Michigan Man Claims Innocence after 38 Years in Prison

(NOTE: Kensu claims innocence despite a murder conviction almost forty years ago. Wrestling with the legal system to overturn his conviction has only unveiled legal and procedural hurdles that never fully deny his innocence. Read further for insight into Kensu’s prominent exoneration attempts and denials.)

LENOX, MI – Temujin Kensu, also known as number 189355, is detained in the Michigan Department of Corrections in Macomb County, Mi, sentenced to life without parole for the murder of Scott Macklem, 20, in 1987.

Kensu claims he didn’t and couldn’t have committed the murder. Now 61 years old, Kensu, formerly known as Frederick Freeman before a name change after converting to Buddhism, has spent more than half of his life imprisoned. 

With worsening health conditions, Kensu, his family and supporters are eager to see his release and opportunity at life post-incarceration. Kensu’s supporters hope to have their efforts recognized, emphasizing that his continued incarceration is the result of legal technicalities and procedural hurdles rather than guilt.

Despite journalists, private investigators, politicians and a judge vetting his innocence and his multiple attempts at overturning his conviction, Kensu remains in prison after almost four decades, maintaining his innocence and the unjust procedural hurdles that have kept his case from being fully reviewed.

Macklem, son of the then-Mayor of Croswell in Sanilac County, a neighboring county to St. Clair, was killed at close range by a shotgun blast in the parking lot of St. Clair Community College heading to gym class on Nov. 5, 1986, at about 9 a.m.

Macklem’s fiancé, Crystal Merrill, suspected Kensu, her ex-boyfriend of two months, to be the killer. Kensu ended their short relationship around June and moved to Escanaba in July 1986. Merrill rekindled with high school boyfriend Macklem in the summer before his murder. 

Kensu on prom night 1981. Courtesy of Paula Kensu.

Merrill testified against Kensu, asserting debasing character claims and pointing to his alleged abusive and womanizing behavior. Other prosecution witnesses corroborated these character claims despite the defense argument that character depictions were irrelevant to the murder charge. 

Several alibi witnesses place Kensu in Escanaba the night before and morning of the murder, over 400 miles away from St. Clair. 

But, at trial, the jury gave a guilty verdict, seemingly overlooking the corroboration of nine alibi witnesses and convinced of the hypothetical evidence and debasing character remarks posed by prosecuting attorney Robert Cleland. 

Kensu was further left unprotected by defense attorney David Dean’s ineffective assistance of counsel, whose cocaine addiction rendered him unable to properly defend Kensu. Dean was later disbarred, or no longer legally allowed to practice law.

In an interview with the Vanguard, Imran Syed, Kensu’s current defense attorney with the Michigan Innocence Project, claimed the jury’s verdict was irrational. 

“There was enough evidence in front of them to acquit him despite the shortcomings of his attorney,” Syed said. 

In the original trial, Cleland misconstrued Kensu’s prototypical bad boy image to construct an idea of his capability of murder to the jury, suggesting that his passion for martial arts made him an apathetic criminal. 

Cleland further suggested 23-year-old Kensu chartered a private plane to St. Clair to kill Macklem, a fabricated story that shadowed the alibi witnesses’ testimonies that placed him 400 miles away in Escanaba the night before and morning of the murder. Most witnesses had no prior affiliation with Kensu.

Cleland invited pilot Bob Evans to testify as an expert witness to his plane theory. Evidence of a privately chartered plane did not exist and Kensu, then a recipient of welfare and avoiding warrants for bounced checks, said he did not have the financial means to charter a private plane or have the ability to fly a plane. 

Undisclosed to the court and jury, Evans was Cleland’s pilot during his campaign for Attorney General in 1986. Because their relationship remained undisclosed, Kensu’s defense attorney Dean was unable to cross-examine Evans’ testimony or attempt to impeach Evans as a witness due to potential bias.

“Robert Cleland was politically ambitious. He’d run for Attorney General twice. Lost both times.” Dave Sanders, Director of Proving Innocence, an organization committed to overturning wrongful convictions and aiding exonerees, said in an interview with the Vanguard, “Cleland was looking for … someone who he could convict easily.” 

Cleland lost the race on Nov. 5, 1986, the day before Macklem’s murder. Having been from a prominent St. Clair County family, Macklem’s murder case had political prominence, according to Sanders. 

Sanders suggests Cleland “ … needed a quick victim (Kensu) to enhance his political career.”

Kensu’s defense now claims Kensu’s original defense attorney, Dean, had failed to call key witness Michelle Woodworth, Kensu’s pregnant girlfriend at the time, to testify to him being in Escanaba at the time of the murder. Dean obstructed Kensu’s right to testify at trial and later said he regretted advising him against testifying. 

