Man Wrongfully Imprisoned For 26 Years, Police Hid Evidence Of Innocence

My Fox Detriot
Feb. 12, 2015

A Detroit man is expected to be awarded $2.5 million after spending years in prison for a crime he didn't commit.

"He's struggling mightily to survive in a world that's completely foreign to him," says attorney Julie Hurwitz. "He served half his life in prison as an innocent man."

Now that money is supposed to right the wrong after a bungled rape investigation that led to a then-21-year-old to spend nearly three decades in prison.

You'll have to excuse his lawyer for calling that settlement "bittersweet."

"We feel relieved but at the same time we are extremely disappointed with the way this case was defended by the city of Detroit," Hurwitz says. "This is a case that should have never taken this long.

"Mr. Swift should've been compensated far greater than what he is being compensated, for 26 years of wrongful imprisonment."

Swift was released in 2008 after a decade-long investigation by the Innocence Project.

Hurwitz says police misconduct cost her client his freedom.

"There was exculpatory evidence hidden from both the prosecutor and defense in this case that led to the ability to convict Walter Swift," she says.

Hurwitz says investigators never disclosed that the victim identified seven other people before identifying Swift.

There were also a pair of lab tests taken to determine the rapist's blood type. One was inconclusive. The other proved Swift was innocent.

"That was buried by the officers in charge of this case," Hurwitz says.

And 21 years after the crime he did not commit, the investigating officer came clean.

"She disclosed (to the officer) that she knew this man was innocent and she never intended to pursue this prosecution," Hurwitz says. "Because it was a high profile rape that occurred in Indian Village by an African-American man, the victim was a white woman her husband was a lawyer, they needed to solve this crime."

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