Every document behind every claim on this site.

Pre-trial motions transcript

The motions heard before proofs opened. Date and appearances read from the volume cover.

Volume I

Trial volume I of XI: jury selection and the opening of proofs. Date and principal witnesses read from the volume cover. No excerpt from this volume is cited on the site.

Volume II

Trial volume II of XI. Crystal Merrill’s direct examination begins here and continues into Volume III. The excerpt carries her testimony as the state presented it.

Volume III

Trial volume III of XI. Merrill’s direct examination continues and her cross-examination begins. No excerpt from this volume is cited on the site.

Volume IV

Trial volume IV of XI. Date and principal witnesses read from the volume cover. No excerpt from this volume is cited on the site.

Volume V

Det. Hudson, Rene Gobeyn, and Green. The volume carries the state’s investigative account of the scene and the plate, and Hudson’s acknowledgment on cross about the lifts. It establishes what the investigation did and did not compare; it makes no finding about who fired the shot.

Volume VI

Richard Kreuger. The in-court identification made six months after the sighting, and the qualifier his own counsel attached to it. It establishes what the witness said in court, not that the man he saw was the defendant.

Volume VII

Philip Joplin, Det. Bowns, and Officer Redmond. The volume holds the informant’s trial account and his plea posture, the state’s relationship evidence, and the arrest. It establishes what was said at trial; the 1990 and 1994 records are where the informant’s account comes apart.

Volume VIII

The nine alibi witnesses, examined and cross-examined in one day. It establishes sworn accounts of where the defendant was through November 5; the state never impeached any of them.

Volume IX

Henderson and the campus witnesses. It establishes what the investigation was told about the victim’s workplace and the days before the shooting.

Volume X

Closing arguments, and the pilot witness Evans on flight times and charter prices. It establishes what the state argued and what its own aviation witness would and would not say.

Volume XI

Deliberations, the readback, the verdict, and sentencing. It establishes what the jury asked to hear again before it convicted.

2014 evidentiary hearing transcripts

The lineup litigation record, by volume: Def. Exhs. J, K and L and the plates litigated, with expert testimony on eyewitness identification. It establishes what the 2014 court heard; the ruling is the 2015 opinion.

Motion for New Trial hearing transcript (Sept. 4, 1990; ECF Doc 19-21)

The Joplin recantation round, where the informant first admitted under oath what he had been told about returning to prison.

Motion for New Trial hearing transcript (June 15, 1987; ECF Doc 19-20)

Four weeks after the verdict, the motion for a new trial founded on the alibi witness never called.

Preliminary examination transcript, complete (Nov. 25, 1986)

The examination that bound the case over.

Freeman v. Trombley, 744 F. Supp. 2d 697 (E.D. Mich. 2010) · the Hood opinion and its order

The conditional writ. Four constitutional findings after full merits review, and an order whose own words set the ninety-day condition. It quotes Woodworth’s 2002 affidavit (Exhibit 27-D) ¶¶25 and 29 at 22 and the juror article at Pet. Ex. M at 18 and 35, and addresses trial counsel’s substance abuse and conflict of interest at 9–16. It establishes constitutional violations at the 1987 trial; it makes no finding of innocence.

Freeman v. Trombley, 483 F. App’x 51 (6th Cir. 2012)

The reversal, on the timeliness of the petition under the 1996 habeas statute. It does not disturb the four findings, does not find the trial fair, and states that no physical evidence linked Freeman to the murder.

People v. Freeman, Michigan Court of Appeals, with the separate opinion of Judge Douglas B. Shapiro

The lineup ruling. The court confirms the originals were cropped but finds no suppression, because the defense had access to them. Shapiro, writing separately, concludes the federal court did not err in granting habeas relief.

Sixth Circuit order

The new-evidence round: the standard applied to a second petition. It establishes the bar, not the facts.

District court opinion

The federal opinion on the new evidence. It recites the sworn drive time and counts “nine witnesses who testified they saw Freeman hundreds of miles away in Escanaba, Michigan, on the day of the murder.”

ECF Doc. 21 · the 2008 rebuttal, 503 pp.

The habeas record vehicle: the respondent’s rebuttal and the materials filed with it. It is the container, not a finding.

Certified Register of Actions (Jan. 24, 2001)

The certified docket, 1986 to 2001.

ECF Doc. 27 with exhibits

The habeas exhibit set: the Woodworth affidavits at 27-A through 27-D and the Welser 2008 reports in attachment 27-4. It is the container through which those documents entered the federal record.

Sixth Circuit order denying rehearing en banc

St. Clair Circuit Court Opinion Denying Motion for New Trial

Michigan Court of Appeals Opinion

Woodworth affidavit · Exhibit 27-A

Her account of the murder minute: at the time of the shooting, “that being approximately 9:00am on the same date, he was with me in the city of Rock, Michigan, in the Upper Peninsula.” It establishes what she swears; no jury has heard it.