“The main reason for wrongful conviction,” Syed said, “I think, is that there wasn’t anyone to push back on behalf of the defense when something went wrong.”

Kensu, 23 at the time of conviction, is now 61 and facing debilitating health problems without access to sufficient treatment and care. Kensu suffers from a brain tumor, polymyopathy, a disease that weakens and degrades muscles, spinal degenerative disc disease, severe combined immune disease, and more, according to Kensu’s clemency memoranda filed by the Michigan Innocence Clinic in 2022. 

Kensu playing drums at Macomb Correctional Facility in 1996. Courtesy of Paula Kensu. 

Most who have come across this complicated case have attempted to ascertain the absurdities of the 1987 trial and the legitimacy of his conviction. Contrary to popular press coverage vetting his innocence, some Thumb residents or those residing in St. Clair and Sanilac County described as being in the “thumb” of Michigan, strongly oppose Kensu’s conviction being overturned.

“The local town really believes in this thing. Ever since they arrested him,” Sayed said, “They’ve defended this conviction to the hilt.”

Despite this local town’s public opinion, Kensu’s supporters claim most have come to the same unquestionable conclusion: Kensu couldn’t have committed this crime.

After multiple attempts at exoneration through various avenues, his new defense argues Kensu remains incarcerated despite no evidence connecting him to the murder and the disadvantages he experienced at the hands of the prosecution and his defense. 

His nearly four decades of incarceration have been replete with high hopes for release but met with the disappointment of continuous denials.

Legal and Procedural Hurdles Barring Release

Judge Hood Holding Cleland Accountable 

Federal District Court Judge Denise Page Hood filed a writ of habeas corpus, a court petition to question and legally examine the legitimacy of Kensu’s detention, on Oct. 4, 2010. Judge Hood hoped to give Kensu a retrial when filing her Opinion and Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus on the grounds of Prosecutor Cleland’s misconduct and Dean’s ineffective assistance of counsel. 

Former prosecutor Cleland was appointed a District Judge by President George Bush in 1990, on the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan. Judge Cleland and Judge Hood sat on the same bench when Hood called for Kensu’s retrial on the grounds of Cleland’s misconduct. 

The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals responded in 2012 by reversing Judge Hood’s writ of habeas corpus, reinstating Kensu’s conviction under a time bar. 

“They didn’t want to make him look bad,” Herb Welser, a retired detective lieutenant of Port Huron Police Department and private investigator, said of Judge Cleland and the court’s decision to reverse Judge Hood’s petition in an interview with the Vanguard. 

“They filed the appeal too late,” Dave Sanders said, adding that it “had nothing to do with his guilt or innocence.” 

“The district court’s order conditionally granting the writ is reversed,” the court explained in its response, adding, “the case is remanded for entry of an order dismissing the petition as time-barred.” 

The petition was time-barred under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA). Since being passed in 1996 as a response to terrorism, the AEDPA has significantly impacted habeas corpus, making it harder for those convicted of crimes to seek federal review of alleged wrongful convictions due to its statute of limitations and the narrowed grounds for claims on habeas petitions. 

The time restrictions under AEDPA can be extended for equitable tolling if courts perceive the petitioner to have sufficient evidence demonstrating innocence.

“Habeas corpus is a foundational constitutional principle, but they massively restricted it. They put time limits on it,” Sanders said. “How do you put time limits on innocence or proof of innocence?”

Kensu claims the court’s decision to overturn Judge Hood’s writ of habeas corpus was to protect Judge Cleland, saying, “We believe … they were just protecting a fellow federal guy.” 

Kensu filed another habeas corpus petition in 2017, this time citing evidence of his unfair photo lineup recently discovered through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request through the Michigan State Police Department filed by Barbara Kennedy, an attorney for Proving Innocence. He lost this petition on the same AEDPA time bar technicality.

“I was held up by what they call a procedural hurdle. So in both cases, they didn’t care that I was innocent,” Kensu said.

Temujin and Paula posing in front of a beach backdrop in the correctional facilities’ visitation room in 2023. Courtesy of Paula Kensu.

“They said you’re too late. Go die in prison.” – Paula Kensu

“They didn’t say you’re not innocent,” Paula Kensu, wife of Temujin Kensu, explained in an interview with the Vanguard. “They didn’t say there’s no misconduct here,” she continued, emotionally stating, “They said you’re too late. Go die in prison.”

Paula remains hopeful for Kensu’s release but is aware of his health conditions worsening without adequate treatment while incarcerated. 

In her opinion, Judge Hood pointed out a glaring detail from the original trial: the prosecution made Kensu’s character the subject of its attack. 

Judge Hood wrote in her opinion, “the prosecution’s strategy of making the Petitioner look like a bad person, is in direct violation of the basic concept of fairness.” 

