Temujin Kensu: Why He is Actually Innocent

Many highly respected people, after closely examining the Temujin Kensu (Frederick Freeman) case, conclude that he is actually innocent. This includes: a former chief justice of the Michigan Supreme Court, a retired career federal prosecutor, a veteran TV investigative journalist, two former FBI agents, a former Michigan State Police polygraph expert, and a private investigator who served as a lieutenant detective in the police department in Port Huron where Mr. Kensu was arrested. Moreover, the Michigan Innocence Clinic of the University of Michigan Law School and the Co-Director of the Innocence Project of the Thomas M. Cooley Law School have joined Proving Innocence in concluding that Temujin Kensu is wholly innocent.

• At the time of the murder Mr. Kensu was actually in the Upper Peninsula in Rock, Michigan, 20 miles north of Escanaba and about 450 miles from the crime scene in Port Huron, Michigan. This is confirmed by at least ten credible alibi witnesses that place him in Escanaba around the time of the killing. In addition, Mr. Kensu had a signed receipt showing that he was in Escanaba on the day of the murder. 

• Temujin Kensu was administered a polygraph examination by a well respected former Michigan State Police polygraph expert that clearly demonstrated his innocence. Likewise, Michelle Woodworth, his former girlfriend, has passed a polygraph exam and sworn under oath that Mr. Kensu was with her in the Upper Peninsula at the time of the shooting. Ms. Woodworth also said police investigators threatened her that if she testified on Mr. Kensu’s behalf, they would have social services take away her soon-to-be-born child, so she hid during the trial rather than testify. 

• There was absolutely no evidence at the crime scene – documentary, forensic, or physical – that connected Mr. Kensu to the crime. No murder weapon was produced. No gunshot residue was found on his clothing. An ammunition box found at the scene contained a fingerprint not belonging to Mr. Kensu. Additionally, police conducted a several-hour, warrantless and illegal search of Mr. Kensu’s house, trailer, and property and found nothing incriminating. 

• To counter the many alibi witnesses testifying that Mr. Kensu was in Escanaba at the time of the murder, the prosecutor was inexplicably allowed to present to the jury a wild theory speculating that Mr. Kensu chartered a plane from Escanaba to Port Huron, committed the crime, and flew back. This totally unsubstantiated assertion was made despite the fact there was not a trace of evidence that such a flight took place. No pilot, plane, flight plan, flight payment receipt, or landing location was ever identified. No automobile or means of travel to the crime scene and back was produced. (The vehicle seen driving from the crime scene was never linked to Mr. Kensu). Moreover, Mr. Kensu was indigent and so poor he could not pay his rent, let alone charter a private aircraft. 

• None of the students in the immediate area of the shooting identified Mr. Kensu as having been there. One student, Rene Gobeyn, said that, as he was walking from his car with a friend, he heard the shot and, a short time later, saw a twentyish white male driving a gold-colored car away from the area of the shooting as it passed them and exited the lot. He estimated that he saw the face of the driver, wearing a cap and coat, for about 5 seconds. Sometime later that morning he wrote down the license plate number of the vehicle and pointed out to police another person and vehicle as a possible suspect. Later that day, Gobeyn was hypnotized by a college professor who was a friend of one of the investigating officers. A few days later, police presented to Gobeyn a photo-lineup which – contrary to professional and scientific procedure – suggestively highlighted Mr. Kensu among several other photos. Only at this point did Gobeyn pick out Mr. Kensu as the driver. 

• Without any evidence linking Mr. Kensu to the crime, police and prosecutors focused exclusively on Mr. Kensu as their only suspect within hours of the murder. This rush to judgment occurred despite the fact that Scott Macklem, the murder victim, had been followed and threatened by two men who were visibly upset with him. Common sense suggests that it’s much more likely that these two men had something to do with the crime than a man more than 450 miles away living his own life. But no one cared to do a real investigation. They had their man – and the real killer remains free.
• The lead detective for this crime, John Bowns, was a disgraced officer who had never conducted a murder investigation. Prior to the Kensu case, Bowns was charged by the Michigan State Police and Michigan Attorney General’s Office with illegal gambling and numbers running. In 1982 Bowns was terminated by the Port Huron Police Department for conduct unbecoming a police officer and neglect of duty. He was rehired by the department about a year before the Kensu case.
• A key prosecution witness, Philip Joplin, was a jail house snitch and career criminal.   He testified that Mr. Kensu spontaneously confessed to him, a complete stranger, in a holding cell before trial. Joplin, a six-time convicted felon in Jackson Prison, denied in front of the jury that he had received any promise of a benefit as a result of his testimony. He later admitted in a videotaped interview and to others that he had fabricated this story. For his testimony he was promised he would not be returned to prison but, despite his record and escape conviction, would be placed in a community program (he was also given money, a VCR, clothes, and cigarettes). Corrections documents confirm that the prosecution and the trial judge did in fact intervene to provide Joplin this placement.
• A third person in the cell with Mr. Kensu and Joplin, Booker Brown, said that no confession to the murder occurred. Brown further stated that he was approached by prosecutors to be a “snitch” in exchange for favors, which he refused. Brown wrote prosecutors a letter stating that they had the wrong person and that he had actually heard another inmate confess that he had committed the murder and not Mr. Kensu. 
• Mr. Kensu was represented by an incompetent, court appointed lawyer named David Dean, who was an active drug addict during the trial. Dean bungled the entire trial and prevented Mr. Kensu from testifying on his own behalf. Dean was a former county prosecutor with both an alcohol and cocaine habit who had been just released from probation by the State of Ohio for using cocaine in 1985. Dean was later disgraced and disbarred from the practice of law in Michigan, in part for his substance abuse. Dean also failed to inform Mr. Kensu that he had earlier represented lead detective Bowns in a legal battle following his firing by the Port Huron Police Department.
• During the trial the jury was intentionally misled and misinformed by the prosecution:

1. The jury was shown a “doctored” photo line-up, not the actual one that singled out Mr. Kensu. The photo line-up pictures were altered to crop out the mug shot tags and show them as the same size and coloring, and then proclaimed to the jury that they were the ones used in the photo line-up when they were not (the actual photo line-up was hidden from the defense for two decades). 
2. The prosecution elicited false testimony from a jailhouse snitch by providing favors and promising to move him from prison to a community program (which did occur) – revealing none of this deal to the jury.
3. The prosecutor presented to the jury wild speculation on an Escanaba to Port Huron flight with absolutely no evidence that it occurred. This included not revealing to the jury that the pilot who testified about this phantom flight was, in fact, the prosecutor’s personal pilot. 
4. The jury was not told that the prosecution’s star witness had been hypnotized and had ties to the victim and the police. (This witness was a criminal justice student who knew several Port Huron police officers. He also had a father who worked with the victim and a mother who worked in the same building as the police department.)

• The St. Clair County Prosecutor’s office had questionable ties to, if not a conflict of interest with, the trial judge. To wit, the trial judge (a former county prosecutor) was arrested for drunk driving by the Michigan State Police. The State Police were instructed by the prosecutor’s office to release the judge to a fellow judge and that no charges were to be filed.