State prison facilities housing inmates of different security levels and needs. You understand that by clicking "I Agree," will conduct only a preliminary people search of the information you provide and that a search of any records will only be conducted and made available after you register for an account or purchase a report. Please use information provided by responsibly. cannot confirm that information provided below is accurate or complete. This website contains information collected from public and private resources. The information obtained from our searches is not to be used for any unlawful purposes. You understand that license plate and VIN searches are only available for a purpose authorized by the Driver's Privacy Protection Act of 1994 (DPPA). You understand that by clicking "I Agree" you consent to our Terms of Service and agree not to use information provided by for any purpose under the FCRA, including to make determinations regarding an individual's eligibility for personal credit, insurance, employment, or for tenant screening. "One of the things that helped me get through it was meditating and never losing hope, and to know that every day was a step closer," he is not a consumer reporting agency as defined by the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), and does not assemble or evaluate information for the purpose of supplying consumer reports. ![]() He said he also learned meditation in prison, which helped sustain him through his darkest days. "I lived knowing one day I would be free," said Forbes, who is living in Michigan with relatives he calls "my superfamily." " 'Surviving is not living'įorbes said the whole time he was in prison, he never gave up hope that he would someday be exonerated. We don't want it to remain hidden forever. "If someone lies in court, we want that to come out even if it's 40 years later. "But even if she could be charged with perjury, I would really hope she wouldn't be because you can just imagine what a disincentive that would be for someone to come clean. Syed said the statute of limitations to charge Kennebrew with perjury is six years, meaning it ran out more than three decades ago. And I don't think it's made her life easy." From what I understand, once she was given a chance to, in this stage in life, she wanted to relieve herself of this burden she's been carrying around for 38 years. "I said, 'Wow, at last, you know,'" Forbes told ABC News. The Jackson County Prosecutor's Office did not respond to ABC News' request for comment.Ī huge smile broke out on Forbes' face, as he said he could barely contain his emotions while listening to Kennebrew testify. While Wilson ordered a retrial, Forbes' attorney, Imran Syed, assistant director of the Innocence Clinic, told ABC News that prosecutors decided to drop the case. Forbes has established a reasonable probability of a different outcome upon retrial." Forbes and inculpates a different suspect. Murder conviction dismissedĪt the conclusion of the evidentiary hearing, Wilson threw out Forbes's conviction, ruling, "The new evidence presented at the evidentiary hearing before this Court greatly undermines the prosecution's theory of guilt, exculpates Mr. ![]() In May 1983, a jury convicted him of the charges, and a month later he was sentenced to life in prison without parole. After hearing from Kennebrew, police arrested Forbes and he was charged with arson and murder. Police had already been eyeing Forbes as a suspect because the man who died in the fire, Dennis Hall, was suspected of shooting Forbes a day after Forbes intervened in a bar fight involving Hall, according to the court documents. She was forced to do it," Forbes told ABC News this week in a video interview after coming through quarantine negative. I don't see her volunteering to just do that. "I don't hold any bitterness against her and I forgive her because she was a victim also. But he said he left with no animosity toward the woman who falsely told the jury that convicted him in 1983 that she saw the then-25-year-old full-time college student and two other men torch an apartment house in Jackson, Michigan, in which an occupant was killed. 20, Forbes walked out with a trunk full of legal notes and favorite books accumulated during 38 years in a cell. ![]() More than half his life had been spent incarcerated, his dreams of a career in drafting technology had long since been obliterated by the prosecution's star witness, who recanted testimony that put him behind bars for murder. When he emerged a free man from Michigan's Kinross Correctional Facility and went directly into eight days of COVID-19 quarantine, Walter Forbes, at age 63, had every reason to be bitter.
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