Kensu had a public commutation hearing in 2010, a month before Judge Hood filed the habeas petition. At his hearing, the parole board recommended against Kensu’s commutation, to which Gov. Jennifer Granholm obliged and rejected clemency, according to an Associated Press article. 

“Kensu’s (hearing) was an anomaly in that so much of the conversation turned into ‘he’s a bad guy.’ I don’t think he is, but even if he was, that is not a basis to deny clemency where there’s overwhelming evidence of innocence,” Syed said. “That’s pretty dangerous, to say someone should be incarcerated or die in prison because enough people dislike them.”

Syed claimed that nothing in the clemency hearing suggests Kensu is guilty of the crime despite the 11-0 parole board vote against his commutation.

Before Judge Hood’s habeas petition, Kensu exhausted the appellate system, attempting the appeals court several times but was denied at every attempt. 

“The appellate process … is not a holistic approach to looking at a case. If it was, he would be home,” Paula said, suggesting the case should be reviewed in its entirety to establish its legitimacy. 

AGCIU Denial and Refusal to Release Case Examination Report

The Attorney General Conviction Integrity Unit (AGCIU) was created in 2019 by Attorney General Dana Nessel to “ investigate credible claims of innocence to ensure no one is convicted of a crime they didn’t actually commit,” according to a press release from the Michigan Department of the Attorney General.

Robyn Frankel, director of the AGCIU, was removed from the case “due to a conflict within” the AGCIU, and replaced by Valerie Newman, director of the Wayne County CIU, who was “appointed as Special Assistant Attorney General to review and investigate Mr. Kensu’s case,” according to a letter from Newman to Syed disclosing the case closure. 

“We were all convinced it was going to call him innocent and get him out,” Sanders said. 

Kensu and his supporters expected the unit to provide the much-desired holistic review of his case, and the AGCIU investigated Kensu’s case for two years before concluding in 2022 that the evidence provided does not qualify as “new information supporting the factual innocence claim,” according to the denial letter. 

“Their denial was based on technicalities,” Syed said, “The same way the courts had been.”

In her denial letter, Newman defined “new evidence” as “ … evidence not at all considered at trial or during post-conviction appeals.”

Kensu and Proving Innocence claim the new evidence criteria changed between the time they received an application and when they were denied. 

The AGCIU case application Kensu received in 2020 explained the new evidence criteria, stating, “A claim of ‘factual innocence’ must be supported by new evidence that was not known to the judge or jury that returned the verdict of guilty against the defendant. This new evidence must provide a substantial basis to believe that the defendant is innocent, which generally means that the evidence exonerates the defendant from any criminal responsibility for the offense.”

The AGCIU website now states, “The claim must be supported by new, credible, material evidence that has not been addressed on its meritsby any court … The new evidence or information must not have been raised during post-conviction appeals(direct appeal, federal habeas, MCR 6.500, etc.).”

An email exchange between Sanders and Frankel from August 2020, when the CIU was still in its infancy, suggests a discrepancy in the AGCIU’s standards for when it accepted Kensu’s case and the basis on which AGCIU examined it.

“Would you help us at PI (Proving Innocence) understand what criteria the CIU will use to exonerate and free the clearly innocent?” Sanders wrote Frankel in an email.

Sanders added, “Many cases are rife with such abuses as corruption, denial of evidence, witness intimidation, prosecutorial misconduct, etc., (which were never presented to or heard by a jury). Would these be considered ‘sufficient’ new evidence in cases where there is absolutely no strong or direct evidence (or any) for guilt?”

Frankel responded to Sanders in an email, “Evidence which was not presented to the jury (though it might have been known at the time of trial) may be considered ‘new evidence’ for CIU purposes. Also, any evidence which illustrates that a person is innocent of the offense will be considered by the Unit. This would include police or prosecutor misconduct where that misconduct implicates a person’s factual innocence.”

Kensu’s supporters suspect Newman used Wayne County CIU evidence standards in lieu of AGCIU standards when appointed to the case after Frankel’s removal.

Despite the discrepancy in definitions, Kensu  still had evidence that served as “new” under AGCIU standards, meaning evidence never addressed by a court. 

Beth Stier, another alibi witness interviewed by the prosecution but never disclosed to the defense during the 1987 trial, was discovered through a FOIA request filed by the Michigan State Police Department, Barbara Kennedy, attorney for Proving Innocence. 

In her letter disclosing the case closure, Newman claimed Stiers’s alibi account was cumulative of other alibi testimonies at the original trial. It alone, according to Newman, did not enhance Kensu’s alibi or serve as overwhelming evidence supporting his innocence. 

“They said specifically that that was the only new evidence, and it’s not new evidence because it’s cumulative of the other alibi witnesses, which is not true because she puts him further into the timeline,” Kennedy said.

