The Metro: What it will take to prevent another wrongful conviction in Wayne County
Deputy Chief and Director of the Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office Conviction Integrity Unit Valerie Newman discussed how Eric Anderson was wrongfully imprisoned and the changes being made to avoid cases like his in the future.
Eric Anderson spent nearly nine years behind bars for a robbery he did not commit. His conviction hinged on a single witness who insisted he was the perpetrator — a claim Wayne County officials now acknowledge was unreliable.
A new, multi-agency report — produced by prosecutors, public defenders, Detroit police, judges, and justice-system advocates — dissects how that failure unfolded and why safeguards didn’t catch it sooner.
Mistakes by public institutions aren’t rare. What matters is whether those institutions examine the causes with honesty and act to prevent them from recurring. This report tries to do exactly that. So what lessons emerged? And what would it actually take to ensure no one in Wayne County is wrongfully convicted again?
Valerie Newman, Deputy Chief and Director of the Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office Conviction Integrity Unit, dug into those questions — and the deeper structural issues they reveal.
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