August 7, 1995

Governor John Engler
The Capitol
Lansing, Michigan

Dear Governor,

It has been two years since a trial in the Malice Green case ended with stiff prison sentences for Larry Nevers and Walter Budzyn. Not a day goes by that I don’t think about the injustice that was done to these police officers. And not a week passes without queries from readers, law enforcement officials or journalists around the country.

I am writing to ask that prison sentences for Nevers and Budzyn, who have already served two years in addition to the ordeal of a lengthy trial, be commuted. And I am asking from the vantage point of someone who covered every moment of the trial from start to finish, as a reporter for The Detroit News.

In hindsight, it is my personal opinion that these men were scapegoats for a political machine which used them for its own ends by setting off a racially biased frenzy for conviction. Within 48 working hours of the November 1992, tragedy that ended Green’s life, city officials had supplied Green family lawyers with enough confidential information - much of which later proved wrong - to file a $5.25 million suit. Within days, then-Mayor Coleman Young went on national television to call the officers murders. Police Chief Stanley Knox added inflammatory statements in suspending the men, and refused to allow the police review board to investigate, thus denying the officers due process or a chance to explain the incident to the public. In all, Knox fired four officers before their preliminary examination. Another three who were never charged but were implicated by officials are now suing the city in state and federal court.

According to court testimony, police officials got to Assistant Medical Examiner Dr. Kalil Jiraki before the autopsy telling him that Green died from a "police beating." Without waiting for the toxicology report, Jiraki made that finding. During the trial, he stuck to his story that Green died from "14 blunt force trauma blows to the head," in the face of contradictory medical evidence that showed that Green’s seizures were a result of his consumption of alcohol and cocaine. Later, at the trial of Sgt. Freddie Douglas, Jiraki reduced the number of blows to seven, which fit with Nevers’ testimony of the number of blows struck in self-defense when Green grabbed his gun.

At the time of the trial, Jiraki was under investigation for medical fraud in connection with his moonlighting activities, and was later fired by county officials who called him emotionally troubled. Under oath, he said his boss, Dr. Bader Cassin, agreed that Green’s drug consumption was as "insignificant as the color of his eyes." From depositions of Cassin and others, we know that Cassin, who performed a second autopsy on Green, had argued the cocaine issue vigorously with both Jiraki and with prosecutors. With the machine still in high gear, prosecutors chose to produce the testimony that most closely fit the now widely accepted scenario of events - that Green, who was black, died from a racially motivated beating by aging white police who stopped him without cause. Meanwhile prosecutors kept the defense in the dark about the opinion of Cassin, the chief medical examiner. Other nationally known medical experts testified that Green’s injuries were superficial and not sufficient to cause death.

The so-called "eyewitnesses" also were not what they seemed. Well-coached, they all adapted prosecutor Kym Worthy’s version of a car "flooded with light" by an overhead dome - until an evidence technician testified that the dome light had been removed, presumably to cloak drug deals in darkness. Under cross examination, some witnesses testified they saw no blows connect, but while watching Budzyn struggle with Green, only "assumed" a beating was going on.

After giving an incredible version of events, witness Gregory Sims admitted on cross examination that he had paid a neighborhood prostitute $10 for information, presumably to enhance his standing in the neighborhood. Trial Judge George Crockett III called Emanuel Brown a liar. Crockett, Chief Judge Dalton Roberson and a police trial board all disbelieved the wide-ranging web of guilt woven by EMS technicians Lee Hardy as evidenced by their rulings.

The witnesses, of course, were not random people at a bus stop, but friends of Green who frequented the same drug house at Warren and 23^rd. They had congregated there that night when Green drove up with Ralph Fletcher, the drug house proprietor. There was testimony that Ralph Knox was in the back seat. Knox, known to police as a drug dealer, ran from the car when the police spotted and pulled in behind. Some witnesses denied Knox was in the car, apparently in an effort to protect the drug man. Soon after the preliminary examination Knox was killed in a drug deal gone bad, but the witnesses were then stuck with their cover story, and repeated it at the trial.

Green of course was never "a motorist" as some sensational TV coverage has suggested in an effort to draw a parallel to the Rodney King affair in Los Angeles. He, Fletcher and Knox, were dealing when Nevers and Budzyn pulled in behind them, as evidenced by the crack cocaine in Green’s hand and car.

Despite Budzyn’s assertions that he never struck Green, and Nevers’ testimony that he struck in self-defense, police tried to make a case of "excessive force." That fell apart when their departmental expert testified that officers were duty-bound to make an arrest when they observed a crime in progress, and that whatever force was required could be used to keep a prisoner from escaping or using a weapon. The trial then turned on cause of death, but was scuttled by Jiraki’s possible perjurous testimony and the prosecution’s withholding of contrary evidence.

NAACP officials, fighting internal political battles of their own, seized on the Green case as a cause celebre and the machine snowballed through both the channeled public perception of the case and private manipulations. Prosecutor John O’Hair sent Judge Crockett at least two letters on behalf of the NAACP demanding that bond be rescinded, and that the officers receive maximum sentences. Yet despite the organization’s public pro-conviction posture, an NAACP officer, who was also a Mayor Young appointee and contributor to his campaign, failed to disclose her affiliations and served on one of the juries.

Just how far the tendrils of this all-encompassing political machine reached was shown when the Nevers/Budzyn appeal was denied. Before the decision was filed with the court clerk, and before a date was even set for its release, the prosecutor’s office knew the decision. It was leaked to the Free Press which had towed the party line in coverage. The News also was able the report the story in even earlier editions after the leak to the Free Press was discovered. I later reported my suspicions on the leak to Judge Martin Doctoroff .

