lauded his ability to bring wit and excitement to an 8 a.m. class.
The Law School Student Senate, which sponsors the faculty awards program, invites recipients to deliver a Blue Jeans Lecture—a nod to the days when professors dressed in business attire to teach classes—on a topic of their choosing.
Moran’s lecture in early December comes at a significant moment in his career, as he prepares to retire from teaching.
At the Law School, he has taught criminal law and criminal procedure as well as hundreds of students in the Michigan Innocence Clinic (MIC), which he co-founded in 2009 with Professor Bridget Mary McCormack, who was a full-time member of the faculty until she left the Law School in 2012 to serve on the Michigan Supreme Court.
Moran and McCormack created the Innocence Clinic to litigate prisoners’ claims of innocence in cases where DNA evidence isn’t available. In the 15 years since its founding, 45 people have been exonerated thanks to the efforts of faculty and more than 200 student-attorneys. Moran has also published a number of articles about criminal law and argued six times before the US Supreme Court.
In his Blue Jeans Lecture, Moran shared the story of one of the MIC’s most recently exonerated clients, who was in attendance.
“There are about 30,000 people in prison in Michigan right now,” said Moran, noting that wrongful convictions not only exact a huge toll on the incarcerated individuals and their loved ones but are tremendously costly for society as a whole. “The Michigan Innocence Clinic has taken on approximately 70 cases and won 45. Case number 44, LaVone Hill, who served nearly 23 years, exemplifies so much of the work the students in the clinic do.”
—————
From a life sentence to a new life
In Detroit on the night of September 8, 2001, a group of men were playing dice in front of an abandoned house when a shooter opened fire, killing two of the dice players. The police who responded to the killings obtained no cooperation from eyewitnesses.
However, a few days later, a police detective, Walter Bates, picked up a man and held him in custody until he agreed to sign a statement that Hill was the shooter.
The man testified in a trial that Bates had coerced him into signing the statement but that he wasn’t there and didn’t know who committed the murders. Bates denied the coercion, and Hill was convicted of the two murders, even though there was no other evidence that he was at the scene, much less that he was the shooter.
Approximately 12 years later, Hill learned of the MIC and submitted his case, asking Moran and the students at Michigan Law for help. Over the next few years, the clinic uncovered four new pieces of evidence for Hill’s case that proved his innocence, implicated another man as the real killer, and discredited Bates (who was convicted of multiple bank robberies one year after Hill’s trial). In October of this year, he was freed from prison, and his convictions were vacated.
After outlining Hill’s case, Moran gave him the floor.
“It was a long, hard journey, those almost 23 years in prison,” Hill told the audience. “I can’t explain what was going through my mind all those years. But the day I walked into that place, I told myself I’d be walking out someday.”
He continued, “Dave and the Michigan Innocence Clinic spent countless hours working on my case, and, at times, they believed in me more than I believed in myself. Without this school, I would still be in that place. I’m happy to be home, and I look forward to being a productive, tax-paying citizen, living a good-quality life, and enjoying the best of everything. I want to be an example for the hundreds of men still in there, those who are denied due process and equal justice, those who are innocent but haven’t had the opportunity I have.”
Moran closed his final lecture by expressing gratitude to Michigan Law, Jenna Cobb—who now serves as MIC’s co-director, alongside Imran Syed, ’11—and the students with whom he has worked in the clinic.
“It has been the joy of my life to co-found this clinic, see it flourish, and know that this work will continue without me,” said Moran. “So, I am riding off into the sunset on my cross-country skis—I’m mixing metaphors, but I thank all of you for this award.”
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