After denying his case, the AGCIU declined all FOIA requests for the case analysis and examination results under attorney-client privilege, deliberative process privilege, and work product privilege, Kennedy explained, arguing the AGCIU work product is “done for us,” the people of Michigan, and should be disclosed under FOIA. 

In another FOIA request filed by Kennedy on behalf of Proving Innocence to find the reason behind Frankel’s removal from Kensu’s case, along with other AGCIU information, the fees totaled $19,565.64 to complete the requests.

Proving Innocence deleted, reduced, and edited the request to minimal categories, eliminating information regarding Frankel’s removal, but the cost still resulted in $12,505.98 for an assumed 342 hours of labor to complete the request, according to  AGCIU’s response. 

In the fee appeal, Kennedy wrote, “Proving Innocence would argue that no fee should be charged; certainly, a fee of over $12,000 consisting primarily of 342 hours of labor is at best, ridiculous and at worst, an attempt to prevent Proving Innocence from pursuing the request for this information.”

The fee appeal did not result in any documentation of the CIU investigation, including the report that denied Kensu’s case, according to Sanders. Proving Innocence was uninterested in pursuing the case further in the Court of Claims, said Kennedy.

“If he was guilty, just release the report, right? What’s the point in holding onto a report and concealing it from the public and saying that there’s no new evidence and not revealing the contents of the report?” Paula said. 

Despite their vow to transparency, the AGCIU refuses to release information regarding its investigation of Kensu’s case and how it came to the conclusion.

Attorney General Dana Nessel said in a 2019 press release from the Michigan Department of the Attorney General, “Our residents should be able to count on their state government to be open, accessible, accountable, and transparent.  The people’s business should never be conducted behind closed doors, and we should do everything in our power to respond quickly, efficiently, and thoroughly to every Freedom of Information request we get.”

“The logical bottom line on this whole thing is that if (the examination) supported their decision to close their file and they justifiably thought Freeman was in prison for a crime he committed, they would have turned it over to us,” Kennedy said.

The CIU’s decision resulted in a joint press release by former Congressional Rep. Andy Levin, Rep.  Rashida Tlaib, and Michigan State Senator Stephanie Chang, in which they expressed, “The standard used by the CIU in its review of the Kensu case predetermined the outcome – to us, the wrong outcome … we pray that those with the power to grant relief conduct a full review and grant relief to Mr. Kensu.” 

“I was very disappointed by the decision,” Syed said, “The AGCIU, like all conviction integrity units, I see as existing to fix those cases in which procedural difficulty, technical rules, or political reality has made it hard to fix in the past. 

“Kensu is a great example of that because a lot of courts have ruled against him, but they’ve never said he’s not innocent. What they’ve said is, ‘you should have filed this earlier’ or that ‘this is procedurally defaulted because it violates this filing rule or that one.’”

Awaiting Governor Whitmer’s Clemency Decision

Kensu has previously bid for clemency under two former governors and has submitted his bid under Gov. Whitmer twice, who denied his first bid in 2021. Kensu and his supporters are waiting for Whitner to take action on his second bid, filed in 2022, and acknowledge Kensu’s innocence and the glaring injustices he’s faced that have kept him wrongfully incarcerated for nearly forty years.

Temujin and Paula in 2022. Courtesy of Paula Kensu. 

His clemency memorandum reflects on the technical barriers he’s experienced despite his alleged innocence, stating, “One actor after another has thus punted on this case based on technicalities.” 

“Why are we at clemency at all?” Syed said, adding, “We’re there because something has gone very wrong with our system, and the system is unable to correct it on its own. That’s something the US Supreme Court has repeatedly recognized…  and sometimes there has to be a different outside mechanism to do that, and clemency is the last fail-safe in our system.”

Kensu and his supporters continue to maintain his innocence, actively exercising exoneration avenues and seeking justice at every opportunity in hopes of his release, noting his attempts at release, even in the face of exculpatory evidence, have been prohibited by unconvincing legal and procedural technicalities despite mounting exculpatory innocence and a team of individuals, Kensu’s friends and supporters, that are relentlessly fighting for his exoneration while he battles with worsening health conditions and inadequate access to the health services needed for many chronic illnesses

In a blog series on Proving Innocence’s Website, Kennedy prefaces each blog with her author’s note: “Every wrongful conviction causes dual torment: the torment of the innocent yet imprisoned individual, and the social torment that the actual perpetrator remains free.”  

Kensu will be turning 62 years old on May 23rd. For Kensu, it’s another birthday behind bars and another year his innocence isn’t acknowledged by those with the power to overturn his wrongful conviction. 

Kensu’s supporters urge anyone with new information or new evidence on Scott Macklem’s murder to reach out to Delta County Private Investigators, and are asking people to email Gov. Gretchen Whitmer to express their position on the Temujin Kensu incarceration.

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