Man cleared in hunters’ killings after 21 years in prison seeks $1M from Michigan
Advertisement
Read this article for free:
or
Already have an account? Log in here »
To continue reading, please subscribe:
Digital Subscription
One year of digital access for only $205*
- Enjoy unlimited reading on winnipegfreepress.com
- Read the E-Edition, our digital replica newspaper
- Access News Break, our award-winning app
- Play interactive puzzles
*First annual payment billed as $205.00 + GST for one year. This annual subscription will automatically renew at $233.00 + GST every 52 weeks (10% off the regular annual price of $259.35). Offer available to new and qualified returning subscribers only. Cancel any time.
To continue reading, please subscribe:
Add Free Press access to your Brandon Sun subscription for only an additional
$1 for the first 4 weeks*
- Enjoy unlimited reading on winnipegfreepress.com
- Read the E-Edition, our digital replica newspaper
- Access News Break, our award-winning app
- Play interactive puzzles
*Your next Brandon Sun subscription payment will increase by $1.00 and you will be charged $17.95 plus GST for four weeks. After four weeks, your payment will increase to $24.95 plus GST every four weeks.
Read unlimited articles for free today:
or
Already have an account? Log in here »
Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 02/06/2023 (1202 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
DETROIT (AP) — A man who spent nearly 21 years in prison for the deaths of two Michigan hunters filed a lawsuit Friday seeking $1.02 million for wrongful convictions, just a day after a prosecutor dropped murder charges and ruled out a second trial.
“Jeff Titus is 71 years old. He was robbed of 21 years of his prime,” attorney Wolf Mueller said. “Who knows how long he will live? He doesn’t have a day to waste.”
Titus’ convictions were thrown out in February based on newly discovered evidence, Mueller said, a key threshold to get compensation from the state.
Titus has long declared his innocence in the fatal shootings of Doug Estes and Jim Bennett near his Kalamazoo County land in 1990.
He was released from prison — and a life sentence — earlier this year when authorities acknowledged that Titus’ trial lawyer in 2002 was never given a police file with details about another suspect. Thomas Dillon was an Ohio serial killer whose five victims between 1989 and 1992 were hunting, fishing or jogging.
There is no dispute that the failure to produce the file violated Titus’ constitutional rights.
“The ‘new evidence’ demonstrates that (Titus) is factually innocent of the crime,” his lawsuit states.
Under Michigan law, someone who is wrongly convicted can be eligible to receive $50,000 for each year in prison.
“We have not yet received the complaint and will evaluate it when we do,” said Kimberly Bush, spokeswoman at the attorney general’s office.
Dillon died in an Ohio prison in 2011. The file found at the county sheriff’s office revealed that a woman and her son had identified him as the man in a car in a ditch near the Michigan murder scene. The woman also described a car that resembled one owned by Dillon’s wife.
___
Follow Ed White at http://twitter.com/edwritez