By Aileen Wingblad
The Oakland Press, Sterling Heights, Mich.
PONTIAC, Mich. — A man who served 15 years in prison for a house fire that killed five children yet was exonerated last fall is suing Oakland County, detectives and the assistant prosecutor involved in the case, and three jailhouse informants who testified against him.
The lawsuit, filed Aug. 4 in U.S. Eastern District Court in Detroit, demands a jury trial and seeks monetary compensation for Juwan Deering on the basis of civil rights violations. It names Oakland County, former assistant prosecutor Gregory Townsend who tried the case, detectives David Wurtz and William Harvey who investigated it, and Denise Reis, the personal representative for the estate of Gary Miller. Miller, who died in 2018, also investigated the case.
The lawsuit also names Ralph McMorris, Phillip Turner and Raymond Jeffries, prison inmates who testified against Deering during his trial.
Deering, who always maintained his innocence, was convicted in 2006 of five counts of homicide and arson for an April 6, 2000 house fire in Royal Oak Township. The case against him was largely based on testimony from jailhouse informants who claimed Deering admitted starting the fire. Prosecutors and investigators theorized that a drug debt led to the setting of the fire.
The Innocence Clinic at the University of Michigan’s law school subsequently took on the case and asked Oakland County Prosecutor Karen McDonald for a new trial in 2021. McDonald ordered a review of the case and, last September, an Oakland County judge ruled Deering was deprived of due process and a fair trial. McDonald then vacated the homicide and arson convictions.
The lawsuit alleges Oakland County didn’t adequately train or supervise the three detectives on the case. It also states that the detectives “used three jailhouse informants and placed them in Deering’s cell to secure fabricated admissions from Deering.”
Deering was freed after spending nearly 15 years and 7 months in prison. That day, appearing outside of Oakland County Circuit Court, he told the media: “It feels great, ecstatic...There can’t be a brighter day.”