Woodworth affidavit · Exhibit 27-B

The threats and the instruction to stay away from Port Huron until counsel called her. He never called. These are her sworn allegations; no court has adjudicated them as misconduct.

Woodworth affidavit · Exhibit 27-C

The third of the four affidavits, hosted for completeness of the set.

Woodworth affidavit · Exhibit 27-D

The whole of November 5: she was “with Fredrick Freeman the entire day,” and the two of them rose “at around 9:00 AM.”

Woodside affidavit

The private investigator who witnessed the informant’s recantation before his death. It establishes what Joplin said on tape, not what happened in the cell. Filed as Exhibit 7A to ECF Doc. 21, pp. 176–194.

Gobeyn hypnosis session transcript

The session run the same day as the shooting, within three hours of it. It records the car details the witness gave under hypnosis; it establishes the session, not the accuracy of what came out of it.

PHPD complaint file and supplemental reports

The Port Huron investigation’s own file, one parent entry with children by report. It establishes what the department recorded and when.

MSP Gladstone set

The State Police post near Escanaba: the interview of Beth Stier on Nov. 10, 1986, the reopening of the assistance file on Nov. 20, and the February 1987 close-out.

Escanaba PSD and MSP report file, 1986.11.05–1987.04.07 (complete scan, unredacted)

The assistance file in full: the warrants status and the November 13 raid at Rock. Redaction pass before hosting.

MSP Laboratory Report 23936-86

The state’s own 1986 comparison: the latent print recovered in the investigation is not Freeman’s. It establishes an exclusion, not the identity of whoever left it.

MSP Laboratory Report SH08-2619

The last search of the latent, against the AFIS/IAFIS databases as they stood in 2008: no subject developed, latent retained on file.

FOIA set · the 2022 responses

The St. Clair County prosecutor’s and the Port Huron Police Department’s responses, hosted as received.

Welser Investigations reports

One parent entry, children by report number. Private investigative work by a retired Port Huron detective lieutenant, labelled as investigation and not as court finding. Hosting of individual reports follows Welser’s permission where required.

PHPD supplementary report · interviews of eight Escanaba alibi witnesses (Det. Sgt. Bowns)

CIU closing letter, Newman to Syed

Two pages, in the review’s own words: the guidelines it applied, the “voluminous materials” its letter says were received from “Herb Wesler [sic],” the paragraph calling Stier cumulative, and the closing line, “Kensu’s case is now closed in this office.” No finding of guilt, no finding of innocence.

SAAG appointment contract

The appointment of a Special Assistant Attorney General “as a result of conflicts within the Department.” It establishes why the review sat outside the office’s own unit.

Orzel letter to Governor Whitmer

R. Orzel, who owned the Fixed Base of Operations at the St. Clair County Airport from 1983 to 2013, on why the charter-flight theory is implausible and on the fuel records that could have been checked. A letter, not sworn testimony.

Setter letter to Governor Whitmer

H. Setter, manager of the Delta County Airport serving Escanaba from 1982 to 1999: “FAA radar would have picked up any flight from Delta County to St. Clair County,” and no one ever contacted him. A third official is reported by NBC News (Dec. 24, 2023); two of the three letters are in the archive.

Clemency support letters

One parent entry, children by author: Levin, Bieda, Shannon, Bretz (Jan. 4, 2018, to Gov. Snyder), McKneelen, and the Exoneration Project. Each is a letter of support, quoted on What the Experts Say and cited to its own date.

Legislators’ joint statement

The joint call for clemency, hosted in full as a PDF.

Sarnia hourly station record, November 5, 1986

Environment Canada’s hourly record for the nearest station to Port Huron with data for the date. It carries the conditions behind the frost row in the flight table; it says nothing about any flight.

FAA Advisory Circular 20-117

The frost and ice rule for aircraft surfaces, as it stood in 1986. It establishes what a pilot was required to do, not what any pilot did.

FBI Next Generation Identification program records (public)

What the modern federal systems are, and when they came into service. It establishes that the databases of 2026 are not the databases of 2008.

Herrera v. Collins, 506 U.S. 390 (1993)

Why no court asks the innocence question directly: federal habeas reviews verdicts for constitutional error, not for truth.

MCL 14.30

The Attorney General’s supervisory authority over county prosecutors.

Michigan Constitution, article V, §§ 8 and 14

§ 8, the executive departments answering to the Governor; § 14, the clemency power vested in her alone.

The federal 55 mph maximum speed limit, in force in 1986

The national limit that governed the drive, until the Surface Transportation and Uniform Relocation Assistance Act of April 1987.

Port Huron Times Herald, both articles of May 19, 1987, and the letter to the editor of May 29, 1987

The post-verdict coverage, including the juror interview quoted on this site. In the archive; link or reprint permission before the page images render.

Joplin placement records, habeas Exhibits 7B–7C (ECF Doc. 21, pp. 195–196)

The informant’s advocate asks corrections to honor the Assistant Prosecutor’s promised placement, and the corrections-center application carries the handwritten note “Strong rec & req from Prosc. & Judge C.”