Michigan: The Case of Cress

53-year-old Tom Cress, convicted of rape and battery of a school girl in 1985, tells the state Parole and Commutation Board that he was framed. The Detroit Free Press notes his case:

has been argued through state and federal courts in a bewildering history of lost and destroyed evidence, contrary confessions from an Arkansas killer, pleas by a U.S. senator and demands of prosecutors and the Rosansky family that he never go free.

On top of all of that , Cress takes medication on a daily basis to protect him from "delusional taunting voices."

Two retired Battle Creek cops believe Cress didn't do it. A retired detective agrees, as do attorneys from the Innocence Clinic at the University of Michigan Law School - which argues physical evidence that might have cleared him was lost by his original attorney and other evidence was destroyed by the prosecutor. Senator. Carl Levin ( D-Mich.) says Governor Granholm should commute Cress' life sentence. See story here.