We have seen other Detroit police officers face trial since the Green case. And while their attorneys complained that they would not have been prosecuted at all if it wasn’t for the fact that Nevers and Budzyn were convicted, these officers never faced the same racially driven "wave of passion." Police officers Ira Todd and Lee Hardy, were in fact acquitted of the shooting death of Jose Iturralde. Suspended officer Glen Price, who fatally shot an 11-year-old after emerging from a topless bar and arguing with a neighborhood vagrant while brandishing his gun, had a charge of second degree murder reduced to involuntary manslaughter at his preliminary examination. The Court of Appeals reinstated the murder charge, and he is now quietly on trial.

Nevers and Budzyn deserve more from the system than the turbo charged railroading they got to federal prison. In assessing the trial and Green’s death, I believe that there was no crime and no intent to commit one, just two dedicated officers doing their mandated job. That Green died of seizures was certainly a tragedy, but the result of forces sadly set in motion by his own lifestyle.

Larry Nevers and Walter Budzyn have now served two years in prison. I hope you can see your way clear to commuting their sentences.

Sincerely,
Ann Sweeney

BEATING,  Detroit News - November 7, 1992

The specter of police brutality that faded two decades ago in Detroit roared back to the present Friday after an angry crew of police officers beat, kicked and bludgeoned a man to death.

City leaders were tearful, outraged and fearful of an outbreak of neighborhood violence in response.

"I am shocked and sickened," Mayor Coleman Young said in a statement.

"This incident is disgraceful and a total embarrassment," said Police Chief Stanley Knox, whose voice cracked with emotion at an afternoon news conference. "To receive a blow like this actually brought tears to my eyes."

OFFICIALS DEMAND AN UNBIASED INVESTIGATION, Detroit Free Press - November 7, 1992

As the aftershock of the beating death of Malice Green cut across the city Friday, Detroit’s community leaders called on police and prosecutors to conduct a thorough and unbiased investigation.

City Council President Maryann Mahaffey said she was "absolutely outraged" at the incident, which many likened to the beating last year of black motorist Rodney King in Los Angeles.

"This is so hurtful," Mahaffey said. "It hurts everyone. Yes, the family. Yes, the friends. No matter who they are or where they’re from, it hurts us all when people are unprofessional and engage in brutality."

The foundation upon which Mayor Coleman Young built his career and his administration was rocked Thursday by the beating death of a Detroit man at the hands of Detroit police officers.

"I didn’t think, frankly, that something like that could happen in Detroit," the mayor told me Friday afternoon. "I thought we were past that."

 ABUSE OF POWER IS AN OLD PROBLEM, Detroit Free Press - November 7, 1992

Within months of taking office in 1974, Young abolished STRESS and began an affirmative action program that transformed the racial makeup of the department from 18 percent black in 1974 to more than 50 percent black in 1991. Black chiefs have headed the force since 1976.

Although the widespread beating and killing of black citizens by white officers stopped, police brutality remains a major problem.

DETROIT FREE PRESS - November 7, 1992

Malice Wayne (Fly) Green was a hardworking man who wouldn’t pick a fight with anyone, but wouldn’t back down from a conflict either, his family said Friday.

Grieving relatives said they don’t know why he was beaten to death by Detroit police on Thursday.

PROBE, Detroit Free Press - November 8, 1992

Seven suspended Detroit police officers were placed in lineups Saturday as investigators brought in witnesses to identify those responsible for the fatal beating of a Detroit motorist.

ACCUSED COPS ARE FEARED ON THE STREETS, The Detroit News - November 8, 1992

They were known in the neighborhood as "Starsky and Hutch" - maverick cops, tough-and-tumble, who used an elbow, a fist or a threatening remark as tools of persuasion.

In TV land, Starsky and Hutch played to hand-clapping reviews in the 1970s as renegade officers who operated by their own rules.

But in a southwest Detroit neighborhood, plainclothes cops Larry Nevers and Walter Budzyn were far from a hit, chasing people off street corners and rousting crack heads, dope dealers, hookers and law abiding citizens alike, residents say.

EXPLORING POLICE BRUTALITY, FOR COPS, THE BEAT BECOMES ‘US VS. THEM’ The Detroit News - November 8, 1992

Police officers often work in an atmosphere of such unrelenting frustration and violence that a seemingly minor infraction can trigger an explosion of brutality, criminologists say.

"Cops can become hardened," said Carl Taylor, professor of criminal justice at Grand Valley State University in Grand Rapids. "It’s like people working in a slaughterhouse. They see blood and mayhem day in and day out, until they no longer see it."

A single provocation, such as a suspect who displays contempt for authority, can reinforce police

feeling of lack of control - and send them over the edge, Taylor said.

DEADLY ENCOUNTER: MALICE WAYNE GREEN - HIS LAST DAY, The Detroit News - November 8, 1992

"The guy was the nicest guy you’d ever want to meet," said Michael Jackson, a friend. "He’d hurt himself before he’d hurt anybody. He was afraid to jaywalk."

As Patricia Green tries to sort out the murky circumstances behind her son’s death, she is clear about one thing: She wants justice from the Detroit Police Department.

"They are going to pay. They are going to have to pay dearly," Green said. "There’s no way they are going to get away with this."

STREETS TAKE YET ANOTHER DETOUR OF HATE, The Detroit News - November 8, 1992